Archaeologist Braj Basi Lal was awarded the Padma Vibhushan, the second-highest civilian award of India on this Republic Day. He is very best recognized for top the excavation of Ramjanmabhoomi web page in Ayodhya in the mid-1970s. B. B Lal has also been director-common at the Archeological Survey of India for 4 years amongst 1968 and 1972 through which he began the excavation work at Ayodhya. He has also worked at the archaeological websites connected to Hindu epic Mahabharata Hastinapur and the ancient Harappan civilisation.
Who is B B Lal?
B B Lal belongs from Jhansi in Uttar Pradesh but at present resides in Delhi. After finishing Masters in Sanskrit from the Allahabad University, the young archaeologist began his profession in 1943 as a trainee in the excavation beneath British archaeologist Mortimer Wheeler. His was excavation project was at Taxila and later at websites like Harappa.
B B Lal worked extensively on 50 books and 150 analysis papers published in national and international journals for more than 50 years and some of this operates contradicted mainstream view. Some of his notable books re ‘Rama, His Historicity, Mandir and Setu: Evidence of Literature, Archaeology and other Sciences’, ‘The Rigvedic People: ‘Invaders’? ‘Immigrants’? or Indigenous?’ and ‘The Saraswati Flows On: The Continuity Of Indian Culture’.
In his book, ‘The Saraswati flows on’ he contradicted historian R S Sharma’s theory of Aryan invasion and migration. He held views that folks who lived in the Rig Vedic instances have been also component of the Harappan civilisation. Nonetheless, his views attracted a lot of criticism from international historians.
In his paper ‘In search of India’s regular previous: Light from the excavations at Hastinapura and Ayodhya’, B B Lal cited his findings of in the Indo-Gangetic divide in upper Ganga-Yamuna Doab as proof to indicate the existence of the Mahabharata story which but got inflated with time.
B B Lal findings in the Ramjanmabhoomi web page
Following his excavations at the Mahabharat websites, B B Lal commenced on an additional project in 1975 at the Ramayan websites. After getting funds from ASI, Department of Archaeology in the government of Uttar Pradesh, Jiwaji University, Gwalior the project was inaugurated on March 31, 1975. The excavation took locations at 5 websites Ayodhya, Nandigram, Chitrakoot, Bharadwaj Ashram, and Shringaverapura.
In his 1975 paper, B B Lal described the discovery of coins and pottery at Ayodhya but did not mention about the remains of any temple. His findings so far did not indicate the starting of the web page just before 8th century BC.
In 1990, his ‘pillar base theory’ having said that, claimed to have discovered temple-like pillars that could have been the foundation of now-demolished Babri Masjid. BJP-affiliated magazine, Manthan covered his findings. In his 2008 book on Rama and his historicity, he described proof of twelve stone pillars, which carried Hindu motifs, mouldings and figures of Hindu deities. His paper additional mentioned that these Hindu motifs have been an integral component of the Masjid but have been foreign to it.
The interpretive framework of the court-appointed excavation group recognised his theory in 2002.