Hasmukh Dhirajlal Sankalia (10 December 1908 – 28 January 1989) was an Indian

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural diffusion ...

scholar and

archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landsca ...

specialising in proto- and ancient Indian history. He is considered to have pioneered archaeological excavation techniques in India, with several significant discoveries from the

prehistoric Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the first stone tools by hominins 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The us ...

period to his credit. Sankalia received the

Ranjitram Suvarna Chandrak Ranjitram Suvarna Chandrak, also known as the Ranjitram Gold Medal, was founded by Gujarat Sahitya Sabha and is considered the highest literary award in Gujarati literature. The award is named after renowned Gujarati writer Ranjitram Mehta. It is ...

award in 1966. And also received Padma Bhushan in the year 1974.

Early life and education

Sankalia was born in

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the secon ...

into a family of lawyers hailing from

Gujarat Gujarat (, ) is a state along the western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the fifth-largest Indian state by area, covering some ; and the ninth ...

. A frail infant, he was not expected to survive. At fifteen, Sankalia read the

Gujarati Gujarati may refer to: * something of, from, or related to Gujarat, a state of India * Gujarati people, the major ethnic group of Gujarat * Gujarati language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by them * Gujarati languages, the Western Indo-Aryan sub- ...

translation of

Lokmanya Tilak Bal Gangadhar Tilak (; born Keshav Gangadhar Tilak (pronunciation: eʃəʋ ɡəŋɡaːd̪ʱəɾ ʈiɭək; 23 July 1856 – 1 August 1920), endeared as Lokmanya (IAST: ''Lokmānya''), was an Indian nationalist, teacher, and an independence a ...

's ''

The Arctic Home in the Vedas ''The Arctic Home in the Vedas'' is a 1903 pseudohistorical book on the origin of the Indo-Aryan peoples by Indian nationalist, teacher and independence activist Bal Gangadhar Tilak. Based on his analysis of Vedic hymns, Avestic passages, Vedic ...

''. Although he understood little of the book (p. 6), he was determined to "do something to know about the Aryans in India" (ibid.). To this end, Sankalia decided to emulate Tilak and study

and

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

. He received a B.A. degree in Sanskrit, and received the Chimanlal Ranglal Prize. Sankalia made Indian prehistory his life's work, and never lost sight of the origin of the

Indo-Aryan peoples Indo-Aryan peoples are a diverse collection of Indo-European peoples speaking Indo-Aryan languages in the Indian subcontinent. Historically, Aryan were the Indo-European pastoralists who migrated from Central Asia into South Asia and intr ...

. (1962c: 125; 1963a: 279–281; 1974: 553–559; 1978a: 79, etc.). He studied English, which introduced him to textual criticism (p. 7), and wrote an article on Kundamala and the

Uttararamacarita ''Uttararāmacarita'' ( sa, उत्तररामचरित, IAST: Uttararāmacarita) () is a Sanskrit play in seven acts in the ''Nataka'' style by Bhavabhuti. It depicts the later life of Hindu god Rama, from the coronation after Rama's ret ...

in which he convincingly proved that Dinnaga (author of the former) influenced Bhavabhuti (author of the latter). Bengali scholar K. K. Dutt arrived at similar conclusion independently of Sankalia. Sankalia studied ancient Indian history for his M. A. degree at the new Indian Historical Research Institute (now the Heras Institute), and worked on the ancient university at

Nalanda Nalanda (, ) was a renowned ''mahavihara'' (Buddhist monastic university) in ancient Magadha (modern-day Bihar), India.dissertation. His dissertation included chapters on history, art and architecture, iconography and the influence of the Nalanda school of art on

Greater India Greater India, or the Indian cultural sphere, is an area composed of many countries and regions in South and Southeast Asia that were historically influenced by Indian culture, which itself formed from the various distinct indigenous cultures ...

(particularly

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's List ...

). Sankalia visited a number of sites, and studied

Buddhism Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and gra ...

with B. Bhattacharya (p. 10). These studies led to his later study of Gujarat. He passed the

LLB Bachelor of Laws ( la, Legum Baccalaureus; LL.B.) is an undergraduate law degree in the United Kingdom and most common law jurisdictions. Bachelor of Laws is also the name of the law degree awarded by universities in the People's Republic of Chi ...

examinations at the request of his father and uncle (who were both lawyers), and was expected to follow them (cf. pp. 10, 13, 28). However, Sankalia decided to go to England for his doctoral degree. He wrote an essay, "Caitya caves in the Bombay Presidency", which earned the

Bhagwan Lal Indraji Bhagwan Lal Indraji or Bhagwanlal Indraji (1839–1888) was an Indian archaeologist and scholar. A member of the Royal Asiatic Society's Bombay branch, he made transcripts of several ancient Indian inscriptions, including the Hathigumpha inscrip ...

prize.

Personal life

Sankalia captained a cricket team on College Day. He also enjoyed kite-flying and gardening.

In London

Sankalia left for England, and enrolled at the

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree ...

for his PhD on the archaeology of Gujarat. He studied under Bernard Ashmole (Roman

classical archaeology Classical archaeology is the archaeological investigation of the Mediterranean civilizations of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. Nineteenth-century archaeologists such as Heinrich Schliemann were drawn to study the societies they had read about i ...

), Sidney Smith (

Sumerian language Sumerian is the language of ancient Sumer. It is one of the oldest attested languages, dating back to at least 3000 BC. It is accepted to be a local language isolate and to have been spoken in ancient Mesopotamia, in the area that is modern-day ...

), K. de B. Codrington (

museology Museology or museum studies is the study of museums. It explores the history of museums and their role in society, as well as the activities they engage in, including curating, preservation, public programming, and education. Terminology The w ...

), F. J. Richards (

Indian archaeology Archaeology in India is mainly done under the supervision of Archaeological Survey of India. History 12th century Indian scholar Kalhana's writings involved recording of local traditions, examining manuscripts, inscriptions, coins and archite ...

) and R. E. M. Wheeler (field archaeology) (p. 18). From Richards, Sankalia learnt geography, geology, anthropology, ethnography and

toponymy Toponymy, toponymics, or toponomastics is the study of ''toponyms'' (proper names of places, also known as place names and geographic names), including their origins, meanings, usage and types. Toponym is the general term for a proper name of ...

. He focused on the latter, applying it to inscriptions in Gujarat and elsewhere (Sankalia 1942a; 1984). Sankalia encouraged his students to pursue toponymy, opening a new field in Indian archaeology. Wheeler, who was excavating at the site of

Maiden Castle, Dorset Maiden Castle is an Iron Age hillfort south west of Dorchester, in the English county of Dorset. Hill forts were fortified hill-top settlements constructed across Britain during the Iron Age. The earliest archaeological evidence of human ac ...

and had perfected his field techniques (begun in 1921), was a significant influence. He lectured on field techniques, in addition to providing practical training. Sankalia said about Wheeler's training, "The training was brief, lasting just about a month or so, but it was of immense importance for my future career. I learnt here, not only what was stratigraphical digging and drawing a section and three-dimensional recording of finds ..but was also made aware of the necessity of minute-to-minute supervision of the trench under one’s charge for ..at any moment the layer might change and hich shouldbe noted as early as possible" (pp. 26–27). Sankalia (cf. pp. 112 ff.; 1938; and his popular articles), influenced by Wheeler, was a proponent of popular archaeology.

Deccan College

After returning to India, Sankalia joined Deccan College in 1939 as a professor of proto- and ancient Indian history and began systematic surveys of the monuments in and around

Pune Pune (; ; also known as Poona, (List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name from 1818 until 1978) is one of the most important industrial and educational hubs of India, with an estimated population of 7.4 million ...

with his students. These yielded papers on the megaliths of Bhavsari and the Yadava-period Temple of Pur. At the request of

Archaeological Survey of India The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) is an Indian government agency that is responsible for archaeological research and the conservation and preservation of cultural historical monuments in the country. It was founded in 1861 by Alexande ...

director general K. N. Dikshit, Sankalia undertook explorations in Gujarat to test Bruce Foote's hypothesis of a hiatus between the Lower Palaeolithic and Neolithic phases; this made him into a prehistorian. He also conducted other expeditions in Gujarat. During his second expedition, Sankalia found the first human Stone Age skeleton. The

Mesolithic The Mesolithic (Greek: μέσος, ''mesos'' 'middle' + λίθος, ''lithos'' 'stone') or Middle Stone Age is the Old World archaeological period between the Upper Paleolithic and the Neolithic. The term Epipaleolithic is often used synonymous ...

site of Langhnaj, "the first Stone Age site to have been excavated scientifically", was excavated stratigraphically.

F. E. Zeuner Frederick Everard Zeuner, FZS (8 March 1905 – 5 November 1963) was a German palaeontologist and geological archaeologist who was a contemporary of Gordon Childe at the Institute of Archaeology of the University of London. Zeuner proposed a de ...

, an authority on environmental archaeology, was invited by Wheeler to interpret the

palaeoclimate Paleoclimatology (British spelling, palaeoclimatology) is the study of climates for which direct measurements were not taken. As instrumental records only span a tiny part of Earth's history, the reconstruction of ancient climate is important to ...

of Gujarat. Sankalia was profoundly influenced by Zeuner, from whom he learnt

geochronology Geochronology is the science of determining the age of rocks, fossils, and sediments using signatures inherent in the rocks themselves. Absolute geochronology can be accomplished through radioactive isotopes, whereas relative geochronology is ...

, geology, the stratigraphy of geological deposits and

pluvial In geology and climatology, a pluvial is either a modern climate characterized by relatively high precipitation or an interval of time of variable length, decades to thousands of years, during which a climate is characterized by relatively high ...

and inter-pluvial mechanics.

Palaeolithic finds in the Deccan

Sankalia excavated the

Kolhapur Kolhapur () is a city on the banks of the Panchganga River in the southern part of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the administrative headquarter of the Kolhapur district. In, around 2 C.E. Kolapur's name was 'Kuntal'. Kolhapur is kn ...

site in 1945–46 with M. G. Dikshit (Sankalia and Dikshit 1952). Before the excavation, his detailed surveys of the banks of the

Godavari River The Godavari (IAST: ''Godāvarī'' �od̪aːʋəɾiː is India's second longest river after the Ganga river and drains into the third largest basin in India, covering about 10% of India's total geographical area. Its source is in Trimbakeshw ...

and its tributaries revealed a

flake Flake or Flakes may refer to: People * Floyd H. Flake (born 1945), A.M.E. minister, university administrator, former U.S. representative * Jeff Flake (born 1962), American politician * Christian "Flake" Lorenz, German musician and member of ...

-tool industry. These findings were also observed in a stratigraphical deposit at Gangapur (Gangawadi), near

Nasik Nashik (, Marathi: aːʃik, also called as Nasik ) is a city in the northern region of the Indian state of Maharashtra. Situated on the banks of river Godavari, Nashik is the third largest city in Maharashtra, after Mumbai and Pune. Nashik ...

, where flakes, cleavers and hand axes were discovered. This developed industry, as later research proved, was part of the

Middle Palaeolithic The Middle Paleolithic (or Middle Palaeolithic) is the second subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age as it is understood in Europe, Africa and Asia. The term Middle Stone Age is used as an equivalent or a synonym for the Middle Paleoli ...

. Sankalia's explorations in the

Pravara River Pravara is the smallest of the major tributaries of Godavari river located in Maharashtra, India. Among the 7 major tributaries, it is the only tributary which originates in the Western Ghats akin to Godavari. Also, it is the only major tributa ...

valley (at Nevasa) yielded palaeolithic industries and animal

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

Nasik–Jorwe

The occurrence of

Northern Black Polished Ware The Northern Black Polished Ware culture (abbreviated NBPW or NBP) is an urban Iron Age Indian culture of the Indian Subcontinent, lasting c. 700–200 BCE (proto NBPW between 1200 and 700 BCE), succeeding the Painted Grey Ware culture and Blac ...

at Nasik (mentioned in the Puranas and traditional tales), reported to Sankalia by M. N. Deshpande, made him anxious to unearth evidence correlating to the Early Historical Period and (if possible) unearth pre- and

proto-historic Protohistory is a period between prehistory and history during which a culture or civilization has not yet developed writing, but other cultures have already noted the existence of those pre-literate groups in their own writings. For example, in ...

cultures. The excavation was successfully carried out.

Maheshwar–Navdatoli

Sankalia's success at Nasik–Jorwe inspired him to excavate the site at

Maheshwar Maheshwar is a town, near Khargone city in Khargone district of Madhya Pradesh state, in central India. It is located on State Highway-38 ( Khargone city-Barwaha- Bandheri Highway),13.5 km east of National Highway 3 (Agra-Mumbai highway) a ...

(the Mahishmati of the Haihayas, as described in the Puranas) to prove the tradition's historicity. The excavation was carried out at the site and at

Navdatoli Navdatoli is the name of a modern day village, but can also refer to a chalcolithic era settlement located on the Narmada River in Madhya Pradesh in central India. The ancient village was inhabited through four temporal stages, each defined by dis ...

in 1952–53 in a joint expedition with the

Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, formerly Baroda College, is a public university in the city of Vadodara, in Gujarat state, India. Originally established as a college in 1881, it became a university in 1949 after the independence of ...

. This revealed a developed

chalcolithic The Copper Age, also called the Chalcolithic (; from grc-gre, χαλκός ''khalkós'', "copper" and ''líthos'', "stone") or (A)eneolithic (from Latin '' aeneus'' "of copper"), is an archaeological period characterized by regular ...

culture dating to between the decline of the

Harappan civilisation The Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC), also known as the Indus Civilisation was a Bronze Age civilisation in the northwestern regions of South Asia, lasting from 3300 BCE to 1300 BCE, and in its mature form 2600 BCE to 1900&n ...

and the beginning of the Early Historical Period, largely explaining the hiatus between the periods. The culture was interpreted by Sankalia, mainly on the basis of resemblance of its pottery to that of

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

, as of Aryan origin. The horizontal excavation at Navdatoli was made in 1957–59 to reveal the settlement pattern, reconstruct the socioeconomic life of the chalcolithic people, and corroborate Sankalia's Aryan hypothesis.

Nevasa

Sankalia's excavation at

Nevasa Nevasa is a city in Nevasa tehsil of Ahmednagar district in the Indian state of Maharashtra. Old name of this place are Nidhinivas, Nivas and Mahalaya Also town of lord Kuber. Sant Dnyaneshwar Temple is main temple. This place is near of P ...

, intended to prove (or disprove) the legend of its association with Jnaneshvara, revealed human occupation from the Lower Palaeolithic era to the Muslim-Maratha period.

Early humans in Kashmir

Sankalia went to

Kashmir Kashmir () is the northernmost geographical region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term "Kashmir" denoted only the Kashmir Valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal Range. Today, the term encompas ...

to study its geological deposits, which had been investigated by De Terra, Paterson, and Wadia without finding early human evidence. When Sankalia was examining a deposit he saw a worked flake with a prominent bulb of percussion, establishing the existence of early humans in Kashmir. He also discovered a hand axe in the same deposit, dating to the

ice age An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages and gree ...

or slightly later.

Inamgaon

After establishing the cultural sequence of the Chalcolithic cultures in Deccan and Central India, Sankalia wanted to reconstruct the lives of the Chalcolithic people with large-scale horizontal excavations at Nevasa and Navdatoli. The former site was found to be highly disturbed and the deposits overlying the Chalcolithic layers were too thick to be thoroughly removed, and the plan was abandoned. The site of

Inamgaon Inamgaon, in Maharashtra, is one of the largest Chalcolithic settlements in India. It has been estimated that at one time, about 1,000 people may have lived here. The settlement lasted for over 900 years (1500-600 BCE). Inamgaon is a post- Harap ...

was well-preserved, however, and was excavated over a 12-year period. After Sankalia's retirement in 1973 the excavation was completed by Z. D. Ansari and M. K. Dhavalikar, and its report was published in three volumes.

Early humans in Sachchidananda

After his retirement, Sankalia lived on campus and was appointed professor emeritus of the department. At his home, he discovered what he believed were palaeolithic implements. After publishing his studies on the ''

Ramayana The ''Rāmāyana'' (; sa, रामायणम्, ) is a Sanskrit literature, Sanskrit Indian epic poetry, epic composed over a period of nearly a millennium, with scholars' estimates for the earliest stage of the text ranging from the 8th ...

'', new archaeology and prehistoric art,Pre-Historic Art in India. New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House. (1978b) he died at age 80 on 28 January 1989.

Awards

Sankalia received the

Narmad Suvarna Chandrak Narmad Suvarna Chandrak (Gujarati: નર્મદ સુવર્ણ ચંદ્રક), also known as the Narmad Gold Medal or Narmad Chandrak, is a literary honour in Gujarat, India. It is bestowed by the organisation known as Narmad Sahitya Sa ...

in 1976 for his book, ''Akhand Bharatma Sanskrutino Ushakal''.

Bibliography

* "Kundamala and Uttararamacarita". ''St. Xavier’s College Magazine'': 22: 63 - 76. (1930) * University of Nalanda. Calcutta: B. G. Paul & Co. (2nd revised edition, New Delhi: 1973). (1934) * "Megalithic Monuments near Poona". ''Bulletin of Deccan College Research Institute''. 1: 178–184. (1940a) * "Monuments of the Yadava period in the Poona District". ''Bulletin of Deccan College Research Institute'': 2 (3-4): 217 -225. (1940b) * "Studies in the Prehistory of Deccan (Maharashtra): a survey of the Godavari and the Kadva, near Niphad". ''Bulletin of Deccan College Research Institute'': 4(3): 1–16. (1943) * "Studies in the Prehistory of the Deccan (Maharashtra): a further survey of the Godavari (March 1944)". ''Bulletin of Deccan College Research Institute'': 6: 131–137. (1945) * ''Studies in Historical and Cultural Geography and Ethnography of Gujarat''. Poona: Deccan College. (1949) * "Archaeology and Indian Universities", Presidential Address at the Archaeology Section of the All India Oriental Conference, 16th Session, Lucknow. Pune: Deccan College. (1952a) * ''The Godavari Palaeolithic Industry''. Poona: Deccan College. (1952b) * ''Report on the Excavation at Nasik and Jorwe, 1950-51''. Poona: Deccan College. (With S. B. Deo.) (1955) * "Animal fossils and Palaeolithic industries from the Pravara Basin at Nevasa, District Ahmednagar". ''Ancient India'': 12: 32 -52. (1956) * ''Excavation at Maheshwar and Navdatoli, 1952-53''. Poona and Baroda: Deccan College and M. S. University. (With B. Subbarao and S. B. Deo.) (1958) * ''From History to Prehistory at Nevasa (1954–56)''. Poona: Deccan College. (With S. B. Deo, Z. D. Ansari and Sophie Ehrhardt.) (1960) * ''Indian Archaeology Today''. Bombay: Asia Publishing House. (1962) * "Kundamala and Uttararamacarita". ''Journal of Oriental Institute'': 15(3-4): 322 -334. (1966) * ''Excavations at Ahar (Tambavati)''. Poona: Deccan College. (With S. B. Deo and Z. D. Ansari.) (1969) * ''Mesolithic and Pre-Mesolithic Industries from the Excavations at Sangankallu 1965''. Poona: Deccan College. (1969) * ''Chalcolithic Navdatoli''. Poona and Baroda: Deccan College and M. S. University. (With S. B. Deo and Z. D. Ansari.) (1971) * "Early man in Ice Age Kashmir". ''Current Anthropology'': 2(4): 558 -562. (1971) * ''Ramayana: Myth or Reality?'' New Delhi, People's Publishing House. (1973) * ''Prehistory and Protohistory of India and Pakistan''. Poona: Deccan College. (1974) * ''Pre-Historic Art in India''. New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House. (1978b) * ''The Ramayana in Historical Perspective'', Macmillan India, 1982, * "A primary Palaeolithic site-the Deccan College Campus, Pune, India". ''The Explorer’s Journal'': 63(1): 8–9. (1985a) * "Follow-up on a Palaeolithic site in India". ''The Explorer’s Journal'': 63(3): 136–137. (1985b) * "The Stone Age man in and around Pune (Poona) or the habitation of early man in Sat-Chit-Ananda". ''Bulletin of Deccan College Research Institute'': 46: 115 -135. (1987)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sankalia, Hasmukh Dhirajlal 1908 births 1989 deaths Alumni of University College London 20th-century Indian archaeologists Recipients of the Padma Bhushan in civil service Scientists from Mumbai Historians of India Recipients of the Ranjitram Suvarna Chandrak Corresponding Fellows of the British Academy