Archaeology vs history

Are archaeology and history at odds with each other? Does translation play an important role in rediscovering India? These were some of the questions discussed at the pre-lunch session of the Calcutta Literary Meet, in association with The Telegraph, on Friday.

Historians Upinder Singh, John Keay and Rudrangshu Mukherjee took the audience on a journey through how the history of ancient India was discovered.

Mukherjee, a modern historian, took on the role of moderator, opening the session with the question whether archaeology inverts what history does. "Historians tell us about things…but archaeologists actually make things, tell us about human beings… particularly about things that are partly obscured in our ancient past," he said.

Dwelling on the importance of archaeology in the discovery of the history of ancient India, Keay, a journalist and historian who has authored books on India's history, pointed out that most of what we know about ancient India has been entirely derived from archaeological evidence.

Singh, a professor of history at Delhi University, responded saying she did not believe in an unbridgeable divide between history and archaeology. "The dichotomy between archaeology and history or between text and archaeology is unnecessary. A good historian of ancient India has to be an all-rounder like in cricket," said Singh.

The trio went on to discuss the significance of translations in the rediscovery of India and how little importance is given to them.

From translation of inscriptions and cracking of the Brahmi script, the conversation veered towards the discovery of Ashoka and the beginning of establishing a chronology for ancient Indian history through translations of his inscriptions. "Some Ashokan inscriptions reveal that he was accepted as far afield as by a king called Antigonus of Macedonia and Ptolemy of Egypt and it is from this cross-dating that the first certain dates were established," Keay said.

When Mukherjee asked if Greek texts mentioning the date of Alexander's incursion into India provided the first chronological landmark about the history of ancient India, Keay said there was no evidence in Indian history of the incursion and, therefore, it was of no value in terms of providing cross-chronological evidence.

The discussion recalled the role of Sir Alexander Cunningham, a British officer and archaeologist instrumental in rediscovering much of the history of ancient India and the setting up of the Archaeological Survey of India, the reason behind the setting up of the Indian Museum and the importance of Indian scholars in the rediscovery of ancient India.

"I am glad history found a place at the literary meet. I am looking forward to visiting the stalls at what, I believe, is one of the largest book fairs in the country," said Singh, who is now working on the idea of violence in ancient Indian politics.

Keay, who took part in this year's Jaipur Literature Festival, is penning a diary comparing the two festivals. "Jaipur is less about books and more about personalities, celebrities you can say. Here it's more about books and publishing. The authors come somewhere in between. I hope these two (fests) will never clash," he told Metro.