RASHTRASANT TUKADOJI MAHARAJ NAGPUR UNIVERSITY

About Us

P.G. Dept of Ancient Indian History Culture & Archaeology

Year of Establishment – 1955

Brief Introduction of the Department:

The Department established in 1955 has been contributing in the field of education, research, field work and extension services. Scholars of international fame like Dr R. C. Majumdar, Mm. V. V. Mirashi, Prof. Ajay Mitra Shastri and Prof. S. B. Deo were associated with this Department. Prof. Preety Trivedi is the present Head of the Department. Dr. Prabash Sahu and Dr. Priyadarshi Khobragade are faculty members. The Department is conducting a post-graduate M.A. course of two years comprising four semesters having two option groups, viz. A: Archaeology and B: Indology. Besides teaching, fieldwork in the form of archaeological explorations and excavations and educational tours are undertaken. Some extension work is also done to help the people in deciphering the text of their ancestral documents, supplying information about the antiquities, their conservation etc., and creating awareness regarding the cultural heritage by way of arranging walking tours etc.,

Highlights

The Department has few points to its credit, some of which are listed below: -

1.      Archaeological Explorations: Regular archaeological explorations are conducted by the teachers and the students;

2.      Archaeological Excavations: Several important sites, mainly in Vidarbha have been excavated which have given important evidences, especially for regional history. Pauni was excavated in collaborations with the Excavation Branch- I, Nagpur of the Archaeological Survey of India.

3.      Archaeological Museum: Named after Rai Bahadur Hiralal, a renowned educationalist, anthropologist, epigraphist, linguist and many more personalities. The Museum houses a representative collection of antiquities right from Stone Age to late medieval period.

4.      Library: The Departmental library has books, journals, reports and monographs on various subjects like history, art, architecture, epigraphy, numismatics etc. The total number of books is more than five thousand.

 

 Achievements of the Department:

PhD Dissertations: The Department has produced more than fifty scholars conferred with the Ph. D degree.

D.Litt. Recipients: Five Scholars were awarded the degree of D.Litt. Prof. Mm.  V. V. Mirashi, who was the Honorary HoD was conferred with this Degree honorees cause in 1962.

Research Projects: The study of temple architecture and art, like the temples of Markanda, Satgaon, Hemadpanti temples; topographical list of epigraphs from Maharashtra and Goa, etc were undertaken by the Department. A collaborative Project with the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, New Delhi on the Multidisciplinary Documentation of Rock Art and It’s Allied Subjects in Maharashtra and adjoining Areas and a few University Research Projects are going on.

Publications: The results of the projects, excavations etc. are published by the staff members in the forms of books and research articles in journals, felicitations volumes etc. Some popular articles in vernacular languages e.g., Hindi and Marathi are also published for the lay men to make them acquainted with the work being done in the field.

Extension Service: The Department is assisting people in preservation of antiquities, documents etc. The decipherment of some palm-leaf genealogies has helped some to get verified their tribe/cast certificates. A good number of coins and sigillographic material was studied free of cost.

Improving awareness for Heritage: The lack of awareness for the preservation of cultural heritage is responsible for the vast destruction and smuggling our heritage. A new and very innovative scheme of WALKING TOUR within the limits of the old historic city of Nagpur has been introduced by the Department in collaboration with the Nagpur Metro Tourist Club, since June 2000. Student members of SPIC MACAY Sub-Chapter of the Centre Point School and the Students of the Architecture Dept of Engineering colleges like VNIT etc. have been guided for various projects.

Remote Sensing for Archaeology: The latest researches in the field of remote sensing are being considered for exploration of archaeological sites in Vidarbha and particularly Nagpur district. The Department is in contact with the National Remote Sensing Agency at Balanagar in Hyderabad. One Student and two teachers have taken training in “Application of RS for Archaeology” at NRSA and some teachers are participating in the Annual Users Interaction Meet at NRSA.

Technical Sections: Dept has a drawing and a photographic section which documents antiquities, monuments etc. encountered in the explorations and excavations.

 

Brief History of Department of Ancient Indian History Culture and Archaeology of Rashtrasant Tukadoji Maharaj, Nagpur University, Nagpur

 

In 1955, the Department of Ancient Indian History Culture and Archaeology was established in the ‘Amba Vihar’ building. It was donated for the Dept. of Ancient Indian History and Culture of the then Nagpur University by late Dr. M. B. Niyogi. He was one of the important personalities of Nagpur. It was the desire of his savant of Nagpur that the students of this University should get an opportunity to study Indology in all its dimensions. In the same building department was started. Dr. R. C. Majumdar was the first Professor of this department. He was the renowned historian and Ex-Vice Chancellor of Decca University.     

After Dr. R. C. Majumdar the responsibility of the Department was fell on the shoulder of Mahamahopadhyaya Dr. V. V. Mirashi, the doyen among the Indologists and a great Sanskrit scholar. Dr. Mirashi who was awarded with the title of ‘Padma Bhushan’ by the then Prime Minister of India, Smt. Indira Gandhi in 1975 took the Department to great heights by his scholarly work of great distinction. In the initial stages, the Department was concerned only with the study of Ancient Indian History and Culture. Later, however the scope of the syllabus was widened by including Archaeology as one of the branches of study.

A new dimension to the Department was added when Prof. S. B. Deo joined as Professor and Head of the Department in the year 1967. A great archaeologist who has to his credit scores of excavations. In the same year Prof. Deo started exploration and excavation works in Vidarbha and Marathawada area. From 1967 to till today field archaeological expedition are continuously carrying by this Department. Due to constants efforts of Prof. Ajay Mitra Shastri the University sanctions a fund for constructing a special building for museum to display the accumulated excavated and explored materials.

 

i)     Excavated sites from Department

From 1967 to till today number of excavations are conducted by this Department in Maharashtra. Excavations are done individual and jointly with other institutions as well as organisations. The excavated sites are culturally ranging from Proto-historic period to Medieval period. Department excavated number of Megalithic sites in Vidarbha and was the first who given a scientific C₁₄ date which was come from Takalghat-Khapa is 555 BC (Deo 1970:13). Because of that we come across about Vidarbha megalithic was almost 600-700 year-old BCE. Another important achievement is Pauni stupa excavation. This was relating to the early Hinayana period. The Pauni excavation unearths one of the earliest stupa made of earth and later brick and stone. It has found some of the finest pillar sculptures with early Brahmi inscriptions which is comparable with Bharhut and Sanchi stupa art (Deo and Joshi 1972).

Likewise, during the year 1976 while excavating an ancient historical site at Mandhal (Taluka- Kuhi and District- Nagpur) the Department discovered the heap of sculptures of the Vakataka period of 5^th-6^th century CE. There are total nine pieces of sculptures in red sandstone, all unique in their idiom and expression, were discovered from a single site. But the most unique finding was the twelve-headed image of lord Siva with a set of four heads emerging from the head, arm and thigh. An addition to this prize discovery was a copper plate grant of Vakataka Rudrasena-II confirming the sovereignty of the Vakataka rulers over Vidarbha. The detailed list of excavated sites of department given as follow (Table. 1);        

 

Table-1: The Rai Bahadur Dr. Hiralal Archaeological Museum is made out of following excavation besides many exploration expeditions by the staff and students of the Department.    

 

Sr. no	Site Name/ Taluka/District	Excavation Year	Excavator/ Director	Reference	Culture Sequence
1	Paunar  (200 47’ N; 780 41’E) Wardha	1967	S. B. Deo & M. K. Dhavalikar	Deo and Dhavalikar 1968	Pd-I: 1000 to 800 BC. Pd-II A: 4th-3rd BC to 1st BC. Pd- II B: 1st BC to 2nd-3rd AD. Pd-III: 3rd AD and 8thAD. Pd- IV: 10-11th AD to 15-16th AD.
2	Takalghat-Khapa (200 54’40”N; 780 56’ 30”E) Hingna, Nagpur	1968-69	S. B. Deo	Deo 1970	Megalithic Culture Phase-IA Phase IB Phase IC
3	Pauni  (20048’ N;  790 39’ E) Pauni, Bhandara	1969-70	S. B. Deo & J. P. Joshi	Deo & Joshi 1972	Phase-I: Mauryan Phase-II: Shunga Phase-III: Satavahana-Kshatrapa
4	Mahurjhari  (210 14’ N; 790 30’ E) Nagpur	1970-72	S. B. Deo	1973	Megalithic Culture
5	Bhokardan (200 16 N; 750 46’ 56” E) Aurangabad	1973	S. B. Deo & R. S. Gupte	1974	Pd-Ia: Early/Pre-Satavahana Pd-Ib: Satavahana Pd-II: Post-Satavahana-Early Medieval
6	Mandhal (200 59’ N; 790 28’ E)  Kuhi, Nagpur	1975-76; 1976-77;	A. M. Shastri	IAR: 1975-76; 1976-77; Shastri 1978;	Pd-I: Satavahana Pd-II: Vakataka
7	Arni (200 4’ N; 780 57’ E) Darwha, Yavatmal	1978-79; 1984-85	A.M. Shastri	IAR: 1978-79; 1984-85	Pd-I:  Megalithic Pd-II:  Mauryan Pd-III: Post-Mauryan to Satavahana Pd-IV: Post-Satavahana (Vakataka)
8	Tharsa  (230 13’ N;   790 23’ E) Mauda, Nagpur	1985-86; 1989-90	A. M. Shastri	IAR: 1985-86; 1989-90	Pd-I: Chalcolithic /Megalithic Pd-II: Pre-Satavahana, Satavahana Pd-III: Vakataka Pd-IV: Medieval Pd-V: Modern British
9	Mansar   (200 24’ N;   790 17’ E) Ramtek, Nagpur	1991	O. P. Verma	---	---
10	Shirkanda  (210 17’N; 790 31’E) Mauda, Nagpur	1991-92	A.  M. Shastri	IAR: 1991-92	Chalcolithic–Megalithic
		1993-94	C. Gupta & I. Kellellu	IAR: 1993-94; 1994	Iron Age Early historic
11	Dhamna-linga (210 8’ 30” N; 780 51’E) Nagpur	2000-03	C. Gupta & I. Kellellu	IAR: 2000-01	Megalithic
12	Dhavalameti, (780 51’E;  210 9.55’N) Nagpur	2003-04	C. Gupta & I. Kellellu		Megalithic
13	Vyahad, (210 7’ 30”N; 780 53’ E) Nagpur	2005-06	P. S. Meshram & I. Kellellu	---	Megalithic
14	Gaurala, (200 05’20.54” N; 790 6’ 30.89” E) Bhadravati, Chandrapur	2006-07	P. S. Meshram , B. S. Gajbhiye & I. Kellellu	---	Vakataka
15	Drughdhamna, Nagpur	2008-09	P. S. Meshram	---	Megalithic
16	Chandankheda (20016’N;  79013’E) Bhadravati, Chandrapur	2009-10	P. S. Meshram , A. V. Bhoyar     & Ashok Singh Thakur	Meshram et al 2014, 2015; Pardhi et al 2017	Pd-I: Early Iron Age Pd-II: Pre-Satavahana Pd-III: Satavahana Pd-IV: Vakataka Pd-V: Medieval
17	Savari	2010-11	P. S. Meshram		Megalithic
18	Bhatala	2011-12	P. S. Meshram		Early Historic
19	Kayar	2012-13	P. S. Meshram		Early Historic
20	Ubali, Kalmeshwar, Nagpur	2014-15	P. A. Trivedi & P. Sahu	Personal Communication	Megalithic
		2016-17	P. A. Trivedi	Personal Communication	Megalithic
21	Keljhar, Wardha	2017-18, 2018-19	P. A. Trivedi	Personal Communication	Medieval

 

 

ii)  Important Publications of this Department

 From 1967 to 1974 there are five sites has been excavated by this department and all are published with their respective site headings. Recently excavation report of Mandhal has been published. Apart from excavation reports, there are some other publications based on various temple architectural styles of different period as well as seminar proceedings also published by this department. Details are given as follow in Table- 2;

 

Table-2: List of the Archaeological publications of the Department

Sr. No.	Name of Publication	Year of Publication	Name of Author/Editor
1	Paunar Excavation (1967)	1968	S. B. Deo & M. K. Dhavalikar
2	Excavations at Takalghat & Khapa (1968-69)	1970	S. B. Deo
3	Pauni Excavation (1969-70)	1972	S. B. Deo & J. P. Joshi
4	Archaeological Congress and Seminar Papers (1970)	1972	S. B. Deo
5	Coinage of the Satavahanas and Coins from Excavations	1972	A.    M. Shastri
6	The Mediaeval Temples at Satgaon	1973	G. B. Deglurkar
7	Hemadpanti Temples	1973	O. P. Verma
8	Markandi Temples	1973	S. B. Deo
9	Mahurjhari Excavation (1970-72)	1973	S. B. Deo
10	Excavations at Bhokardan 1973	1974	S. B. Deo & R. S. Gupte
11	Mandhal Excavations (1975-77)	2019	H. N. Singh & P. A. Trivedi

 

 

A.     About Rai Bahadur Dr. Hiralal

During British time Rai Bahadur Dr. Hiralal was one of the important scholars in the field of culture, Indology and Epigraphy. He was born in 1^st October 1867 in Madhya Pradesh and died in 19^th August 1934. During British time he has done tremendous work in Central Province and Berar region. He had studied and interpreted large number of inscriptions belongs to Vidarbha region. Number of books was written by him, he knows the potentiality of Central Province and Berar region. Due to his constant effort and demand in 1955 Nagpur University open a Department of Ancient Indian History Culture. All these efforts taking on consideration his name was given to the Departmental museum of Nagpur University (Trivedi 2017: 192-194). 

 

B.     Rai Bahadur Dr. Hiralal Archaeological Museum Nagpur

Rai Bahadur Dr. Hiralal Archaeological Museum was established by the earnest efforts of Late Professor Ajay Mitra Shastri (Professor and Former Head of the Department) with the aim to set up a centre for Research and Documentation in Indological studies of this region. The present museum building was ready in 1988 but the officially it was inaugurated in 1^st October 1992 by late Dr. Shrikant Jichkar, then Member of Parliament and Dr. P. L. Bhandarkar, Vice-chancellor of Nagpur University. In same year all excavated antiquities, other sculptures and epigraphic remains are shifted to the present museum building.

At present, selected cultural material unearthed from excavations or collected through explorations by the Department, some other artefacts gifted/donated or loaned by/from other departments and agencies engaged in archaeological investigations are on display. The Department museum currently has Stone Age artefacts, Pre-Harappan, Harappan, Rural Chalcolithic, Early Iron Age (Megalithic) and Early historic material including pottery, stone and metal objects, coins, beads, sealings copper plate grants, sculptures and other objects neatly arranged and chronologically displayed. Many college and school students, teachers and researchers from various parts of India and other countries visit the Museum as tourists or for research purposes.