Annotated Bibliography Of Dr. S.P. Gupta S Research Publications

Dr. Swarajya Prakash Gupta: An Academic and Human Profile
20
Annotated Bibliography of Dr. S.P. Gupta’s Research
Publications
A.K. Kanungo
Background
Dr. S.P. Gupta (Guptaji) began his academic career more than
half a century ago. He was one of the early trained Indian
archaeologists. Though initially trained in field archaeology,
he devoted most of his career to the study of Protohistory,
Megaliths, Early History and Museum. Besides his individual
writings, he has encouraged a number of his colleagues to
write several hundred pages in English and Hindi. These
include books, edited volumes, research articles, short notes,
popular articles, book reviews, reminiscences, and obituaries.
However, this annotated bibliography is limited to only the
research articles in English. A list of all other publications has
been given in Section II.
Annotations are arranged in ascending order as per the year
of publication. The size of the annotation does not reflect the
size of the original article. The original words and terms used
by Guptaji or his co-authors have been retained as far as
possible, yet the construction of sentences for the purpose of
compacting the content is new.
Although I have learnt a few skills from Guptaji, I am not his
formal pupil. There are three reasons why I have decided to
do this annotation. I came to Deccan College in 1992 from
Orissa, where archaeology was not taught in post-graduate
level. Being an anthropology student I only had known the
names of a few prehistorian. My English was very poor. In
Pune everything was in English and it is a fact that most of

21
the archaeology books till today are written in English. So it
took me time to come to term but in no time I realised that
there was a man for all practical problem in archaeology and
that was none other than Guptaji. When after a brief stint
with computer job after getting my Master’s degree, I wrote a
letter to Guptaji for suggestion regarding Ph.D., I was
surprised to get a very prompt hand written letter from him
detailing all about how to go about it. Since then I was in
touch with him till his last days. In reality, I am too junior to
comment on his personality. In fact, he began his career
before I was born. I would only dare to vocalise what I gained
from him. All these years I found him to be encouraging and
supportive, yet uncompromising on issues of correct and
precise writing. He always believed in Indian Culture and
gave his best to identify its roots in our own land giving us a
national pride but with scientific evidence. This work is an
attempt to thank him for all that.
Section I
Summary of Articles
Gupta, S.P. 1960. Burial customs in ancient India (based
mainly on archaeological evidence), Journal of Bihar
Research Society 46(1- 4): 84-102.
The passionate actions by the kinsmen of the dead in ancient
India are recorded in their fullest detail in this paper.
Earlier works on burial customs all over the world including
India are listed to begin with. This includes the burials of the
people living in different stages of cultural development like
Mesolithiic stage, proto-Neolithic, Neolithic, Chalcolithic,
Harappan civilization and Megalithic.

22
The burial types like cist, pit, urn-field, menhir, kuda-kallu,
topi-kallu, under-ground rock cut caves and extended burial
are defined. The burial practices of the historical period and
their reference in literature are taken care.
Through this study Guptaji interprets:
1. People living in Baluchistan in 3rd millennium B.C.
followed different burial practices.
2. Harappans not only diffused their material culture but
they actually migrated to distant places in Gujarat,
Saurashtra, and Punjab along with their spiritual culture of
burying the dead individually in pits with a large number
of pot offerings.
3. There was a great intermingling of peoples of Chalcolithic
north and Neolithic south during early 1st millennium B.C.
4. In Aryan society only cremation was the normal mode of
the disposal of the dead and the references to burial are
either of post-cremation burial or of those dying an
unnatural death.
5. Cremation, complete inhumation and exposure, all the
three practices start from 3rd millennium B.C. in the Indo-
Pak sub-continent.
Gupta, S.P. 1961. Arrowheads - its technology and history
(based on archaeological evidence), Journal of Bihar Research
Society 47(1-4): 129-142.
Arrowhead is defined by Guptaji as ‘a small pointed
implement always used in conjunction with a shaft at one end
to which it is attached’.
A review of arrowhead findings from stone to metal from
Europe and Africa to India has been done. And in each period
and region its developmental stages are earmarked. More

23
emphasis is given to Iron Age arrowheads of India. He has
detailed the various shapes of iron arrowheads.
Megalithic period findings are grouped in four taking the
characteristics of the: 1) blades only, 2) barbs only, 3) the angles
of the base of the blade in relation to the stem and 4) Narrow
leafshades. The 2, 3, and 4 groups show a gradual evolution
from 4 to 2.
It is interesting to see a complete section devoted to bone-
arrowheads and a paragraph each to Gupta and Pala period
arrowheads. The tradition of bone arrowheads in the
Chalcolithic period is seen more strengthened and flourishing
in the historical period.
Gupta, S.P. 1963. Indian copper hoards: the problems of
homogeneity, stages of development, origin, authorship and
dating, Journal of Bihar Research Society 49(1-4): 147-166.
This was the first attempt to understand the developmental
stages of copper hoards consisting of flat celt, shouldered celt,
bar-celt, chisel, spearhead, antennae-hilted sword, harpoon
and anthropomorphic figure, etc. Date of the copper hoards
and the authors of the same are also discussed.
Regional differences and similarity in styles and metallurgy of
tool-assemblages are taken into consideration. Region wise;
zone A includes Bihar, Bengal, Orissa and eastern Madhya
Pradesh, Zone B the Jamuno-Gangetic valley, and Zone X
covers region from Nagaur in Rajasthan, passing through
Gujarat, Malwa and Deccan, up to Mysore.
The harpoons, anthropomorphic figure, antennae sword and
spearhead could not yet definitely be located outside the
Jamuno-Gangetic valley indicating them to be local product.

24
The necessity seems to lie in the new frontiers of war and
chase.
Presence of a small number of simple manufactured and basic
types, proximity of the hoard-sites with the actual copper-seam
areas in Zone A, makes Zone A to be claimant of original place.
The Chalcolithic culture and the hoards existed side by side
during the period from circa 1700-1000 B.C. in general and
between 1500-1000 B.C. in particular in zone B and X.
Gupta, S.P. 1965. Further copper hoards: A reassessment in
the light of new evidence, Journal of Bihar Research Society
51(1-4): 1-7.
This paper attempts to evaluate the date and function of the
copper hoards stored in National Museum, New Delhi. And
one of the early scientific cross checking in Indian museums
about the information provided by the collectors. Guptaji’s
argument for the date of the copper hoards collected from Dr.
Jagdish Gupta who had collected the hoards from local
villagers and copper smiths of Shahabad village, district
Hardoi in Uttar Pradesh is very logical. The claim of the
collector was that the objects were found from the local mound
Angai Khera and the archaeological work over there dates the
mound to be of PGW period whereas the style of hoards is of
OCP period. Thus Guptaji concludes the hoards might have
come to the local market from some nearby mounds other than
Angai Khera.
The study of many other copper hoards in the National
Museum shows that the hoards originated in Bihar, about 2000
B.C., developed in the Jamuna-Gangetic Valley and reached
maturity between circa 1800-1300 B.C. when they came into
contact with the late Harappa and Chalcolithic cultures. The

25
hoards continued for some couple of centuries, but were over-
shadowed by the Painted Grey Ware people between circa
1100-500 B.C. with the mass use of iron.
In the process the features and probable use (with mode of use)
of double-barbed harpoon with straight barbs, double-barbed
harpoon with curved barbs, antennae sword, shouldered celt,
jong flat celt, triangular flat celt with straight, crescentic and
rounded cutting edges, double axe and shouldered axe are
featured.
Gupta, S.P. 1967. Terracotta vessels and figurines from
Khotan (Central Asia) in the Hermitage Museum, Leningrad,
Journal of the Oriental Institute (Baroda) 57(2): 168-180.
Until the 60s very few Indian archaeologists had studied the
collection of overseas materials and wrote on them. This is an
example of how far sighted Guptaji was.
The Hermitage collection was largely made by amateurs. The
Khotan material collection in the museum is primarily donated
by many with a large chunk coming from N.F. Petrovsky.
Though some of these collectors were academicians but none
gave the material with systematic records. Except some
Chinese coins of the Sung dynasty of 11th-12th centuries, the
objects belong to the first eight hundred years of the Christian
era. The terracottas seem to belong to the period ranging from
the 1st to 4th centuries A.D. Largely these were made in the 3rd
century.
The Khotan collection of terracotta vessels and figurines is
characterised by innumerable duplicates suggesting a mass
production of these objects. Incidentally, it also shows the
popular use of moulds. The vessels are of three groups: plain,
decorated and miniature. Plain vessels are generally thick and

26
crude and utilitarian more than anything else. Decorated types
are elegant and sophisticated. Vessels in this type include wine
vessels, globular vessels, Zoomorphic pots, anthropomorphic
pots, miniature pots, and simple decorated pots. The clay is
fine and well lavigated.
The decorations on handles (zoomorphic and anthromorphic),
spouts and roundels are described and many of them are
comparable to the figure of Hindu Iconography. The subject
matter of relief includes figures of men and women engaged in
different avocations, architectural pillars, beams, etc. with the
figures of gandharvas, gandharvis, i.e., celestial figures, of
monkey and floral decorations sometimes in stylized form
looking like gems.
The Khotan terracottas are to be appreciated for their texture as
well as form and content. Three varieties of clay are used: 1)
rough clay in which were mixed crushed shells, sand, etc., 2)
fine loessic clay of soft smooth texture with natural golden
lustre and 3) fired clay. Various types of decorations include
incised, stamped, relief, fingertip, luting, polishing and
painting. The miniature figurines within 1 cm in height are
made on flat base whereas the bigger ones say of 5 cm have
self-made pedestals. Their form is interesting: up to the bust
the body is naturalistic, below that it is treated schematically in
the form of skirt. The legs are not shown and the round skirt
serves the purpose of pedestal.
Poses of individual figures depicted are described. The attire
on the bodies gives an idea about their clothes. The whole
dress of males closely resembles that of Kushana kings and
females are shown with extremely heavy jewellery and strings
of beads alternating with floral or jewel decorations. The
figurines are divided into three major groups: human, animal
and bird and are described to fullest detail. The animals

27
include monkey, camel, horse, pig, goat, ram and cow;
normally they are made from double mould.
Gupta, S.P. 1967. The mountainous Neolithic cultures of
Central Asia and Northern India, The Anthropologist 54(2):
125-136.
When Drs. M.R. Sahani and G.C. Mohapatra discovered some
polished stone axe for the first time in the foothills of the
Himalayas in Punjab (at Ror) it generated a lot of discussion.
There were some scrapers made out of split pebbles. Owing to
its surface collection Mohapatra felt that all the scrapers and
points originally belonged to the Sohan chopper-chopping
complex and all the polished tools belonged to some foreign
Neolithic complex – either of the Deccan or the Kashmir valley.
Guptaji in his observation of these tools maintained that there
is no sufficient reason to divide the collection in two
complexes. To support this argument he cites example of
Mongolia where pebble and pebble-flake chopper-chopping
tools, both big and handy, continued to flourish in the Upper
Palaeolithic times. In the Tadjiki Republic these were made and
used along with polished axes in Neolithic times. Since the
Pamir and the Himalayas virtually form the same chain of
hills, and present almost the same ecological conditions,
Gutpaji explores the similarity between the Kangra Valley
Neolithic complex and the Gissar Neolithic Culture of
Tadjikistan in this paper.
The Neolithic culture of Soviet Central Asia with its three main
groups: Djeitun, Keltminar and Gissar culture are described.
Comparative study of Mahpatra’s collection with that of the
mountainous Neolithic of Gissar (site of Tut-kaul) is carried
out. Gissar Neolithic culture is rich in stone implements and
devoid of pottery, cereals, and mud and mud-brick houses.

28
The Gissar culture embodies in it the microlithic element, while
the Kangra Valley culture does not. The amount of parallelism
that exists between the Gissar culture of the Pamir and the
Kangra Valley Neolithic culture of the Himalayas is very
promising; clue to appreciate the character of a Neolithic
culture in one of the mountainous zones of this part of the
world. He also cautions that before any relationship between
them can be made, more explorations and excavations on the
Indian side will be needed. At this stage one can only say that
the Kangra valley polished celts need to be separated from the
rest of the tool assemblage since it has been proved beyond
doubt in Tadjikistan, a region near ours, that the polished axes
exist along with chopper-chopping tools and flake implements.
Gupta, S.P. 1968. A relationship between the Chalcolithic
culture of India and the Chust culture of the Farghana valley,
U.S.S.R., Puratattva 1: 47-53.
This paper attempts to find the extra-territorial contacts of
Chalcolithic culture of Malwa and Maharashtra. There are two
views: 1) it is rooted in Harappan culture without any outside
contact; and 2) though it is indigenous and had no root in
Harappans but it has close relation with some of the West
Asian towns.
Follower of the 2nd opinions are mostly from U.S.S.R. led by
Y.A. Zadneprovsky. He presents the Chust culture of the
Farghana Valley as a strong centre to have contacts with.
Whereas A.V. Shchetenko, another Russian archaeologist is of
the view that Chalcolithic culture in India is purely indigenous,
both in origin and development. Sankalia also advocated
contacts with Iran.
The entire thickness of deposit at Chust is about 4 m and has
been divided into three structural levels. However, the culture

29
does not show any significant change either in pattern or in
details in any of these levels. Fort, houses, metallurgy, storage
pit, domestication of animals and cereals, pottery, burial
custom and minor objects of Chust are summarised.
Pottery is summarised in detail. The author examines the claim
of being a complex with which the Chalcolithic culture of India
shared some common features. Some similarity of pottery with
Malwa specifically in the colours of the slip ranging from
orange to deep red in shades, and painted designs is noticed.
But Indian potteries are made on wheel while those of
Uzebekian are completely hand made. In painting design not
the whole panel but some parts of panel are identical. Thus the
evidence of pottery is not very convincing in establishing any
real contact between the Chust culture of the Farghana valley
and the Chalcolithic culture of the India as proposed by
Zadneprovsky.
No doubt both bury their dead under the floor of the house but
in India multiple pot-burial and extended burial were adopted
while in the Farghana Valley it was the crouched burial which
held the sway. In metallurgy while Indian complex is devoid
of iron, the Chust complex presents the evidence of the use of
iron implements, right from the very beginning. Likewise it
differs in habitation, too.
Gupta, S.P. 1968. A review of the problem of relationship
between the Chopper-Chopping complex of Central Asia
and India, Bharati 10-11: 15-24.
In this paper Guptaji advocates for a joint work of Central Asia
and India. It attempts to find out the real process which might
have worked in the chopper-chopping assemblages of these
two regions.

30
In Lower Palaeolithic cultures of Central Asia, two different
traits can be discerned – one that is typical of Hither Asia, i.e.,
Palestine (Israel and Jordan put together) and Iran, the other
that is typical of northern India. Hither Asia traits seem to lie in
two distinct complexes: (i) Acheulian handaxes with discoidal
cores, and (ii) Levallois-Mousterian flakes and blade-flakes
with scraper and points. The numerical strength and the
distributional pattern of the Acheulian handaxe complex in
U.S.S.R. clearly indicate that the biface tradition was a spent
force. The sporadic finds should at best be regarded as the
trickling from the trans-Caucasian and Iranian strongholds.
The Levallois-Mousterian elements are found in many places
in Hither Asia whereas they are completely absent in
Afghanistan, India and Pakistan. Important is the presence of
Pebble Chopper-Chopping tools in the places where the
Acheulian handaxes are found and also where the Levallois-
Mousterian complex is encountered. In the former case it
predominates while in the latter it plays a very subsidiary role.
It appears that the basal Palaeolithic culture of Central Asia is
the chopper-chopping complex; in the early stages (Lower
Palaeolithic) it is not much affected by the foreign element of
the Acheulian handaxes but in later stage (Middle Palaeolithic)
it was overshadowed by the Levallois-Mousterian complex,
although not completely annihilated.
The survey of Central Asian Lower Palaeolithic cultures
reveals that the earliest phase of chopper-chopping culture was
exactly of the same character as the Early Sohan in India. Both
are characterised by the simultaneous occurrence of the Pebble
Chopper-Chopping tools and Acheulian handaxes; the former
greater in numerical strength than the latter. However, in both
the regions it is very difficult to be categorical whether the two
tool-types belonged to one single tradition of tool-making, or
to different traditions, although the possibility of the second
alternative is greater. Similarly it is also difficult to assert with

31
any amount of certainty whether they involved from two sets
of people, each specializing its own typology. It is equally not
possible to say whether the two sets of people existed at all,
lived separately in the same zone and met only occasionally
when there was an imperative need of hunting big game. More
excavations and more human fossils would be needed to
decide these issues.
The initial similarity of the Borykazghan stage with the Early
Sohan ‘A’ soon gets disturbed when the Levallois-Mousterian
wave infiltrated the Central Asian Mountains. From this time
onwards it was not the Pebble Chopper-Chopping tradition
that characterized the culture-complex of the Central Asian
people, but the Levallois-Mousterian. It happened as early as
the Tokaly stage, compared by Ranov with early Sohan ‘B’ and
‘C’. For quite some time there does not seem to be any effective
contact between Central Asia and India; both kept on
developing their cultures in their own fashion having roots in
their own tradition.
Gupta, S.P. 1968. Neolithic finds from Lou Lan: origin and
extraterritorial affinities, Bharati 10-11: 175-189.
The ancient site of Lou-lan is situated on the dry bed of the
river Tarim, on the western fringe of the Lop-nor desert. The
region falls into the modern province of Sinkiang in the
western part of the People’s Republic of China. Several pieces
of archaeological evidence of the Ist millennium A.D. show
that Lou-lan was connected by trade-routes to all the four
cardinal directions inspite of the fact that these routes are
through mountains and valleys.
The first half of the 20th century saw many individual works
being carried out in this region. But when seen from a
comparative perspective the results arrived at is far from

32
conclusive; in fact, much of it is only hypothetical, based only
on evidence which are purely circumstantial in nature.
The analysis of the tool typology, pottery (including painted)
mostly from surface collection stored in National museum
indicates these to of Neolithic period having comparative
materials with Afghanistan, Iran, Central China, and North-
Eastern India.
Gupta, S.P. and A.Y. Shchatenka 1968. New evidence of the
Harappa Culture in the Soviet Central Asia, Bharati 10-11:
190-197.
Fourth millennium BP Soviet Central Asia was the melting pot
of Asian cultures and was known to mankind not for any great
inventions and discoveries but for synthesizing the moral and
material wealth of the continent.
The mound of Anau near the capital of Turkmenia i.e.,
Askhabad and two other nearby mounds were excavated in
1904 revealing a cultural sequence starting from the early
Chalcolithic to the very recent period. There were comparable
elements with those existing in Iranian and Harappan Bronze
age sites of 3rd-2nd millennia B.C. but could not be stressed
upon due to paucity of archaeological work in Turkmenistan.
In last one decade or so there has been a lot of work in this area
and a promising site called Namazga Tepe was excavated in
1956, revealing six periods from early Chalcolithic times of
circa 4000 B.C. up to the beginning of the Iron Age, about 1000
B.C. Broadly this stratigraphy can be divided into two; one
Chalcolithic Periods I to III and second, Bronze Age (Periods V
and VI), period IV being transitional. From about a dozen sites
excavated in south Turkmenia, only Altin Depe, Anau and
Namazga Depe have yielded material of the mature Bronze
Age and Altin Depe produced the largest amount of material

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comparable to the Harappan antiquities. The dates are mostly
tentative but with the list provided by Guptaji it appears
around 2000 B.C., or a little earlier, the Harappans could make
their contact with the Turkmenians.
Comparing the material with pottery from Cemetery R. 37 of
Harappa, out of 45 at least 13 types have close affinity and
some even identical except the red slip which is practically
unknown in Namazag V times. The same is true with copper
and bronze artifacts, double-spiral headed hair-pin,
shouldered and leaf-shaped knives or daggers without mid-
rib, knife with concave back and convex edge, concave sickle
etc. There is a straight-handed copper flying pan from
Mohenjodaro, the counterpart of which has been found at
Altin Depe. Such similarity exists in shape, material and
manufacturing techniques of beads. Terracotta carts with solid
wheels show very close affinity. Even the axle-knobs show this
similarity. Three nude male figurines are comparable to
Harappa. By far the most important evidence of cultural
contact between the two regions is the presence of a common
seal-motif with a figure of tiger.
Having given all these evidences Guptaji advocates for looking
for overland route connecting India with Turkmenia. Since
such a route had to necessarily pass through Afghanistan,
search for intermediary stations in that country is imperative.
Gupta, S.P. 1969. Determining the technique of handmade
and wheel-turned pottery by microscopic analysis,
Puratattva 2: 23-25.
This paper is based on microscopic observation of the data
colleted by Guptaji in a potter’s village in Delhi called ‘Chirag
Dilli’.

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For this study only 60 times magnification microscope was
used. The clay used by the potters at Chirag Dilli is normally
not very fine. It contains heavier and coarser grains of silica
and other minerals. Often, it is mixed with different tempering
materials like husk particles, sometimes containing grains,
animal dung with small particles of grass, and hair of animals.
Even particles of pottery collected after crushing the old pots
with stones were used. When a lump of this clay is thrown of
the potter’s wheel, all the mineral particles, husk and grain
pieces, etc. get rearranged. With microscopic observation it is
possible to observe the arrangement of these particles in
general and heavier and bigger particles, and husk-pieces in
particular.
It has been observed that in the unbaked pots the coarser and
heavier particles of the clay used are arranged one behind the
other along the ridge created in between the two concentric
channels produced by the fingers. Their direction or
arrangement followed the direction of the rotation of the
wheel. Similar was the case with the husk and grain pieces
also. In fired pots the alignment remains the same. Only the
completely burnt up pieces lead to voids or holes. Since
between two fingers moving along, the walls of pot create a
space where a ridge is automatically formed between the two
channels of fluting, the coarser and heavier grains thrown
away from the centre find another hurdle in the ridge and get
stuck up. In the case of lighter husk pieces the concentric
arrangement may not occur in all the cases although due to the
force of the finger they too get a directional change in their
placement which too roughly follow the path of the fingers.
We can determine the ridge, if along one horizontal plane the
thickness is more than in the other.
Since the basic feature of a wheel-turned pot is formation of
channels and ridges, the sections of the pot under proper

35
magnification and observation under stereo-microscope do
show zig zag profile along the edges.
Guptaji even lists the pitfalls in this analysis, for pots built up
by hand on a table turned on the ground may well have traces
of ‘shell-marks’. In hand-made pottery needless to say that the
absence of regular channels and ridges is clearly seen. Since
palm of the hand is used, it does not get regular flutings;
instead broad patches are seen. Particles are not arranged in
any regular fashion. The thickness of the wall of pots also
behaves erratically. Making any inferences from this is
difficult.
Gupta, S.P. 1969. Sociology of the burial practices and its
bearing on the problem of Megaliths, in Seminar papers on
the problem of Megaliths in India (A.K. Narain Ed.), pp.
99-106. Varanasi: Dept. of AIHC and Archaeology, Banaras
Hindu University.
Behind the different burial practices lie the different standards
of social behaviour and ‘the concept of a full normal life’ and
unless that is known, certain interpretations based only on
material remains within a sepulchral monument may be far
from the truth. Neither the presence of different racial elements
amongst the skeletons of the graves of a single culture at a
given site, not the presence of different modes of the burial
practices shall ever justify the archaeological interpretation of
diffusion and contact. Different types of burial may simply
denote different religious and social sanctions under different
conditions of death and different concepts of full normal life.
It is observed that in a single society there are varying practices
followed simultaneously. These two features of identity and
variety have been found both in the present and the past

36
societies. There are three sets of scholars having their views in
what lies behind these two features:
A theologian sees the cause of the variety in the concept of ‘a
minimum period of full normal life’ that a particular religion
offers to its adherents. An anthropologist finds variety in the
‘social standards of behaviour’ and ‘class distinctions’. To an
archaeologist, such identical modes may mean some sort of
definite cultural contact between two cultural groups; even
actual diffusion from one culture to the other. To him, the
simultaneous existence of a variety of modes in a society may
mean the combination of various peoples and cultures in the
population of that society. For all these examples from living
society to Harappan findings and to Tamil literatures are
provided.
Gupta, S.P. 1969. Sohan, Sutlej and Mahadevian - A review
of the tools and terms of the Indian Chopper-Chopping
culture-assemblages, Journal of Bihar Research Society
55(1-4): 10-20.
This paper attempts to build working hypotheses for the
nomenclature of the tools of the Indian chopper-chopping
culture. This reviews some of the important views on the issue
having bearing on our country. While reviewing Guptaji
points out the doubts raised by Sankalia over unifacial
choppers from Guler, and advocates B.B. Lal’s analysis to be
nearer to truth. According to Lal ‘in the case of spheroid pebble
it is essential to take out flakes from both the upper and lower
surface in order to obtain a sharp cutting edge. In the case of a
flat-based pebble, however, a sharp edge can be obtained by
taking flakes merely out of the upper surface.’
The unifacial choppers, and simple flakes are defined. Lists the
supporter of both groups with their claim who questions if

37
Sohan is a separate culture on the basis of chopper-chopping
simple flakes or forms part of a bigger complex.
With his own experience as a participant in exploration and
excavation with V.D. Krishnaswami at Sutlej, Alsu and Dahar
(Himachal Pradesh), Guptaji says its not the shape that matters
but the technique of flaking and the resultant tool as a whole
matters. He claims this area to be the original home of the
‘Sohan culture’ and a plea for calling the chopper-chopping
complex of the sub-Himalayan region as the Sutlej culture. A
chart showing the evolutionary stages of Sohan and Acheulian
cultures is provided. Drawing from experience at sites of
Hoshangabad district Guptaji went on to say he wont be
surprised if in future, the red-clay yields mixture of Abbe-
Acheulian tools of different stages.
Gupta, S.P. 1971. Gulf of Oman: The original home of Indian
Megaliths, Puratattva 4: 4-18.
The problem of the original home of the Indian megaliths has
long been baffling the scholars, inspite of the fact that most of
the evidences point to beyond the western borders of
Afghanistan, reasons being:
1. Typology in India, as well as in western countries, is
extremely varied.
2. The grave offerings in the megaliths outside India are also
varied.
3. For last two-three decades most of the western writers are
concentrating on Megalithics of 3000-1500 B.C. time
bracket.
It is difficult to believe that the Baluchi cairns or the Central
Asian cists or cairns or barrows gave rise to the south Indian
megalithic complex. On the other hand, it is strongly felt that

38
the Baluchi cairns were generically related to the south
Arabian cairns of the Iron Age. Of late, it has also been felt that
the areas around the Persian Gulf of Oman may provide the
key to the problem relating to the origin of the Indian
megaliths. It was in the Islands in the Gulf of Oman that
several traditions from Palestine, Mesopotamia, southern
Arabia etc., came, mostly along with traders, and got fused; the
graves discovered in south Arabian sites have actually yielded
items from these regions. Thus, through the natural outlet of
the Gulf of Oman, the people seem to have moved out
eastward following the traditional sea-route along the Makran
coast. Along the Makaran route, the megalithic tradition
travelled up to the western Ghats of India and at another time
the cairn-burial tradition travelled up to Baluchi Makran, and
Sind, may be up to Kutch and Saurashtra, along the same
route.
This interpretation is based upon the extremely limited
explorations and excavations conducted in southern Arabia so
far. There is not a single example where we may have an exact
prototype of the Indian megaliths. The caves in the
Hadhramaut Valley are round and with rock-cut benches, but
they have neither the central pillar not the central opening, nor
the vertical and side entrances not the antechambers, etc., of
the Indian rock-cut caves of Kerala. The sarcophagi in
Baghdad, etc., are hardly so much elaborate with a large
number of elephantine legs with holes, vaulted lids, etc., as
they are in India. The ‘Triliths’ in south Arabia is much
different from the ‘topi-kals’ of Kerala. The bronze Age cairns
with portals are also not the typical port-holed cists of south
India because the former has several arterial galleries within its
construction. The black-and-red ware in south Arabia is so far
represented by only one example. Almost similar is the case
with the Iranian, Palestinian and Central Asia. However,

39
possibility of this trait coming from Oman to India appeared
more close.
Gupta, S.P. 1973. A model for understanding the first
urbanization in India, Puratattva 6: 42-50.
In this paper Guptaji proposes six fold evolutionary process of
the first Urbanization (Harappans). According to this model
evolution includes both growth and decay; the criterion being
continuity. This model did not believe that one stage ‘caused’
the other, but ‘determined’ the other, at least till stage IV.
Stage I is the Genesis phase (2800-2500 B.C.) and characterised
by interaction between the higher Iranian cultures and the
peasant cultures of north-Baluchistan.
Stage II is the Formative phase (2500-2350 B.C.) and
characterised by formation of a few distinctive cultures, by the
amalgamation of cultural traits of a large number of different
complexes, in the Indus plains.
Stage III is Efflorescence phase (2350-2150 B.C.) and
characterised by development of two distinctive cultures of
Kot Dijian and Harappans in close collaboration, but with an
overall dominance of the Harappans.
Stage IV is Affluence phase (2150-1800 B.C.) and is
characterised by expansion of the Harappa culture in space,
and the birth of new ‘city states’.
Stage V is Quiescence phase (1800-1700 B.C.) and is
characterised by break-up of the Harappan ‘trade-system’,
external and internal both; natural calamities.
Stage VI is Dispersal (1700-1400 B.C.) and is characterised by
identification with local (peasant?) cultures and the copper
hoard complex.

40
Gupta, S.P. 1973. An introduction to models and
model-making, in Radiocarbon and Indian Archaeology (D.P.
Agrawal and A. Ghosh Eds.), pp. 359-365. Bombay: TIFR.
This paper is a review of all models put forward to understand
the past as it was and the area/date basing on which the
models were done.
The model provided by S. Piggot that in ‘archaeology…there
are no facts other than those which are…observational date’
was supported by Childe. L. Binford proposed that culture
should not be confused with the products of culture.
According to S.C. Malik based upon individual ability and
notion of things each excavator and explorer has tried to say
something of the past-as-it-was, including its socio-cultural life,
if not the socio-cultural institutions.
The various definitions of models emphasise two things:
firstly, that on the basis of the archaeological evidence
inferences and deductions regarding the complete picture of
the culture-history of a people in time and space have to be
made out by archaeologists themselves and secondly, on the
basis of constantly evolving new methodologies, based mainly
on objective statistical data, several ‘analogues’ and
‘homologues’ have to be clearly brought out to fix up the
patterning of culture, diffusion of cultural traits, parallel
development of culture-complexes, etc., on the one hand, and
the socio-economic and religio-cultural system and
superstructures (as also their functioning) on the other.
History of model making in archaeology in brief is given under
the sub-heading ‘nineteenth century models’, ‘twentieth
century model’ etc. The validity of methods and models
developed for New Archaeology should be tested in the field.
The mathematical model treats archaeology as science, and

41
since science is predictable, archaeology, according to it,
should be accurately predictable and its deductions should be
demonstrable and repeatable in the laboratories of human
social groups. According to our past environment we should
try to devise new methods and models for understanding the
past-as-it-was in as many aspects as we can, including social
institutions, systems and processes. If we do not do that we
might soon find ourselves as drop-outs.
Gupta, S.P. 1974. Two urbanizations in India: a side study in
their social structure, Puratattva 7: 53-60.
Urbanization is defined as a process of effective change in the
collective development in the existing agricultural and
industrial technology of the peasantry or the folk.
In India there are two major periods of urbanization – the
Harappan (2500-1700 B.C.), and the Early Historical (600-500
B.C.–A.D. 100), the intervening period of about one thousand
years represents peasantry. This paper attempts to explore the
factor responsible for this gap, what are the factors which gave
the achievements of the Early Historical Period the longest
duration; what was the social structure of the Harappans
which made their urbanization phenomenal, and also why did
it collapse?
An attempt is made to answer the above questions from
historical to prehistoric period.
The rise of historical urbanization in India may be attributed to
the birth of a powerful ‘Middle Class’ which includes the
intellectuals coming up in the wake of the new religious
movements, Buddhism and Jainism and the traders. Its
stability may be attributed to the phenomenon of consolidation
of the caste system in terms of ‘karma’, ‘dharma’ and

42
‘adharma’ concepts, a system which successfully achieved the
delicate balance that was required between the controlling
hands which were effecting economic changes and the hands
which were effecting socio-political changes in a society
struggling for urbanization.
The basic nature of the first and second urbanization remained
the same - the growth of only the capital cities or trading
centres under the political patronage of the ruler, given directly
to the trading community to create wealth and thereby earn
prestige to the ruling authority; the remaining part of the
country stood at the level of peasantry and nomadism.
Guptaji did not think there was any caste system during
Harappans and pre-Harappans as had there been existing, the
material culture of the Harappans would not have died out
without leaving any legacy of urbanization. People like S.C.
Malik felt the existence of caste system among the Harappans
because they think the Harappan urbanization was the
‘formative period’ of the Indian Civilization as a whole and its
success depended on a highly stratified society. According to
this concept, the legacy of the Harappa culture passed on to the
post-Harappan culture in a continuous manner.
Archaeological evidence does not support this. However, since
agriculture technology was considerably improved, industrial
technology witnessed several innovations, there was a super
authority in each city, there must have developed some sort of
vocational class system.
Gupta, S.P. 1976. The problem of missing link in the process
of first urbanization in India, in Archaeological Congress and
Seminar: 1972 (U.V. Singh Ed.), pp. 157-165. Kurukshetra:
B.N. Chakravarty University.

43
Mohenjodaro, Harappa, Kalibanglan, Lothal, Surkotada, and
some other sites, dating to about 2300 B.C. may be considered
as India’s oldest cities and towns – the rest, appear to be
villages of different dimensions. However, such urbanised
society must have developed in a process. Till 1970 nothing
was known about the earliest phase of the Harappan culture.
Taking reference of Mughal Guptaji argues that many of the so
called pre-Harappan sites are in fact early-Harappan. Amri I A
to I C and Kot Diji I (lower levels 16 to 9), all of which belong to
pre-2400 B.C. should be called ‘Early Harappan’. The term Pre
is misleading because it creates the impression that a
chronological gap exists between these two periods whereas
the fact is the whole culture was in process.
As the sites like Amri and Kot Diji indeed have pre-Harappan
stage and with availability of C14 dates for Amri IA to IC,
Amri I D to II and III should be termed as ‘Amri culture of the
Harappan times’. Likewise for Kot Diji I layers 16 to 12 ‘Kot
Diji culture of the pre-Harappan times’ and for the rest ‘Kot
Diji culture of Harappan times’ instead of blanket statement of
early Harappan can be used. Terms like pre and post which are
basically time devoting should be used with cautious and
avoided as much as possible.
Gupta, S.P. 1976. Origin of the form of Harappan Culture: a
new proposition, Puratattva 8: 141-146.
The form of Harappan culture lies within and from its pre-
Harappan period and most probably as Saraswati basin.
To most form of Harappa culture as evidenced in twin-mound
system, grid pattern of town-planning, writing etc. is shrouded
in mystery. However, way back in 1964 A. Ghosh, for the first
time, hinted at the possibility of the origin of the Harappan
culture in the Kot Diji-Sothi matrix, and in 1970 R. Mughal

44
thoroughly analysed this possibility and cemented the view
point of Ghosh.
Guptaji’s hypothesis is that the form of the Harappan culture
originated in the lower Saraswati basin, from where it moved
towards the Indus. It is based on two facts: firstly, there is great
connection of Sothi sites with Harappan remains in the
Saraswati basin and secondly, the radiocarbon dates obtained
so far indicate that Harappan Kalibangan and/or a few sites in
the Bahawalpur region are earlier than Harappa and
Mohenjodaro.
Gupta, S.P., Shashi Asthana and Amarendra Nath 1977.
Painted Grey Ware sites in relation to old river beds in
Rajasthan, in Ecology and Archaeology of Western India (D.P.
Agrawal and B.M. Pande Eds.), pp. 79-92. Delhi: Concept
Publishing Co.
This paper discusses the problem connected with the
stratigraphy of the Ghaggar bed and the distribution of the
Painted Grey Ware sites.
People from many fields have tried to give stratigraphy of the
Ghaggar bed as most of them were interested in understanding
the climatic change. Swedish Expedition which excavated the
site of Rang Mahal gave a stratigraphy exhibiting alternating
layers of fluvial and aeoline sediments. The period under
discussion of this paper falls sometime in more or less dry and
at other times full of running water. Both archaeological finds
and certain climatological features indicate that the Ghaggar in
the area under discussion did not carry water as a river, after
the middle of the sixth century A.D. Somewhat similar but
rather schematic report was by Raikes in 1968. In 1971-72 Indo-
Gangetic divide was surveyed by Suraj Bhan. Then the basin
was studied by climatologist Raikes and palaeobotanist

45
Gurdip Singh. We need to correlate the evidence provided by
these people with evidence of stratigraphy of the Ghaggar bed
i.e. correlation of climatoliogical and archaeological evidences.
Such correlation hints that the Sothi culture people established
a large number of settlements in the Bahawaplur-Bikaner
region. After the Harappan, the late Harappan and the late
phase of the Pre-Harappan Kalibangan culture persisted even
in parts of Haryana bordering the Ghaggar and Chautang
basins. There is paucity of late Harappan sites within the dry
bed of Ghaggar. Then all of a sudden around 1000-800 B.C., or
slightly earlier, the valley is seen humming with human
activities. The people used a kind of grey ware, painted both
from inside and outside, known as Painted Grey Ware (PGW).
Problem has been to correlate the archaeological evidence of
three periods of cultural growths viz., Harappan, PGW and
Rang Mahal (each followed by more than 500 years of almost
complete desertion of the valley) with the stratigraphical
evidence and other geomorphological features of the Gahaggar
bed.
Then the authors stress the role of Sahibi and Banganga basins.
Harappan, Late Harappan, OCP and PGW –all behaved in an
almost similar manner as far as their migration pattern is
concerned. Starting either from north-western Rajasthan in the
Ghaggar basin, or from the Punjab and northern Haryana,
most of them, at one stage or the other, followed the Yamuna.
The OCP and PGW seem to have met in areas south of the
Yamuna at two points – one near Delhi and the other near
Mathura. There is heavy concentration of PGW sites in the
areas of Rajasthan.
Gupta, S.P. and Shashi Asthana 1978. Harappan vis-a-vis
Mesopotamian urbanisation and town-planning, Man and
Environment 2: 47-50.

46
Sir Mortimer Wheeler proposed that the origin of Harappan
urbanism and town-planning came from Mesopotamia in
particular and west Asia in general. This paper reassesses such
statements.
The cities of the Indus system appear to have been laid out in
accordance with some pre-arranged scheme of things right
from the foundations; whereas there appears to be hardly any
prior planning in making quarters in Mesopotamia, except,
probably, some rough zoning of the area. The Harappan towns
are with well laid out roads crossing each other at 90° without
any encroachment of the houses on the road; whereas in
Mesopotamia within the individual initial clusters of
residential quarters there were no systematically laid roads,
lanes and drains. And nowhere is any room left for gardens in
later period. Evidently, in Mesopotamia, cities grew out of
individual housing-units, they were not pre-planned. As far as
Elam and Iran are concerned there was hardly any city of the
early 3rd millennium B.C. which could be model for Indus
cities. The same is true of Central Asia on the one hand and
Egypt on the other. With some more examples Guptaji comes
to a conclusion that there is no archaeological evidence to
prove that the Indus cities were modelled on the plan of any of
the pre-existing or contemporary Mesopotamian or Iranian
city.
Gupta, S.P. 1979. Baluchistan & Afghanistan: refuge areas or
nuclear zones?, in Essays in Indian Protohistory (D.P. Agra-
wal and D.K. Chakrabarti Eds.), pp. 9-15. Delhi: B.R.
Publishing Corp.
Baluchistan and Afghanistan have traditionally been visualised
as refuge areas in archaeological literature. The purpose of this
paper is to analyse, primarily on the basis of evidence from Aq
Kupruk in northern Afghanistan and Mehrgarh in Baluchistan

47
that the region as a whole rather could independently witness
the transition from Mesolithic to Neolithic and thence to
Chalcolithic.
Aq Kupruk is located in the limestone hills south of the famous
town of Mazar-i-Sharif overlooking Oxus. The archaeological
remains begin with Mousterian tools and end in the Early
Islamic pottery with several stratigraphic gaps. Wheat and
barley, and cattle, goat, sheep etc. were domesticated in
Neolithic period. Broadly the sequence of the site includes an
aceramic complex, followed by a ceramic complex. Aceramic
level has further been divided into phase A and B. The change
from Mesolithic to Neolithic begins in phase A dated to 8000
B.C., a date which is comparable to many Neolithic dates of the
West Asia and elsewhere. The site was deserted for a very long
time after ceramic phase at about 5500-4000 B.C. The late
Neolithic people of 2nd millennium B.C. occupied a site called
Dara-i- Kur. The grey ware of this site has sometimes been
compared with that found at Burzahom, near Srinagar. This
long period occupation of northern Afghanistan continued till
Chalcolithic.
Mehrgarh in northern Afghanistan yielded remains of a pre-
pottery Neolithic culture in the northern and eastern sides
whereas the other sides were inhabited by the Chalcolithic
people. The assemblage includes finely retouched small blades
and microliths which may demonstrate the fact that the
Mehrgarh Neolithic sites followed the Mesolithic. The absence
of pottery may also support this view. Discovery of a large
number of cattle bones proves domestication of animals which
formed major source of the economy. Though no plant and
cereals have been found, presence of grinding stones, pestles
and stone bowls shows agriculture may have been practised.
The oldest occupational layer is presumed to date to 5th or 6th
millennium B.C.

48
No site compare to Mehrgarh I has been found anywhere in
west and Central Asia and Indus basin. It is only when one
goes further west to the Zagros mountains that one comes
across similar situation. However, Zagros is too far to fall in
the nuclear zone.
In southern Afghanistan we are yet to locate any aceramic
Neolithic group and, therefore, cannot state if this part was
also inhabited during the 6th-5th millennium B.C.
Gupta, S.P. 1980. Writing Indian art history: a search for valid
approach, Puratattva 11: 68-73.
The paper is based on the evaluation of the remark of Dr.
Grace Morley in 1960s that ‘Everything said and done, Indian
scholars have as yet not produced a single book which could
rightfully be claimed as a book of history of Indian art; we
have several out-standing works but they all concern either
iconography or philosophical background of Indian art.’
Since Morley’s remark much has been written which is
important and meaningful but none has tried to break new
ground, few tried to infuse new models, new approaches, and
new frames of reference. Thus to find some meaningful,
dynamic and evolving cultural process, Guptaji proposes some
improvement by dropping old theories and old terms which
somehow kept our vision on chronology and periodization in
Indian art history within the four walls of the life-span of kings
and their genealogical tables.
1. Instead of perpetuating terms like ‘Mauryan Art’ and
‘Sungan Art’, let us use terms like ‘Formative period-phase
I’ and ‘Formative period-phase II’, respectively.
2. Immediate attention concerns rigid stand of our art
scholars on cognate terms, such as ‘religious art’, ‘secular

49
art’, ‘indigenous art’, ‘vedic art’, ‘Dravidian art’, ‘aboriginal
art’ and many others. Art needs to be seen as part of life.
3. Art of every country is a unique creation of its own history-
political, economic, physical, environmental, social and
cultural. Valid Indian art history can, therefore, be written
only with reference to Indian ‘historical situations’.
4. The study needs to be inter-disciplinary including help
from subjects like physical anthropology, statistics,
archaeology, ethno-archaeology, geology, geomorphology
and climatology.
Gupta, S.P. 1982. The Late Harappan: a study in cultural
dynamics, in Harappan Civilization (G.L. Possehl Ed.), pp.
51-59. New Delhi: Oxford and IBH.
This papers is written in three parts: part I deals with what
happened when the urban fabric of Harappan culture
disintegrated, part II deals with what items of material culture
are prone to persist when urban cultures decline, and part III
deals with how does the IInd urbanization of India compare
with the second urbanization of Soviet Central Asia?
During the late Bronze Age there was a marked decrease in
human occupation in the traditional strongholds in both India
and Soviet Central Asia. During the late Harappan period the
population decreased considerably in most urban settlements.
While some people may have perished others seems to have
migrated to different places. The picture that emerge after
reviewing the data from Indian sub-continent that when a
civilization of the Harappan type declines due to forces other
than political (i.e., invasion, etc.) a definite culture process
(diffusion, etc.) sets in. This leads to new settlement patterns,
such as the clustering of villages in newly occupied areas,
which are clearly identifiable in the archaeological record. The
emergence of the late Harappan was thus not a haphazard

50
process. There were conscious effort on the part of the people
to readjust their life to the new hydrological and
socioeconomic conditions which the second millennium
brought to the Indian Subcontinent.
In the process public structures, large domestic buildings,
objects of fine art, trade items from distant lands (both raw
materials and finished goods), drainage systems and other
civic amenities, and, of curse, writing, seals and other items of
authority are lost earlier than other items. People might have
most consciously put all their efforts to preserve their oral
traditions, such as mythology and folk songs, which we may
not always be in a position to establish archaeologically. Some
kind of plastic art, metal and faience craft in small scale also
persisted, besides, the knowledge of agriculture and animal
husbandry.
In India the second urbanization took place in 7th-6th c.B.C.
whereas in Central Asia it is in the mid of second millennium
B.C. but a parallels study leads to: 1) both of them start from
the same place: full fledged Bronze Age cities developed in
their respective western regions, Punjab in India and South
Turkmenia in Central Asia. But the second cycle of the Late
Bronze Age-Early Iron Age cities developed in eastern region;
2) Cities of first urbanization developed in both large river
basins and in the smaller submontane river basins, whereas
during 2nd urbanization only large rivers and their tributaries
fostered the growth of cities; 3) Diffusion of the first
urbanization was from the west to the east and in 2nd
urbanization was from east to west; 4) we are not definite that
if king was pivot during 1st urbanization but in 2nd
urbanization he was; 5) both central Asia and India do not
appear to have developed in complete mutual isolation.

51
Gupta, S.P. and A. Kesarwani 1983. Herding as the backdrop
to the growth of agriculture in West Asia and South Asia,
Puratattva 12: 101-111.
There are two inter-related models for the Neolithic - Neolithic
Revolution of Gordon Childe and Incipient Agriculture by R.J.
Braidwood. Both of them were based upon two common
postulates: one, that the change from ‘hunting and gathering’
economy to ‘food production’ economy occurred first in the
‘Fertile Crescent’, and second, that this mode of life ‘diffused’
from here to different parts of the world and this took place
between 8000 and 4000 B.C. In south Asia, particularly in
north-western Indo-Pakistan subcontinent, according to them,
this change occurred not earlier than the fourth millennium
B.C. Gupta and Kesarwani do not agree with this and the term
‘fertile crescent’ as this term stands for fertility for agriculture.
In other words for early Neolithicism agriculture was
supposed to have been more important than the domestication
of animals and secondly outside the ‘crescent’ even if nature
had provided conditions for the growth of domesticable wild
cereals, they are claimed to be not domesticated. However,
evidence is just opposite as at a number of sedentary sites in
Orient, domestication of animals preceded domestication of
cereals. It has also been found that by no means the Neolithic
sites in the Fertile Crescent are the oldest; in Asia Minor and in
south Asia, even in parts of South East Asia, the early Neolithic
sites are as old as the site in the Fertile Crescent. From then on
they carry on counter arguing against the models of A.M.T.
Moore that the process of selection of plants and animals
through trials may have been initiated during the late
Pleistocene period, but argue for beginning of Neolithicism is
the sense of production economy can hardly be placed at this
stage with examination of archaeozoological evidence and
associated palaeo-botanical evidence. In the Upper Palaeolithic
times the field of choice in the process of selection had

52
narrowed down to four to five animals. And this is of most
vital importance since this very process culminated in what we
call the ‘domestication of goat, sheep and cattle’ in the early
Neolithic times, which may be kept in the time bracket of 8000-
6000 B.C. In this process of selection, the plant world was
perhaps only marginally involved, if at all.
The authors hypothesize that there was a direct causal
relationship between the ‘domestication of animals’ through
herding and the ‘beginning of agriculture through reaping’
during the Epi-palaeolithic (10000-8000 B.C.), since the farmer
prepares the conditions conducive to a kind of settled life
which is essential to wait, watch and reap a field rich in wild
cereals. This aspect is not looked into in this part of the world
as the scholars are too engrossed in West Asian studies.
Mehrgarh is a standing example in Baluchistan giving
evidence of the transition from the ‘wild’ to the ‘incipient
domestication of animals’ or from hunting to herding.
The herding process of the 8th and pre-8th millennium B.C. in
Afghanistan Baluchistan was not at all initiated by either the
people of West Asia or the ‘idea’ coming from that direction.
The entire course of the Neolithic in Indian borderlands flowed
from within its own framework of man and environment
interaction. The authors therefore propose a model visualizing
two rough herding triangles - one in West Asia and the other
in South Asia with some definite evidence in the 10000-8000
B.C. levels. They feel that unless man reached the stage of
herding, when some kind of sedentary life style ushered in,
man could not go for any kind of incipient agriculture.
Gupta, S.P. 1984. Internal trade of the Harappans, in Frontiers
of the Indus Civilization (B.B. Lal and S.P. Gupta Eds.), pp.
417-424. New Delhi: Books and Books.

53
Since without strong internal trade network, the external trade
of the Harappans was not possible, this paper deals with trade
within a restricted geographic and/or cultural zone. Guptaji
also claimed that marked uniformity in the material culture
was the by product of a large network in internal trade.
Paper starts with locating the main manufacturing centres of
some important goods and short-distance trade route. It keeps
on raising questions and giving probable answers related to
trade like what materials did the Harappan trade, how did
they trade amongst themselves before dealing with the
industrial towns of the Harappans etc. It identifies Lothal and
Chandu-daro to be specialized centres for lapidary, Chandu-
daro to be seat of steatite seal making, Harappa to be copper-
smithy on the basis of findings of furnace, developmental
stages, and half made and waste of respective objects.
The probable trade routes connecting Harappa with
Kalibangan and Mohenjo-daro with Kot Diji were traced. For
the first trade route one could go by boat till the confluence
point of Ravi and the present-day Sutlej, then after walking a
little while another boat going upstream the Ghaggar and
finally reach Kalibangan. This journey might take a week’s
time and extremely cumbersome to load and unload the
products. So an alternative route could be bullock cart route
from Harappa to Chak Purbane Sayal, some 30 km south east
and from there to Kalibangan via any of the two existing
routes. Mohenjo-daro and Kot Diji being on the opposite banks
of the river Indus boat is mandatory and then from its bank to
Kot Diji which is 40 km away by bullock cart.
Gupta, S.P. and K.N. Dikshit 1984. The Central Asian and
North-West South Asian Neolithic: a processual study, Man
and Environment 8: 103-08.

54
With further study on Neolithic phase it is realised that change
of Mesolithic to Neolithic was not everywhere either of the
same kind or of same pattern. In Soviet Central Asia three
major types of Neolithic cultures have been identified: 1) the
Hissar Neolithic characterised by domestication of sheep and
goats, 2) the Jetun Neolithic characterised by cultivation of
cereals and 3) the Caspian Neolithic characterised by
microliths amongst many more characteristic features.
The difference in the culture and its development is more an
effect of environment on men and men’s effect on
environment. The authors cite Neolithic cultures of not only
Central Asia but also of the Indian sub-continent. Then list ten
main points as outcome of their study: 1) Neolithic
manifestations admit several patterns; 2) Neolithic is controlled
by man and environment relationship; 3) sheep and goat
domestication precedes other food producing animals; 4)
wheat and barely were domesticated in larger numbers than
rest; 5) in hilly region major source of economy was animal
husbandry; 6) Hissar Neolithic culture of Central Asia and Ak
Kupruk Aceramic Neolithic culture of Afghanistan exhibit
similar characteristics although they were separated by about
4000 to 5000 years; 7) Similar situation existed in the Indian
subcontinent; 8) the piedmont Neolithic developed to city
civilization both in Central Asia and India; 9) from Piedmont
the Neolithic cultures moved into the river valleys; and 10)
some kind of trade contact through the procurement of
precious items like turquoise, lapis lazuli and shell, were
maintained with Soviet Central Asia, Afghanistan and the
Arabian Sea.
Gupta, S.P. 1987. "Copper Hoard" implements in the National
Museum collection: 1986, Puratattva 16: 45-46.

55
The first part of the paper lists the copper hoard collection in
National Museum in its detail like how they were collected,
from whom they were collected and when they were collected
and how much was paid for the collection right from its first
collection in 1964. The second part concentrate on the details of
about a dozen objects.
A group of four antennae swords collected from Mehsana in
Gujarat is the first of any copper hoard findings in Gujarat after
the broken anthropomorphic figure from late levels at Lothal.
This Mehsana hoard can be divided into three varieties:
1. low angle antennae, making about 10-20° angle in relation
to the vertical axis of the blade.
2. high angle antennae, making about 30-45° or more angle in
relation to the vertical axis of the blade.
3. middle angle antennae, making about 20-30° or angle in
relation to the vertical axis of the blade.
Typological considerations show strong regional differences
with Gangetic basin and Peninsular India – example – the ends
are incurved, in another, where only one antennae is preserved
the end has been pressed a little flat.
Some rare examples are spearhead with a central hole meant
possibly for fastening the tool with its wooden handle, tanged
weed-chisels meant possibly for some agricultural practices
and lugged axe. Typologically and functionally this was meant
to be an axe and not an anthropomorphic figure though
designed so.
Gupta, S.P. 1988. The Aryans: in the mirror of racist scholars,
in Studies in Indian History and Culture (K.S. Ramachandran
Ed.), pp. 188-220. Delhi: Indian History & Culture Society.

56
The paper counters the earlier claims on Aryans by the leftists,
the main claim of leftists being that the Rigvedic Aryans came
from foreign land around 1500 B.C. and destroying the
Dravidian establishments, settled here. This was done to justify
all the subsequent invasions of India and robed the Aryans or
the Vedic people of their status of being original inhabitants of
India. To counter such claims multi-disciplinary approach
including anthropology, archaeology, linguistics, comparative
religion, comparative philology and comparative mythology
data are advocated. In part II and part III of the paper Guptaji
reviews two famous European scholars’ works, one by Gordon
Childe and other by Leon Poliakov extensively and argues
against their theory of Aryans being outsiders. Finally, he
questions why such claims which are already proved to be
wrong being taught in school text books and their future
implications.
Gupta, S.P. 1989. Archaeology of Assam, in Dimensions in
Indian Archaeology and History (S.K. Pandey and K.S.
Ramachandran Eds.), pp. 105-108. Delhi: Indian History &
Culture Society.
This paper attempts to give the chronology of Archaeology of
Assam with a few examples from historical period. Before
Assam was not different as far as archaeological roots are
concerned, it also had its old stone age period going back to
more than half-a-million years and passed through the late
stone age and new stone age (Neolithic) though its Bronze Age
is doubtful.
Art of stone sculpture got introduced in this part during 1st
c.B.C and 1st c.A.D. in the form of votive stupas at Sri Surya
Pahar. First and most impressive monumental art in stone is
located at Da Parvatia, near Tezpur in the form of a relief on
the door-frame of a temple dated to 6th c.A.D. From the 7th

57
trough 9th centuries A.D. Assam witnessed, like Bengal, a
sculptural style which continued the Gupta classical tradition
but was greatly influenced by local idioms and tribal inroads.
The 10th century was, however, a landmark in the history of art
of Assam with adoption of stele or silapatta. It was usually a
rectangular tablet of stone, anywhere from 2.5 to 7 cm or more
thick for high relief carvings of gods and goddesses; highly
ornamented sharing many characteristic features of Pala style.
By 11th-12th century the high relief stele art of Assam developed
its own characteristic features called Brahmaputra style. The
human figure became markedly cylindrical, clad in
diaphanous costumes. In A.D. 1228 for the first time the people
from across the border occupied Assam. They are the Ahoms
and brought a sea change. They did not pay attention to art
and craft. Loss of royal patronage brought about marked
degeneration in the art. By 17th century there is revival in the
sculptural art of Assam. With support of rulers they rebuilt
temple got filled with decorated sculptures, some of them from
old debris. In other words, the temples from 17th century have
yielded sculpture of pre-17th century periods.
Gupta, S.P. 1993. Longer chronology of the Indus-Saraswati
Civilization, Puratattva 23: 21-29.
Dating Indus has always been a challenge. Initially when the
seals and sealings were studied by many and more particularly
by Sir John Marshall the date proposed was 4th-3rd millennium
B.C. for Mohenjodaro. He allowed 1000 years as formative
period of this civilization. Others suggested other time-periods
for this civilization like M.S. Vats put it to 3500-2500 B.C., and
R.E.M. wheeler to 2500-1700 B.C. With calibration dates
available Guptaji proposed a longer chronology for this
civilization:

58
With evidence of 28 calibrated dates from different sites he
gives a time bracket of 3100-2800 B.C. to Early Indus phase;
with 18 calibrated dates a time bracket of 2800-1900 B.C. to
Mature Indus phase; with 12 calibrated dates a time bracket of
1900-1400 B.C. to Late Indus phase.
The characteristic features of the early phase continued to
determine the everyday life of the people in mature phase
inspite of the fact that these had by now greatly changed
(generally called urbanization) because of certain innovations
which gave power into the hands of a select group of people.
During late phase the cities started disappearing and villages
multiplied with strong regional bias and certain Indus crafts
continued but some old and new local potteries predominated.
Throughout the article Guptaji maintained the term Indus-
Saraswati civilization instead of only Indus and in the end give
reason for the same. Since the nomenclature was based on the
findings of the Harappan sites on Indus in earlier times but in
last several decades much more Harappan and pre-Harappan
sites are discovered on the bank of dried Saraswati thus it
should be renamed as Indus-Saraswati Civilization.
Gupta, S.P. 1996. Fresh look at the Indus-Saraswati
chronology: from the Formative to the Mature period, in
Spectrum of Indian Culture (Prof. S.B. Deo Felicitation
Volume) (C. Margabandhu and K.S. Ramachandran Eds.),
pp. 63-66. Delhi: Agam Kala Prakashan.
With calibration dates available most of the radiocarbon dates
got pushed back. Taking the example or work of R. Mughal
and J.F. Jarrige, Guptaji argues for mature phase of Indus-
Saraswati civilization to have evolved out of the early phase.

59
Guptaji adds the concept of formative period of the Indus-
Saraswati Civilization as he finds the early phase of this
civilization to have firmly rooted in the cultural process
starting from 3500 B.C. In the support he gives a dozen sites
calibrated date which fall in the time bracket of 3650-3143 B.C.
In other words, during the period of 500 years before the
beginning of the Early or Kot Diji phase of the Indus-Saraswati
Civilization changes were occurring at several places which
eventually led to the formation of first the early, and then the
urban or mature phase of the Indus-Saraswati civilization.
Guptaji fixes 3400-3100 B.C. for this phase. Likewise he gives a
dozen dates for Early Period (3000-2800 B.C.) and Mature
period (2700-2000 B.C.) each.
Thus the beginning of the civilization can now be easily
pushed back to 3500-3400 B.C. New trends come in and
fortified townships begin to appear in the Indus, Ravi and
Saraswati basins. By 2700-2600 B.C. the so called mature or
urban phase with long distance trade sets in, a phase which
ends in 2000-1900 B.C.
Gupta, S.P. 1997. The origins of the Indus-Saraswati
civilization, in Facets of Indian Civilization - Recent
Perspectives (Essays in Honour of Prof. B.B. Lal) (J.P. Joshi,
D.K. Sinha, S.C. Saran, C.B. Mishra and G.S. Gaur Eds.), pp.
129-141. New Delhi: Aryan Books International.
In recent years two new developments have taken place in the
Harappan studies, firstly, the realisation that there was a
transitional phase between the Proto-Harappan Amri I type
culture-complex and the Mature Harappan Civilization, and
secondly, the change from pre-Harappan to Harappan was
taking place not only in piedmont region of the Kirthar and the
Suleiman but also in Gujarat, Haryana and northern Rajasthan
way back in the 4th millennium.

60
Both the phenomena are recorded in the smaller village level
sites and the large city sites and this is the single-most
significant phenomenon for understanding the Harappan or
the urban origins. Guptaji hypothesises village-town-city
model but with a difference: at town level, which represents
the transition, while many a site remained just a village, others
developed into townships which soon led to the formation of
cities either there itself or somewhere else. This change is not
an event but a process. A process of long-distance trade and
culture interaction amongst the peoples involved in that
network. To identify the culture-change, changes in pottery
(forms, clays, thickness, technique of making and firing,
decoration etc.), living quarters, public utility building, etc
have been studied. He cites the example of the site of Kunal
which records the process of change which led to the
formation of the Harappan culture. Period IC represents the
real Transitional Phase between the Early Harappan and
Mature Harappan culture complexes. The dwellings changed
from the semi-subterranean huts to regular square rectangular
houses built of standardised mud bricks on the ground level
which was further raised at various points to provide height
and stability to the living quarters. The discovery of steatite
beads and one seal in Phase Ic(i) makes it clear that typical
Mature Harappan square seals with knobbed back along with
a hole were made centuries before the emergence of the urban
centres in the Saraswati and the Indus basins. Large scale
finding of graffiti marks – Harappan writing is still a moot
point.
Though the potteries of earlier phase of IB continue in Phase
Ic(i), many new forms emerged in this phase which became
extremely popular during the Mature Harappan period.
Terracotta cakes and at least three small cubical stone weights
mark the transitional phase extremely significant.

61
For decay of civilization Guptaji takes severe hydrological
changes as one of the main reasons on the Indus and the
Saraswati system, as also in Gujarat.
Gupta, S.P. 1998. Revised chronology of the Indus-Saraswati
civilization, in Dating in Indian Archaeology: Problems and
Perspectives (T.P. Verma and R. Kumar Eds.), pp. 42-56.
Mysore: Bharatiya Itihas Sankalan Samiti.
This paper deals with dating problems of the Indus-Saraswati
Civilization in three stages:
1. the comparative dates with Mesopotamia based on
findings of seals by many before the radiocarbon dates
were made available. The closest to truth was when Sir
John Marshall proposed the date to be 4th-3rd millennium
B.C. and allowed 1000 more years for the formative period
and a similar long period for decay. Mortimer Wheeler re-
excavated the site of Harappa in 1946 and dated the Indus-
Saraswati Civilization to 2500-1700 B.C. Before him it was
placed around 3000 B.C.+200 years.
2. with radiocarbon dates available, the period was shortened
to 2300-1750 B.C. However, it was marred with
controversy and again many suggested very varied time
brackets.
3. with the calibrated dates available, there is a strong case in
favour of longer chronology. The Pre-Kot Diji sites are
dated to pre-3500 B.C. and Ravi culture is placed in 4000
B.C. The same is the case with Bala Kot and Hakra. A large
number of these sites are found in the basin of the lost
Saraswati in Cholistan.
Thus the chronology of the Early Indus-Saraswati Civilization
now falls between 3500 and 2800 B.C. Guptaji proposes once
the Mature and Urban phases of the Indus-Saraswati

62
Civilization started fading out, around 1900 B.C, the late Indus-
Saraswati phases started with the cities starting to disappear
and villages getting multiplied, with continuation of certain
crafts and predominance of some old and new local potteries.
A list of various calibrated dates of Formative periods (4000 –
3000 B.C.), Early period (3500 – 2800 B.C.), Mature period (2600
– 1900 B.C.), and Late period (1900 – 1400 B.C.) of Indus-
Saraswati civilization is given.
Gupta, S.P. 2000. The Mahabharat for Harappa, History
Today 1: 46-48.
This paper advocates for indigenous origin of Harappan
culture, the Aryans to be the indigenous people of the Indian
subcontinent, and of the name of the civilization to Indus-
Saraswati instead of Indus alone. The change claim is on the
basis of discoveries of more than thousand Harappan sites on
the bank’s of dried river Saraswati. For all these claims
example after example is cited. The pre-designed unacademic
goal of Max Muller is criticised severely. Though during
Mortimer Wheeler and John Marshall’s time there was not
enough evidence of Harappan settlements on Sarawati banks
but the later scholars like Romila Thapar, Irfan Habib and
Sheren Ratnagar tend to ignore the recent findings and still
hold the notion that Aryans migrated to India.
The work of George Dales and K.A.R. Kennedy proved that
the so called ‘Massacre of Mohenjodaro’ has been a complete
myth; evidence of horse at Harappan sites is proved by
palaeo-zoologists like Bhola Nath, A.K. Sharma and S.
Bokonyi. Many works of B.B. Lal convinces us of indigenous
Aryan theory. With his extensive work in Central Asia
Guptaji found no evidence of people migrating from there to
India in Harappan time.

63
Gupta, S.P. 2000. Studies in the Beginning of the Harappan
Civilization at the End of the Millennium, Man and
Environment 25(2): 7-11.
This paper reviews the evidence for the Harappan civilization
at the end of last millennium and tries to evaluate the claims
of myths which developed in course of time.
In initial stages scholars identified Summerians, Turan, and
Iran as the original place of Harappans. Later, claim of all
these three regions of origin of the Harappan civilizations
were questioned. By 1980s the concept of indigenous
development of Harappans picked up the momentum. This
school has been particularly led by B.B. Lal and S.P. Gupta.
Then at the end of the 20th century the Harappan civilization
was equated with Vedic civilization. The claim of indigenous
development and Vedic civilization is based on the excavated
findings at several Harappan sites in post-Independence
India. However, there is a school which still adheres to old
claims that Harappan came to India from outside and
eventually got the people over here civilized. Guptaji believes
with time and new findings these theories should be
reviewed and new conclusions drawn. He cites numerous
examples where Pre-Harappan development phases were
found like in Kot Diji, Amri, Ravi phase, all dating to pre-
3500 B.C.
Then he picks up his most favourite subject that is
nomenclature of Harappa. Until 1950, almost all Harappan
sites known were confined to the Indus river system, hence it
was called ‘the Indus Valley Civilization’ However, since the
discovery of Harappans sites in the basin of the Saraswati in
1942 by Sir Aurel Stein the total number of Harappan sites
discovered in the Saraswati basin has gone to over 500;
whereas during this period the Indus system has yielded only

64
150 sites;. so the civilization be renamed ‘Indus-Saraswati
Civilization.’
Gupta, S.P. 2001. Myth of Saffronisation of Indian History,
History Today 2: 56-59.
Foreign scholars tried to legitimize their colonization of India
by saying India had no history and what history we know is
of successive invaders. This school is led by Karl Marx.
Though there has been scientific evidence against this and
Aryans have been proved beyond doubt to be original people
of India and not the invaders. Still the followers of Marx tries
to teach the students this theory.
The Aryan invasion migration to India has been argued by
certain linguists on the basis of a few common looking words
in Sanskrit, Greek, Latin English, German etc. However, they
ignore thousand of words not found in European languages
and the fact that Sanskrit is much older than other languages.
Probably the few words which are similar must have resulted
due to long trade contacts.
In support of Vedic Aryans to be Indian in origin following
arguments are put forth:
1. no reference of any outside home in the entire Vedic
literature.
2. there are no written documents or epigraphs to support
the claim of Aryan movement to India from beyond the
Indian frontiers.
3. there is no archaeological evidence in terms of pottery,
sculpture, architecture, etc. to prove that any of the 2500
Harappan sites has ever attacked or destroyed by any
group coming from Central Asia.

65
Contradicting the viewpoint of Marxists Guptaji argues that if
the Dravidians were the Harappans, why did they not built
even a single township in south India resembling the planned
towers of the Harappans.
Gupta, S.P. 2001. A Discussions on River Saraswati in
History, Archaeology And Geology, Puratattva 31: 30-38.
In recent past no other river has generated so much
discussion by archaeologists as the Saraswati. The reasons
may be many and varied but it’s a fact that the central focus
has been on how vast the river was which nourished more
than 1000 Harappan sites discovered so far along her banks
(648 in India and 393 in Pakistan).
Guptaji claims this river to be as might as the Indus and to
have been fed from glaciers in Vedic time. For this he takes
the reference from Rigveda, Brahmana literature,
Mahabharata and exploration of 19th century. Rigveda refers
Saraswati to be the mightiest of her class. By the time of the
Brahmana period it had shrunk enormously and was not able
to reach the ocean, by Mahabharata time it had fanned out in
the desert. Some scholar tried to superimpose the river
Ghaggar as Saraswati which is not acceptable and there was
no mention of Ghaggar in any ancient literature.
To give support to his claim Guptaji refers to the scientific
works of two groups one working on geographic history of
Saraswati (Yash Pal, Baldev Sahai, V.M.K. Puri and B.C.
Verma) and other working on the drainage of Saraswati with
the help of Remote Sensing (D.P. Rao and Yash pal).
The team working on the geographic history on the basis of
their study of watershed area in the Siwalik belt north of
Kalesar (Panta Doon) and geological mapping of the region

66
between the Yamuna and the Markanda rivers has identified
four terraces, and feels that there is evidence of a huge river,
flowing from the east to the west in the Paonta valley at a
much higher level, prior to the birth of the present day
Yamuna river, whose terraces are still observed along Ad
Badri-Markanda link in the plains immediately to the south
of the Siwalik belt. The study of drainage of Palaeo-Saraswati
and Saraswati Glacier in the Himalayas resulted in
concluding that consequent to erosion and tectonic activity,
the Vedic Saraswati shifted its course finally from Adh Badri
conduit and occupied the present-day Markanda valley.
After citing the six fold reasons put forth by V.M.K. Puri for
the Yamuna tear leading to disappearance of Saraswati, the
paper concludes that at one point mighty Saraswati was
flowing from the mountains emerging from the waters of the
glaciers and it had also water of the perennial river Sutlej
emerging from the Tibetan glaciers.
Gupta, S.P. 2002. Pro-Minority and Anti-Majority
communal historians, History Today 3: 96-98.
Many historians misuse the archaeological data to suit their
pre-defined objectives. These historians use all branches of
archaeological discipline but do not accept them as part of
‘historical methodology’. The society is dynamic and the
understanding of human past also changes with new
discoveries. Thus with time the theories should be revived.
However, a bunch of historians follows the same line and
ideology which Karl Marx had advocated with the then
limited resources. For example, these historians do not at al
try to modify their views on the Harappans, the Aryans, the
Vedas and other issues in spite of new archaeological
evidence falsifying the earlier claims. That is a very
dangerous track as the history is one of the main sources of

67
giving national cultural pride to growing students which
shape them and their thinking process besides giving them a
feeling of a national unity. History should be reconstructed
on facts and not to appease minority.
Gupta, S.P. and Kurush Dalal 2002. New Light on Medieval
History: Excavations at Sanjan, 2002, History Today 3: 99-
100.
This is the gist of the work done at Sanjan in 2002. When the
Muslims persecuted Zorastrians in Persia they fled to India in
8th century after living for 12 years on the island of Diu. The
first place they occupied was perhaps Sanjan and to test this
hypothesis Sanjan was excavated.
The excavations brought to light rich habitational deposit,
classified into early and late periods. Glass ware and other
findings in upper layers are important. A bright red ware
spout of a sprinkler of the 1st-2nd century A.D. is a significant
find from period II debris. One of the silver coins is datable to
7th-8th c.A.D. and it resembles a Sassanian issue of
undetermined date. The tentative dating of the site on the
basis of historical and artefactual data is between 2nd-13th
c.A.D. The evidence at Sanjan has enhanced the
understanding of medieval India.
Gupta, S.P., Kurush F. Dalal, Abhijit Dandekar, Rhea Mitra,
Rukshana Nanji and Rohini Pandey 2002. A preliminary
report on the excavations at Sanjan (2002), Puratattva 32: 182-
98.
As the title suggests it is a preliminary report of excavations
carried out at Sanjan in 2002. This excavation was carried out
to examine the hypothesis that if the Parsi community when

68
arrived in India first established themselves in Sanjan as the
oral tradition and the Persian poem Kisseh-i-Sanjan suggests.
With five fold aims to establish 1) the existence and location
of ancient Sanjan 2) the date of the founding of settlement; 3)
nature of occupation; 4) date of dissertation; and 5) to
determine the role of Sanjan in the East-West trade in the
Indian Ocean.
A total of seven layers were encountered within a depth of
5.35 m, of which layer 2-6 were habitation layers. The
structural remains were divided into two phases; first phase
structure lay upon layer 7 and is represented by a large
structure made of burnt bricks of the size of 35/40 x 21/25 x
6/7cm. One ring well was identified. The second phase was
situated at a depth of 1.05-1.10 m from the extant surface of
the mound. It was made up of a small wall of burnt bricks,
one course thick and two courses high and running north-
south. There are two ring wells.
The ceramics include a number of porcelain, glazed/stone,
glazed pink, pink, red slipped, glazed buff, mica-washed red,
slipped grey, slipped grey, coarse grey, slipped red, coarse
red, and red polished wares.
The artefacts include a number of glass objects: vessel
fragments ranging in size, colour, surface treatment, shape
and decoration (a few intact/nearly intact glass
bottles/vessels); black and transparent green plain and a few
bearing appliqué dots in white bangle fragments; fewer plain
glass finger ring fragments and an interesting small flat
bevelled octagonal yellowish glass object reminiscent of a
ring inlay, good number of iron objects including nails, rods,
points, arrowheads, knives/blades, angles, axe, ladle, and
spike on ring are found. Terracotta objects include discs,

69
lamps, and three figurines (one appears to be a stylized
elephant head). Copper objects include antimony rods,
needles, bell, a bowl-like object, wire and ring fragments.
Stone aretefacts include hammer stones, pestle, quern, muller
and a half sling ball. A number of dorsally rubbed cowries
were also found. Altogether 113 beads were recovered, the
dominant material being glass with 91 beads.
Out of 32 coins recovered 21 are of copper, 4 are probably
lead and 7 are silver. Coins are attributed to 2nd century A.D.,
Sassanian (7th-8th c A.D.), and later periods of 8th-9th c.A.D.,
and 10th -11th c.A.D.
Tentative dating of the site on the basis of historical, ceramic,
numismatic and artefactual data is between the 8th and 11th
centuries A.D. And the tentative and preliminary conclusions
suggest a thriving site, economically strong and involved in
both local and foreign trade.
Gupta, S.P. 2003. Imagining Second Mosque at Ayodhya- A
Critique of Irfan Habib's 'The ASI's Report on Ayodhya',
History Today 4: 59-69.
This paper tries to clear the misconception and illusion
created by Irafan Habib who argued unscientifically existence
of a Mosque below the Babri Masjid mosque which was
destroyed on December 6th 1992 fame.
Habib first said that the court directed excavation by ASI at
Ayodhya in 2003 which found evidence of the existence of a
Hindu temple at the site to be nothing but waste of time. And
after two months he claims that there was a Sultanate period
Mosque below the Babri Masjid. Then Guptaji argues against
each and every point on which Habib based his claim; such
that bones found in the debris to be those of sheep and goat

70
without examination by any archaeo-zoologist and Guptaji
gives a number of examples of the existence of animal
sacrifice in Hindu temples; use of mortar which is another
claim by Habib to be as Sultanate introduction is wrong as
lime plaster evidence is found in India from third millennium
B.C.; finding of Muslim glazed ware as an evidence for
Sultanate period is questioned with evidence of glazed ware
right from Harappan to Kushana time period and then in
historical period throughout India; discovery of massive
structure which is interpreted as Sultanate Mosque by Habib
is questioned as temple was also on massive structure and
evidence of more than 50 pillars suggest such a temple. Habib
ignores many other clinching evidences found in support of
the existence of a temple like an amalaka, idol of divine
couple, sacred motifs on carved stones, vallari, lotus, yakshas,
calcrere stone and sandstone slabs on top of the pillar base.
He gives no literary data for the existence of a Mosque there
before the Babri Mosque.
Gupta, S.P. 2003. A Report on Atlas of the Indus-Saraswati
Civilization, Puratattva 33: 165-66.
This is a sort of preliminary project report of ‘Atlas of the
Indus-Saraswati Civilization’ awarded to Guptaji by the
ICHR.
The report which this paper describes has 191 site-
distribution maps based on the present day district
boundaries and 400 pages of text covering almost all
excavated sites and the areas where the cultural remains of
the Indus Saraswati Civilization have been found, mainly in
India and Pakistan.
The sites have been grouped broadly under three groups: the
early Indus-Saraswati, the mature Indus-Saraswati and the

71
late Indus-Saraswati. Early phase includes Hakra and Kot
Diji-Sothi sites.
The report also includes West Asian sites. The data on the
material remains unearthed at the excavated sites are given
along with proper reference. Other aspects and dimensions of
the Indus-Saraswati Civilization, including metals,
metallurgy, technology, urban planning, water management,
etc. are also covered in the original report.
Gupta, S.P., Sunil Gupta, Tejas Garge, Rohini Pandey,
Anuja Geetali and Sonali Gupta 2004. On the fast track of
the Periplus: excavations at Kamrej-2003, Journal of Indian
Ocean Archaeology 1: 9-33.
The ancient site of Kamrej (21° 16' 55 N; 72° 58' 01 E), Dist.
Surat in Gujarat was excavated to understand the history and
archaeology of Indian Ocean Trade. The site is identified with
the Kammanes settlement on the west coast mentioned in the
Geographia of Ptolemy, dated to 2nd century A.D. and with
village Kammoni in the Periplus Maris Erythaei, dated to 1st
century A.D. At present the site is subjected to large scale
illegal excavation by the local contractors. To get a vertical
stratigraphy the cliff was scraped and trenches were put at
the base. From the exposed scraped 10 m length area 12
layers were marked. Natural soil could not be reached. From
the material cultures the authors come to a hypothesis that
the site flourished in the B.C.-AD transition and it witnessed
intensive structural and industrial activity during the early
centuries A.D. Evidence also points to Kamrej being an early
historic port having overseas contacts. Perhaps the exposed
structure are part of wharf and storage areas.
Finding of foreign ceramics like a shoulder and (bifid) handle
of a vessel established the hypothesis of trade contacts.

72
Evidence of shell working, glass and stone bead making,
extensive pottery making and iron manufacture at the site
make it an industrial site.
Gupta, S.P., Tejas Garge, Sonali Gupta and Anuja Geetali
2004. Antiquities from Kamrej excavations-2003, Journal of
Indian Ocean Archaeology 1: 67-77.
This paper deals with the antiquity findings at Kamrej in
2003. Antiquities are broadly divided in six categories: 1.
Stone, 2. Semi-precious stone, 3. Terracotta, 4. Glass, 5. Shell
and 6. Metal (Copper, Iron and Lead). A stone plaque
depicting Vishnu and a female deity dated to 1st-2nd century
A.D. helped in dating the site. Number of stone bead debitage
of carnelian, chalcedony and agate (banded and plain) of
different colours indicated bead making at the site. The
numbers of finished iron objects outnumber copper and iron
pieces. Fragments of shell bangles in a variety of sizes and
other manufacturing waste indicate the shell bangle making
was there at the site from beginning to end. In shape arecanut
beads outnumber the rest. All antiquities are catalogued in
detail.
Gupta, S.P., Kurush F. Dalal, Abhijit Dandekar, Rukshana
Nanji, P. Aravazhi and Suresh Bomble 2004. On the
footsteps of Zoroastrain Parsis in India: excavations at
Sanjan on the west Coast-2003, Journal of Indian Ocean
Archaeology 1: 93-106.
This is the preliminary excavations report of the ancient site
of Sanjan, carried out in 2002 and 2003. The paper introduces
the site and its probable occupants from oral tradition and
from a Persian poem the ‘kisse-i-Sanjan’ written in
approximately 1600 A.D. by a Parsi priest Dastur Boman
Kaikobad.

73
Findings of 2002 season include a number of ceramics of
distinct West Asian/Persian Gulf origins belonging to 8th-9th
centuries A.D. and glass vessels datable to 9th-10th centuries
A.D. Ample evidence of urbanized structure was found.
2003 season revealed an elaborate structural complex made
up of a well-made floor of rammed brickbats with embedded
storage vessels and other details. They are similar to present
day structural complexes in Sanjan vicinity. It also exposed a
square well made of very well fitted bricks. The southern area
exposed six human skeletons.
In all four layers were encountered. Layer 2 is the most active
period of the site with findings of both coarse and slipped red
and grey wares, the porcelain, glazed ware, number of coins
and beads.
The rich artefacts include 427 beads of semi-precious stones
predominated by black and white banded agate ovates,
terracotta and glass; 32 coins in copper, silver and lead; glass
bangles; cut ivory; and a few stone artefacts.
Gupta, S.P. 2004. Ayodhya tangle, History Today 5: 83-85.
This paper advocates the land of Ramajanmabhumi to be
given to Hindus for various reasons. Gutpaji cites many
references indicating how the congress leaders failed again
and again trying to make the Muslims an integral part of
Hindustan from the time of Independence struggle. And in
post-independence period it was move of vote bank policy
which has created the Janmabhumi debacle than getting a
solution through negotiation. For the Marxist historians it’s a
fight between ideology and faith. Guptaji identifies four
forces working against the negotiated settlement: 1. Congress
leaders, 2. Marxist historians, 3. the burden of Indian history

74
from 1885 to 1947 (the appeasing factor by the congress
leaders to Muslims but ultimate result was two nations) and
4. International communism. When an ideology becomes an
obsession it very often leads to internal contradiction and self
destruction. He gives example of how Somnath temple was
made in 1951.
In favour of letting a temple built at Janmasthan, Guptaji
gives the following reasons:
1. on 13th Nov 1997 Mohammad Abdullah Sabbeh, the
Imam of the Qaba of Mecca, wrote that ‘If it is proved that
there was a temple before the coming up of the mosque
(at Ramajanmabhumi), the Muslims should leave their
claim’.
2. ASI excavation in 2003 established the fact that the
mosque was built on the walls of a massive temple.
3. the revenue records in the Faizabad Collectorate always
designated this Mosque as ‘Masjid-e-Janmasthan’, a usage
which clearly established the same fact, that it is ‘the
mosque located on Janmasthan’.
4. with court orders, since 1936 prayers in the Mosque was
totally stopped and since 1949 an image of lala Rama is
worshipped under the central dome which was the
original ‘garbhagriha’ of the temple.
5. 20 line Sanskrit inscription found at the site on 6th Dec
1992 says that a temple was constructed here by king
Meghsuta during the Emperorship of the Gahadval king
Govindchandra (1114 to 1145 A.D.)
6. three Persian inscriptions in the mosque which said that
here was set-up a structure for angles to descend on, i.e.,
mosque, by Mir Baqi, under the command of Shahanshah
Babar (in 1528-29).

75
Gupta, S.P. 2005. Should we launch an International forum
for the study of Indian Ocean Archaeology – Some
Thoughts, Journal of Indian Ocean Archaeology 2: III-IV.
Study of Indian Ocean Archaeology is not new but it has got
lost somewhere to stand on its own in the broader theme of
Indian Archaeology. Time has come to study Indian Ocean
Archaeology as a discipline and then integrate the same with
other branches of archaeology. Indian Ocean archaeology is
the marker of long distance trade mechanism study. The
literature on this branch is so dispersed and there is no
specific forum for all scholars working on Indian Ocean
Archaeology to publish their work. Thus Guptaji took the
initiative to lunch the Journal of Indian Ocean Archaeology and
appealed all to contribute. From his experience he thought
that there was a need of an international organization to
actively engage in archaeological field-work in the Indian
Ocean Rim countries and puts forward a proposal with aims
and objectives for further discussion and suggestion.
Gupta, S.P., Kurush F. Dalal, Rukshana Nanji, Abhijit
Dandekar, Suresh Bomble, Veena Mushriff-Tripathi,
Shivendra Kadgaoncar, Gency Chaudhuri, Pranab Sharma
and Riza Abbas 2005. Preliminary Report of the Third
Season of Excavations at Sanjan -2004, Journal of Indian
Ocean Archaeology 2: 55-61.
This is the excavation report of the third season excavation at
the ancient site of Sanjan (N 20° 11' 59.6 E 72° 48' 00.2), dated
to 8th to 13th centuries A.D. Excavation and finding of the
dakma at the site put all speculation to rest that Sanjan was
occupied by the Parsi community. Structures in the dakma
included a brickbat and soil/clay outer wall, followed by a
gently inward sloping mud and brick platform and a brick
lined dry well (bhandar). Remains of 140 individuals were

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