Tag: Shubha Khandekar

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Luv Thy Farmer: The Ek Glass Mosambi Juice Challenge

Mumbai’s Ranjit Pawar initiated the ‘Luv Thy Farmer’ movement under which an Aurangabad mosambi farmer reaches his produce directly to consumers.
by Shubha Khandekar

Weekends are no longer a breather for Ranjit Pawar from a hectic 10 hour job with a reputed multi-national corporation, where he works as a business manager. Rather, it’s a break for frenzied phone calls to volunteers, customers and transport operators who are pouring into his rapidly expanding loop of the Luv Thy Farmer initiative, launched to help Aurangabad’s mosambi producer Shivaji Gaikwad get respectable returns on his produce, against the backdrop of the farmers’ dismal plight in Marathwada.

“I have known Shivaji Gaikwad from before,” says Ranjit, whose father owns a farm in Satara district. “I’ve grown up on a farm and spent every vacation on one. Hence it was easy for me to feel his pain; he was being offered no more than Rs 15 per kilo by traders, which sells for anything from Rs 30 onwards in Mumbai. He can’t even break even on these terms.”

Having worked earlier in a mobile info system for farmers, Ranjit realised that the e-commerce platform for B2C transactions is available to a producer of every commodity, except to a farmer. The result is that both the producer and the consumer are being left out of the benefits of the e-commerce platform. He thought of tapping the Internet and the social media to address the issue. In less than a month, over two tonnes of mosambis have already been delivered in Mumbai and its suburbs and in Pune, purely through voluntary efforts of well-wishers who needed no persuasion to pitch in.

kids_mosambi“That’s all it takes,” he laughs. “Just the click of a mouse can place a farmer directly on a global e-commerce pathway, and open up unlimited vistas for marketing his produce.  Along with other volunteers I have merely acted as a facilitator and enabler,” he says, after having delivered some 1,500 orders to total strangers!

Ranjit found willing takers for his idea. He trusted Gaikwad for the quality of the produce while Gaikwad too was convinced of Ranjit’s intentions. Volunteers came forward and on September 6, he flashed the ‘Luv Thy Farmer’ page on Facebook, followed by the website of the same name created overnight by a volunteer from Germany. Prof Kurush Dalal in Kharghar, Anuradha Pawar in Prabhadevi, Varuna Rao in Thane, and Vaishali Narkar in Chembur kept their doors open for 24 hours as pick up points for the stocks rolling in every day.

“It’s a highly scalable, replicable model and volunteers can help without leaving their homes,” says Ranjit, who now has support from diverse quarters. “It’s not too expensive either, even though Gaikwad has arranged to pack the mosambis in 5 kg bags, and pays for the farm to city transportation. Hence, of the Rs 60 that the end consumer is paying for a kilo of mosambi, nearly Rs 30 to Rs 40 goes to the farmer, and transportation and labour costs take up the rest. Logistics players have come forward to help out and they are ready to work on a no-profit-no-loss basis. We are working on streamlining the transportation, using vans, bikes and even public transport, so as to further improve the farmer’s profit,” he says.

The ripple effect of Luv Thy Farmer has created beneficiaries in unexpected quarters. Hence, while one person in the US made an online purchase for donation to an old age home in Mumbai, a senior marketing manager at a pharma company donated a bulk purchase to a hospice for children in Mumbai.

Ranjit proposes to make the facility available to growers of strawberries, bananas, pomegranates, rice, organic jaggery, wild honey, tur dal and many other agro-products who are approaching him every day.

“The next challenge is to make Luv Thy Farmer self-sustainable,” he says.  “I wish to explore such options as angel funds and crowd funding for projects that many farmers cannot implement. This could give a boost to entrepreneurship in the agro sector, so that the farmer can thrive without depending upon a single market.”

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Places

Ter excavations to throw light on ancient Roman trade

Some evidences of Indian trade with Rome, and a flourishing ancient civilisation, were recently unearthed at Ter, in Maharashtra’s Osmanabad district.
by Shubha Khandekar

Dr Maya Sahapurkar PatilAfter a gap of nearly almost 40 years, the Directorate of Archaeology and Museums, Maharashtra State has resumed excavations at Ter, by the Terna river in Osmanabad district, a village in Maharashtra, under the leadership of Dr Maya Sahapurkar Patil, Deputy Director (in pic on left). She has been a teacher of archaeology at Solapur earlier and has authored three books. Shubha Khandekar spoke to her on site.

Shubha: Why is the site important and what was the reason for choosing Ter for excavation after so many years?

Dr Sahapurkar Patil: Ter is the modern name of the ancient town Tagar, the Mumbai of those times in terms of brisk commercial activity between India and Rome. Various kinds of textiles, beads and jute were exported from here to Rome. The local people imitated the fine Roman pottery, with a characteristic red polish, that came with the Romans. Tagar is mentioned in the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea by a Greek author 2000 years ago. It says that Tagar is a 10 days’ journey from Pratishthan (today’s Paithan), which was the capital of the Satavahana rulers. Periplus also tells us that Tagar was the important market town for merchandise originating on the east coast of India. The famous British archaeologist Henry Cousens, then working with Archaeological Survey of India, first explored this site in early 20th century and recorded his observations, pointing to unmistakable trade links with ancient Rome. On the basis of copper plates found outside Ter, which mention ‘Tagar nivasi’ Ter has been identified with the ancient Tagar.

Meanwhile, Ramalingappa Lamture, a merchant from Ter became fascinated with the surface finds and the visits of the British who came looking for them and Pompeii_Terto visit the nearby Jaina Dharashiv caves. He started collecting these finds, such as figurines of baked and unbaked clay, beads, pottery, shell bangles, ivory objects, stone grinders and coins. It became a large collection and was taken over by the Government in 1978 and expanded to house this private museum, consisting today of over 20,000 artefacts, testifying to the cultural glory and prosperity of the Satavahana days.

Are you the first one to excavate Ter?

No. It was first excavated in 1958 by KN Dikshit, who found a large brick stupa. Dr BN Chapekar continued with the work in 1967-68 and found a large number of mother goddesses in the Lajjagauri form from the mound called Renuka Tekdi. A team under Dr SB Deo from the Deccan College again excavated it in 1974-75 and published a brief report. After that, two small scale excavations were undertaken by the State Department of Archaeology which revealed a stepped reservoir. And now it has been entrusted to me and my team.

What are you looking for?

(Smiles) I have a special interest as I belong to this region. Of the seven mounds here, named Sultan, Kaikadi, Mulani, Renuka, Bairag, Mahar and Kot, the first Pompeii_Bestthree are greatly disturbed by modern habitation and hence we have chosen to dig at Bairag and Kot. Our two objectives are to define parameters of the ancient trade with Rome, to trace the material culture of the early Satavahana phases and to find evidence to fill the gap between the Satavahana period and the mediaeval period remains that overlie them.

And what have you found?

We have found a well of mediaeval times and associated structures in which the earlier bricks of Satavahana times have been reused. A plan of a house has been traced. There is evidence of timber construction which has been mentioned by earlier excavators, too. Apart from that, there are several ivory objects such as dice, comb and a rod to apply kajal to the eyes. An important find is the rim of a pot on which some letters are inscribed in Brahmi. We have sent the piece to experts for reading. Beads of carnelian, agate, jasper, lapis lazuli, faience shell and terracotta have been found. Bangles of shell, terracotta and multi-coloured glass, ear-rings and gamesmen also have been found. Female human figurines of terra cotta and kaolin show that the local people had adopted the Roman technique of double mould manufacturing.

What is your message to the people?

People are very fond of saying how great their ancient culture is, but when it comes to taking action, one sees nothing but callous apathy and mindless destruction of our precious heritage. Sculptures of excellent workmanship and immense historical value are lying waste all over the State. From what I have seen, we have the potential to build a local museum in every district. People should take the trouble to conserve this rich legacy. They can either set up a museum of their own, as done by Lamture, or donate the local findings to the government or to a museum for maintenance. This is not just the Government’s but everybody’s responsibility, and the awareness should be created right from school days.

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Maharashtra rocks to Prof Walter Spink

The feted scholar and historian took centrestage at the 2nd Annual Archaeology of Maharashtra conference, with several luminaries in attendance.
by Shubha Khandekar

It was a ruthless demolition of the Ganges-centric view of Indian history and of a Shivaji-centric one of Maharashtara, as speaker after speaker, both eminent and green-horns, rose to recreate the enchanted and enchanting, but unsung cosmos humming with life, incredibly rich materially and culturally, in and around the rock cut caves of Maharashtra, spanning nearly a millennium of artistic activity in and around the region.

The raison d’être of this devastation process was Prof Walter Spink, eminent scholar and professor emeritus of the History of Art at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in whose honour the Centre for Extra Mural Studies (CEMS) of the Mumbai University and the India Study Centre (INSTUCEN) jointly organised ‘Rock-cut Caves of Maharashtra,’ the 2-day 2nd Annual Archaeology of Maharashtra (International) Conference, at the Kalina campus of Mumbai University on January 17 and 18, 2015. The conference was part of the annual Archaeology Day celebrations pioneered by the CEMS in 2012.

Spink“It is staggering to see how much we don’t know,” said Prof Spink, who has just put down in seven volumes (8th forthcoming), 60 years of his intensive and seminal research on Ajanta, extolled at the valedictory session as ‘Ajanta-charita’ (a biography of Ajanta) by Dr Geri Malandra, author of The Unfolding of a Mandala, on the evolution of art forms at Ellora, who engaged him in a one-on-one at the end of day one. Asked what more needs to be done on Ajanta, “volume 9,” he replied, without batting an eyelid. He will be 87 this February 2015.

Prof Spink’s best known – and most controversial – contribution to the field, is his whittling down of the chronology of the second phase of the Ajanta Caves to a mere 15 years, from 462 to 477 of the Common Era. During this brief span political disturbance drove a frenzied spate of devotional activity, culminating in the exquisite paintings and sculpture at Ajanta, now a UNESCO World Heritage site. The assassination of Emperor Harishena of the Vakataka dynasty, according to Prof Spink, brought the carving as well as the golden age of Indian history, to an abrupt end.

Prof Spink made use of details of circumstantial evidence at Ajanta to arrive at his conclusions. His keynote address provided a brief but razor sharp glimpse into the unique nature and depth of his inquiry. He showed how his study of some 180 doors (that no longer exist) and his investigation into how they were hung, helped him establish the relative chronology of the caves with fool-proof accuracy.

Reconstruction of chronology is a major challenge for ancient Indian history because the original sources are often muddled, misleading or mum.

Of the 1200 rock cut caves in India, no less than 1000 are located in Maharashtra, because the hard volcanic basalt rock from which the monasteries, temples, and intricate carvings are made is in abundance in the region and countless poets have eulogised this region as a land of rocks. “Rock cut art of Maharashtra has played a major role in the development of varied art forms all over the Deccan and beyond,” said Dr A P Jamkhedkar, former director of state archaeology and renowned scholar of art history, Jainism, epigraphy and archaeology. “And it is Walter’s phenomenal energy, methodological precision and passion that have inspired two generations of scholars to explore the vast pre-Shivaji and extra-Gangetic span of history, which we can see blossoming with such extraordinary vibrancy at this conference.”

Prof Spink is admired and respected as much for his academic integrity and methodological purity as for his endearing simplicity and gentle, overabundant sense of humour. Every speaker had an Stalwarts at the conferenceanecdote or two of his or her personal encounter with Prof Spink to share with the audience, showing the warm though professional bonds he has forged and nurtured over the past six decades. Thus, while Prof M K Dhavalikar, former director of Deccan College celebrated the golden jubilee of his association with Prof Spink, Dr Alone of JNU, who disagrees with Prof Spink on many issues, recalled how the octogenarian harangued him into reading up before coming for discussions at the now famous site seminars initiated by Prof Spink. Dr Kurush Dalal of the newly set up Centre for Archaeology at the CEMS recalled how Prof Spink pointed his flashlight at a small fragment of a chisel, left in a dingy corner of a barely begun cave at Ajanta by an artisan some 1500 years ago, and Dr Manjiri Bhalerao gratefully acknowledged that it was Prof. Spink’s work that drove her up rocks and into them.

Indeed, boundaries of time and space dissolved as the romance of rock cut art and its derivatives in lands as far as Sri Lanka, slowly unfolded before the rapturous audience. Dr Shreekant Pradhan’s presentation magically transformed the paintings of Ajanta into the sculpture of Amaravati and vice versa in a seamless blend, while Dr Anura Manatunga of Sri Lanka transported the audience to the emerald island to witness the debt that Sigiriya owes to Ajanta. Dr G K Mane credited the origin of rock cut caves to the preliterate megalithic societies in Vidarbha while Dr Abhijit Dandekar showed how sculpture nails down the rise of monks as intermediaries between Lord Buddha and the lay devotee. Dr Viraj Shah showed how the Jaina caves were sustained more with popular support as against the royal patronage received by the Buddhist caves whereas Dr Tejas Garge elaborated on the rock-cut moat around the Daulatabad fort, the one and only instance of traditional skills of regional craftsmen being harnessed for the first time for a military purpose during mediaeval times.

This explosion of scholarly activity is indeed a tribute that Prof Spink has richly earned. One hopes fondly, however, for the day when academic knowledge would become popular folklore, and that’s when scholarship will be truly vindicated.

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Gratitude at the grassroots

Researcher Sadashiv Tetvilkar’s newest book on ‘veergals’ (aka hero stones) talks about memorial stones as unique sources of local history.
by Shubha Khandekar

‘Rural Maharashtra is strewn with hundreds of Veergals (Hero Stones) at the boundary of the village or else, in the courtyard of a Shiva temple located on the periphery of the village. A group of four beautiful Hero Stones (fifth one is in the custody of ASI) at Eksar in Borivali shows in vivid detail a ferocious naval battle, which has been correlated to the text Chaturvarga Chintamani composed by Hemadri Pandit. He describes a decisive naval battle fought between Yadava King Mahadeva and Shilahara ruler Someshvara in which the latter was routed and killed in 1265. The details of infantry, cavalry, elephant force and battle ships shown herein enables us to understand the military strategy deployed in this battle. Someshvara was cremated at Eksar and the five Hero Stones were erected to commemorate his valour.’

Indefatigable hard core hands-on researcher Sadashiv Tetvilkar, who already has seven books to his credit, has now published Maharashtratil Veergal (Hero Stones of Maharashtra), which highlights the enormous potential of these memorial stones as unique, unconventional sources of local history, in combination with the rich and varied oral traditions of the region. Together with the more conventional methods of decoding historical evidence, such as texts, the book is a significant addition to the armoury of historians and archaeologists working on the early mediaeval past of Maharashtra.

These Hero Stones, often found together with Sati Stones erected to honour wives who committed sati after the husband’s death at the battlefield, are unequivocally the memorials erected to commemorate heroes who valiantly fought and died on the battlefield while defending and protecting the lives and properties of the communities they belonged to, from wild predators or human invaders. It is a humble and affectionate tribute paid by the commoners to their brave hero, so as to inspire future generations to follow in his footsteps.

What makes this effort significant is that this study fills up a huge gap in reconstructing local history, long felt but left unaddressed due to neglect and apathy. Part of the challenge lies in the fact that there is rarely, if ever, any inscription on the Hero Stones, and they are lying open to the skies, which makes it difficult to establish their context in time and space.

The book is embellished with colour and B&W photographs of outstanding samples of Hero Stones. Although the author insists that the Veergals included in his book are only a compilation of the possible sources, it has nevertheless opened floodgates of an exciting archaeological and ethnographic adventure that will unfold unseen aspects of early medieval history of Maharashtra.

Tetvilkar points out that Hero Stones are not unique to Maharashtra: they are found in great numbers in Karnataka, Goa, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Kashmir, Andhra, Himachal, Bengal and Gujarat, which highlights the cultural unity of India at the very grassroots. Hero Stones are rectangular slabs of hard stone, usually with three vertical panels decorated with low relief sculpture which is a continuous narrative of valour, sacrifice and magnanimity, through a battle scene, death and ascent into heaven. The sun and moon at the top indicates that the fame of the hero would remain undiminished forever.

Tetvilkar holds the view that some of these local heroes were eventually elevated to the status of gods and came to be worshipped by villagers, which explains the large number of local deities venerated in rural Maharashtra. The attributes of these heroes/gods and the myths and legends associated with them give us important insights into the lives, values and aspirations of the communities they belonged to. They also give us significant clues into the process of Aryanisation of the hinterland and the commingling of varied cultural traits and tradition. By enhancing the credibility of myths and folklore, they constitute a textbook of history from below.

Although Veergals have been known in India from the 2nd to the 18th centuries, a deep study has surprisingly been largely absent. Tetvilkar points out the contribution made to this field by famous anthropologist Gunther Sontheimer and strive to complete the job he left unfinished. The book is an outcome of the relentless energy with which he roamed over jungles and mountains, undeterred by heat or cold or rains, speaking to elders in the villages, gathering and classifying data and correlating this data with the published works of scholars.

Tetvilkar gives several examples of eye-witness accounts of the British who saw women voluntarily committing Sati after the death of their husbands at the battlefield, and the courage and quiet dignity with which these women embraced a painful death, which has been immortalised on the Sati Stones. Women have also been shown on horseback, or worshipping a Shivalinga along with their husbands after reaching heaven. A few Sati Stones also show the woman being coerced into following the Sati custom, and Tetvilkar analyses how Sati is Bengal was different from what it was in Maharashtra, and why Bengal was at the forefront of resistance to the custom.

At Degaon in Raigad district is a Hero Stone showing a ten headed enemy, but Ram, Seeta, Lakshman and Hanuman are absent. Blood from the severed fingers of the enemy is shown dripping over a Shivalinga placed below. Tetvilkar dates this Veergal to Shivaji’s times on account of the similarities with the known event in Shivaji’s life.

(Pictures courtesy Shubha Khandekar)

 

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You can now study the Aryan problem

Sathaye College launches three beginners’ courses on ancient Indian culture, Buddist Studies and Sanskrit in collaboration with Vikas Adhyayan Kendra.
by Shubha Khandekar

To a lay person, the historical ‘Aryan problem’ means only two things: one, the Indians who claimed this identity and composed the Rig Veda in the hoary past and two, the ‘Aryan race’ that became the chief intellectual weapon of Adolf Hitler for unleashing World War II.

Aryan ProblemBut as Dr AP Jamkhedkar, former director of the department of archaeology, Maharashtra state and vice president, the Asiatic Society of Mumbai,  explained the genesis, development and the current status of “The Aryan Problem”, the audience sat, rapt, at Sathaye College as the multidimensional nature of this centuries old academic challenge unfolded before them.

He was speaking at the inaugural function of three beginners’ courses launched by the Sathaye College in Vile Parle on Saturday, July 6, which also happened to be his 74th birthday. Professor Gauri Mahulikar, head of the department of Sanskrit, Mumbai University presided over the function.

The three independent but organically inter-related courses are Ancient Indian Culture, Buddhist Studies and Sanskrit, in collaboration with Vikas Adhyayan Kendra. They will be run as part time one-year courses during weekends and the only qualification for admission, as announced by the principal Kavita Rege is, “the passion to learn”. Sanjay Kelapure of Vikas Adhyayan Kendra revealed that the Kendra is engaged in creating an India-centric world view by promoting Sanskrit even in the neighbouring countries of the subcontinent.

It would be rare to find an archaeologist in India who has not been tickled by the ‘Aryan problem’ at some stage in his Aryan Problem, cartoon by Shubha Khandekarcareer. Tracing the emergence of the theories about the original homeland of the Aryans from the Arctic Circle to Scandinavia to Central Asia to India, Dr Jamkhedkar meandered through the contributions of the linguists, anthropologists, historians, archaeologists, mythologists and many others towards an identification of the elusive Aryans. The crux of the problem is, that although the Rig Veda constitutes the oldest extant corpus of hymns composed by people who proudly declared themselves to be Aryans, they seem to have left behind no archaeological remains anywhere in the world that can be unequivocally correlated to the Rig Vedic narrative.

Dr Jamkhedkar described how linguistic similarities were noticed by early Europeans who stepped into India and thus evolved the concept of a common Indo-European ‘mother language’ in the past. “As evidence piled up from across parts of Europe and Asia, it became necessary to search for corroborative archaeological proof of the Aryans,” he said, describing how the Bogaz Koi inscription dated to 1380 BCE, the Avesta, the Andronovo culture of Western Siberia, the domestication of the horse – an animal so highly extolled in the Rig Veda, and the soma plant – all were harnessed towards the identification of the Aryans – to no avail!

“A search nearer home yielded some clues in the form of recent archaeological material from sites in Haryana as well as those in West Asia. Records found in West Asia, which are contemporary with the Indus-Sarasvati civilisation, considered pre-Aryan, have about 40 to 50 names of Sanskritic origin! This could mean that the Indus-Sarasvati civilization was not Dravidian in character as has been claimed for long by many scholars. And it could also turn on its head the earlier theory that the Aryans were neither the destroyers of the Indus-Sarasvati civilization, nor immigrants pouring in peacefully in groups after groups, but were in fact part and parcel of the Indus Sarasvati civilisation!”

AryanHome_01Many scholars in India, particularly Dr MK Dhavalikar, have proposed, on the basis of circumstantial archaeological evidence, that the so-called Late Harappan people, the residue of the glorious Indus-Sarasvati civilization, were in fact the composers of the Rig Veda, and hence, by inference, the Aryans.

To unlock this ‘riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma’, a description that Winston Churchill had used for Russia, but could well fit the ‘Aryan problem’, Dr Jamkhedkar said that a thorough knowledge of Sanskrit has emerged as the main key. “For this reason, the courses on Sanskrit and Ancient Indian Culture started by Sathaye College become complementary and integral to each other,” he said.

Dr Mahulikar pointed out that since a lot of Buddhist and Jain literature is composed in Sanskrit, “political biases should not be allowed to stand in the way of acquiring knowledge of this classical language, which is crucial for unravelling the secrets of the past.”

Admissions are open till Saturday, July 13, 2013. Contact Suraj Pandit on 9930830834/surajpanditkanheri@gmail.com, or Sandeep Dahisarkar on 9930774241.

(Pictures courtesy Siddharth Kale, cartoons by Shubha Khandekar)

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Places

Chandore lights up Konkan’s hoary past

Season one of excavation at Chandore, which is in Konkan, revealed some intriguing artefacts, ceramics and sculptural elements early this month.
by Shubha Khandekar

As the second (annual) season of archaeological excavations at Chandore, near Mangaon in the Raigad district of coastal Maharashtra draws to a close, this tiny, idyllic village has increasingly begun to look like a key hub where international trade flourished under the Shilahara kings about a 1,000 years ago, and continued up to the Maratha period in the early 19th century, through the pre-Shivaji Bahamani regime and the rule of the once pan-India Peshwas, before they suffered a decisive defeat at the hands of the British in 1818.

Facets of the history of the Shilahara dynasty that ruled the entire seacoast from Sopara in the North to Savantwadi in the South, through the 11th to the 14th century, are unfolding slowly but surely with the excavation, undertaken jointly by the Centre for Extra Mural Studies (CEMS), University of Mumbai and the India Study Centre (INSTUCEN), under Dr Kurush F Dalal, the Field Director, who teaches Archaeology at the CEMS.

This makes Chandore a crucial site, demanding extensive and long term historical, ethnographic and archaeological investigation to ascertain the antiquity, the cultural sequence and nature of the settlement at Chandore and its environs, that would shed light on hitherto unknown aspects of the history of the region for the past 1000 years and more.

This was acknowledged, endorsed and emphasised by the presence of all the bigwigs present on site on a Sunday drenched in welcome rain early June: Dr Rajan Velukar, Vice Chancellor, Dr Naresh Chandra, Pro-Vice Chancellor, and Mugdha Karnik, Director, Centre for Extra Mural Studies, Mumbai University, Dr A P Jamkhedkar, former Director, Department of Archaeology and Museums, Government of Maharashtra, Dhananjay Karnik, Drs Samuel Nazareth and Suraj Pandit, all Directors, India Study Centre (INSTUCEN), Dr Kurush F Dalal, Field Director of excavations at Chandore and Suresh Bhosale, President, Mahad Manufacturers’ Association, which came forward to finance the initial phases of this year’s excavation. In addition, Pallavee Gokhale from Pune, NR Swamy from Bangalore (Genesys International) and Vaidyanathan from Mumbai joined hands to do a GIS based study of the vast expanse over which the ruins are strewn.

While Dr Velukar committed the University’s support to the excavation, Dr Jamkhedkar interacted with the villagers of Chandore at a public meeting and explained to them the historical importance of the site, the need for conservation of the remains of the past, if possible through the establishment of a small local museum and the prevention of their pilferage, and the critical role that the villagers must play in the process.

Where is it?
Chandore is located on a ridge running north-south along the Arabian Sea coast, about 30 km to its west, a location that had carved out a unique role for the village in the political, economic and religious life of the Konkan region.

Chandore excavationThe first season of excavation revealed a rock-cut stepped reservoir, with images of Hara-Gauri (a form of Shiva and Parvati), embedded in a niche in one of its walls. Stylistically the image has been dated to the Shilahara period by Drs Arvind Jamkhedkar and Suraj A Pandit. This reservoir was adjacent to a Shiva temple, whose only extant remains consist of a sunken sanctum and a Nandi placed in the temple’s courtyard, a hopelessly crumbling image of the divine bull that one is afraid to touch for fear that it will completely disintegrate.

Excavations at the site have so far revealed plans of at least three temples, built as per the local traditions during the Bahamani period, which preceded Shivaji by about two centuries.

This kingdom had later split into five, including the Adilshahi out of which Shivaji carved out his swaraj.

Other finds from the excavation consist of a silver gadhiya coin from the 11th century, glass beads and bangles, and monochrome glazed ware potsherds typical of the 14th century.

Historically important
Chandore was incredibly active between the 8th century and 1818 when the Marathas lost the final battle against the British (Third Anglo-Maratha War). The local towns of Mangaon and Goregaon have historically been very important places on the internal highway and have both been feeders to the port of Mhasala, especially during the Maratha, Bahamani and Adilshahi phases. Both the traditional routes passed Chandore and it is only now that the route from Goregaon has bypassed Chandore, the Mangaon-Mhasala route still goes past Chandore.

The Chandore-Mhasala stretch is also a part of the Mangaon-Goregaon-Mhasala-Borli-Diveagar-Shrivardhan route. Thus Chandore lies on a critical route between the hinterland and the ports of Mhasala and Diveagar.

The surroundings of Chandore too are replete with hero stones, locally called veergals (see pic on right) , and sati stones, which together Chandore veergalsnarrate a story of valour and sacrifice, and reveal aspects of ancestor worship and the custom of Sati. Indravan, Nivachivadi, Govele, Kakal, Nalephodi, Mhasala, Borli Panchatan, Diveagar and Deokhol in the proximity of Chandore constitute a sprawling complex with thriving international trade and vibrant religious activity on a large scale.

There is, however, no inscription in this entire repertoire to give us any definitive names or dates for any of these locations, with the exception of Diveagar.

The earliest occupation of Chandore, surprisingly, seems be of the Stone Age when small, microlithic tools were made in a pre-metal era. This could push the antiquity of the site back by several millennia, and Stone Age experts who have visited the site have recommended a detailed study of the raw materials used for the tools, the structural and functional aspects of the tools and the geological context of the habitation.

The bulk of the original research published on the Shilahara dynasty consists of a volume of the inscriptions of the Shilaharas by VV Mirashi (Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum, Vol IV brought out by the ASI in 1977). Scholars have subsequently found sporadic copper plate and stone inscriptions of the Shilahara dynasty in the Thane, Raigad, Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg districts of Maharashtra as well as the coastal area of Goa and Karnataka, and have attempted a reconstruction of the history of the region.

A particular location at Chandore is referred to as ‘kalavantiniche gharate’– the dwelling of the nautch girl(s) – in local tradition, which comprised an essential service at a trade route hub, for merchants and traders on long journeys away from home. This yet again confirms the status of Chandore as a thriving semi-urban centre.

Also, an annual religious festival is part of a tradition from the hoary past and draws in large numbers of people surrounding areas. This calls for ethnographic enquiry and its integration with historical evidence in a holistic approach to unfold the secrets buried and forgotten since yore.

This seasons excavations have just drawn to a close and the excavation team is busy cataloguing and analysing the artefacts, ceramics and sculptural elements revealed in the course of this season’s work.

(Pictures courtesy Dr Suraj Pandit, Pallavee Gokhale and Rhea Mitra-Dalal)

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