Sources of Ancient Indian History: Monuments, excavations and dating

John Marshall, Director General of the ASI from 1902 to 1928, announced the discovery of the Indus (Harappan) civilisation in 1924, after the excavations of Daya Ram Sahni at Harappa (1921) and R.D. Banerji at Mohenjodaro (1922). Marshall also excavated at Taxila and Sanchi. Cunningham had visited Harappa in the nineteenth century and published a seal without realising its age, Wheeler excavated at Harappa and Mohenjodaro in the 1940s, and Burgess was an earlier Director General known for his work on cave temples.

Alexander Cunningham, an army engineer, was appointed Archaeological Surveyor in 1861, when the Archaeological Survey of India was set up under Lord Canning; he later became its first Director General (1871-1885). Guided largely by the routes of the Chinese pilgrims, especially Xuanzang, he identified many early Buddhist sites. James Prinsep (died 1840) deciphered Brahmi in 1837, before the ASI existed. John Marshall became Director General in 1902 and Mortimer Wheeler in 1944.

Statements 1, 2 and 3 are correct. Radiocarbon (C-14) dating measures the decay of carbon-14 in once-living material, so it works on charcoal, wood, seeds, shell and bone. Dendrochronology counts and matches the pattern of annual growth rings in timber. Thermoluminescence measures the energy trapped in minerals since they were last heated, which suits pottery, bricks and burnt clay. Statement 4 is wrong: because carbon-14 has a half- life of about 5,730 years, the method is useful only up to about 50,000 years; much older deposits are dated by methods such as potassium-argon.

Statements 1 and 2 are correct. Stratigraphy rests on the law of superposition: in an undisturbed deposit the lower layer was laid down first. Palaeography, the study of the development of scripts, places an undated record in a period because letter forms (for example of Brahmi) changed in recognisable ways over the centuries; this is how many undated inscriptions are assigned to the Mauryan, Kushana or Gupta period. Statement 3 is wrong: stratigraphy gives a relative sequence (earlier and later); absolute dates come from datable objects such as coins and inscribed seals found in a layer, or from scientific methods such as radiocarbon.

Pairs 1 and 2 are correct. Painted Grey Ware (c. 1200-600 BCE), found at sites such as Hastinapur and Ahichchhatra, is associated with the later Vedic settlements of the Ganga-Yamuna doab. Northern Black Polished Ware (c. 700-200 BCE), a glossy luxury ware, marks the cities of the second urbanisation, the Mahajanapadas and the Mauryan age. Pair 3 is wrong: Ochre Coloured Pottery belongs to the second millennium BCE in the Ganga-Yamuna doab and is often found with the Copper Hoards; the mature Harappan cities are marked by their own red ware with black painting.

Hero stones (virakal in Kannada, natukal in Tamil) honour men who died fighting, very often in cattle raids or in defence of a village, and sometimes women who committed sati. Sangam poems already speak of planting such stones, and thousands of inscribed examples survive from about the sixth century CE onwards, with panels showing the fight and the hero being carried to heaven. They are valuable sources for pastoral society, local chiefs and the early development of Tamil and Kannada scripts. Land grants are recorded on copper plates or temple walls, boundary stones are a different category, and Jaina memorials (nishidhi) commemorate religious death, not heroism in battle.

Statements 1, 2 and 4 are correct. The prashasti was composed by Harishena, a high official who calls himself sandhivigrahika (minister for peace and war), kumaramatya and mahadandanayaka. It is in Sanskrit, in the mixed verse-and-prose (champu) style. It lists Samudragupta's campaigns in Aryavarta and the Dakshinapatha and the tributary rulers, but its surviving text does not mention the ashvamedha; his horse sacrifice is known from his ashvamedha-type gold coins and from later Gupta records, which suggests the prashasti was composed before it. The pillar, originally Ashokan, also carries Ashoka's edicts, including the Queen's Edict, and a Persian record of Jahangir.

Major Rock Edict II records two kinds of medical treatment (chikitsa), for humans and for animals, and the planting of herbs, roots and fruits and the digging of wells along roads. It names the southern neighbours Choda, Pandya, Satiyaputa, Keralaputa and Tamraparni (Sri Lanka), and the Greek king Antiyoka and his neighbours. Rock Edict XIII also names the Cholas, Pandyas and Tamraparni, but as lands of dhamma-vijaya, not of medical welfare. Pillar Edict VII sums up welfare works such as banyan trees and rest houses but is a pillar text that does not name the Tamil kingdoms.