Iqbal Ahmad
While speaking about the archaeological heritage, this land is not far behind to any of the lands of this country, which has got a rich archaeological heritage in terms of its ancient glorious monuments, archaeological sites and artefacts, ancient coins, and epigraphs, but it is dismaying that the maintenance, upkeep and conservation of this heritage has not been maintained on the requisite modern scientific lines. In this context, the little institutions looking after this heritage are not to be solely blamed for their poor upkeep, as these institutions lack basic infrastructure, professional manpower and modern conservation methodology. Since decades together these little institution stood unorganised and have been relying upon the traditional methods of conservation and maintenance. Indeed these little institutions could have performed still a bit good if these have been reorganised with efficient and professional man power and modern maintenance and conservation technologies. As such I would never hold these little institutions wholly and solely responsible for their poor performance in up keeping of this heritage. To be honest it is the responsibility of the complete system, the entire establishment including the civil society which has been watching the heritage mess since for decades together. The system never explored the heritage related problems faced by the concerned institutions and adopted any proper heritage policy to safeguard the scattered heritage of this land and its people. No doubt the heritage conservation and preservation act was passed very earlier in 2010 but I do not think if it was anytime implemented by any of the Governments.
Technically speaking the little institutions looking after the heritage suffers hard at professional and technical levels; these institutions are very poorly equipped with modern technologies and professional manpower. At institutional level , the little organizations needs to be re- organized and strengthened with the professional man power consisting of learned archaeologists, numismatists, art historians, conservationists besides it also requires being equipped well with modern archaeology technology. The annual refresher courses and workshops on archaeology, numismatics, palaeography and conservation, for the working staff shall be conducted at Jammu and Srinagar to enable the working staff to learn the modern up-to-date methods of archaeology and museum conservation, .For this purpose the services of experienced and trained experts shall be hired or loaned. A team of experts shall be constituted who could take stock of working of various institutions entrusted with the task of maintenance of this heritage. The experts should visit the monuments, archaeological sites, museums and repositories and take on spot inspection of these sites. They should take on spot stock of the maintenance, conservation preservation status of the archaeological sites and submit their reports to the establishment.
The story of ancient archaeological and archaeological heritage is here, very long and interesting. Indeed there was a time when the archaeological wealth of Jammu and Kashmir was confined to the literary records, centered upon Sanskrit, Persian and its ancient literature and foreign travel accounts. Much was spoken of the religions edifices of high grandeur and sanctity, but in absence of any archaeological findings, these sources lacked the chronological order. The history and civilization of ancient Jammu and Kashmir was therefore over emphasized presenting a series of perplexing contrasts and problems. But with the advent of archaeological, numismatic and epigraphic researches, the history and culture of ancient Kashmir has been now explored to the large extent and the major chronological links and gapes have also been filled.
The pioneering work in re-discovering the past of Kashmir was undertaken by European missionaries. They undertook systematic geological and archaeological expeditions from the beginning of 19th Century and collected a lot of valuable information on the environmental, geological features, ancient monuments and other archaeological artefacts.
The earliest archaeological explorations and excavations made visible the ruins and remains of wonderful buildings all over the Kashmir valley, which the archaeologists thought were remarkable in terms of its solidity, simplicity and durability, as well as for what Alexander Cunningham, the famous European archaeologist of the 19th century distinguished these by the graceful elegance of their outlines and the massive boldness of their parts. He in his ‘essay on Arian order of architecture as exhibited in temples of Kashmir’ has given a detailed note on ancient architectures of Kashmir. In his this monumental essay he at one place writes:
‘The architectural remains of Kashmir are perhaps the most remarkable of the existing monuments of India, as they exhibit undoubted traces of the influence of Grecian art’
“The characteristic features of the kashmerian architecture are its lofty pyramidal roofs, its trefoil doorways, covered by pyramidal pediments, and the great width of its intercolumniations. That it had been influenced by Greek and Roman styles is evidenced by the close resemblance with the kashmerian columned bears to the classical peristyle of Greece. At the same time the echinos, which is the leading feature of the kashmerian capital, is also the chief member of the Doric capital. It seems that the kashmeri architects borrowed the style from the Indo- Greeks during the time of their control of the Kabul valley and western Punjab”
In the above quoted lines of Alexander Cunningham, it is very much clear that he has got impressed by the architectural heritage of Kashmir and he has made a comparison of these remains with those of the west. Undoubtedly Alexander Cunningham during his stay in Kashmir explored the built heritage of this land and in his descriptive and detailed notes, he makes mention of wonderful massive stone built monuments of the entire Jhelum valley, which included the stone formed monuments at Bunyar , Rampur , Pattan , Parashpura, Pandrathan, Avantipura and Martand. These ruins have been identified as those of ancient monasteries and temples. He has also made mention of the ruined Kanishare of Parahaspura about which he speaks to had been a large and important centre of this land.
Archaeological evidences
The Archaeological evidences of human settlement in Jammu and Kashmir are centuries old. In this land there are found evidences of earliest archaeological sites of Palaeolithic, Neolithic and Harrrapan ages. Several such ancient sites have been identified, while two of these sites have so far been systematically excavated as well. These are the Harrapan site at Manda in Jammu province and Neolithic site at Burzahama in the Kashmir Valley.
There are other ancient archaeological sites found in these two provinces, where from the evidences of Mauryan, Sunga, Indo- Greek, Indo -Scythein , Indo- Parthian, Kushan, Kidera , Hun and Karkota periods (dating from 350 BC to 800 AD) have been found.
On the other hand investigations are on to find out the Archaeological evidences of the human settlement prior to the period when valley of Kashmir was full of water and traditionally called Satisar. The archaeologists of Archaeological Survey of India and state archaeology department besides experts from various departments of Jammu and Kashmir universities are also engaged in undertaking the archaeological and geological investigation of this land. Certain evidence in shape of fossils has been discovered at several places of the Kashmir valley.
In this connection mention may be made of plateaus of villages of Khonmoh, Sumber and Galendar sites of the district Srinagar and Pulwama in Kashmir valley where from the thousands of years old fossil deposits have been discovered.
The earliest fossil discovery was made by the European experts in upper lands of village Khonmoh. Several of these fossil samples have been collected in the Geology and mining section of the SPS Museum at Srinagar and stand already documented. The remains of extinguished animal identified as mammoth were recovered during the trial digs of 1923 and 2001 respectively on the plateaus of Sumber and Galender near the Saffron fields of Pampore. One of these fossil remains of this animal is housed in Srinagar museum while the other recovered in 2001 has been taken to Jammu University.
More recently there have been claims made by two lecturers Dr.Raouf and ManzorJavid of School education department to have identified millions of year’s fossil deposits adjacent to the Ahrabal water fall in District Kulgam.
(The writer is a senior archaeologist)
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