The search for Indraprastha: What archaeology says about the links of Delhi with the ancient capital of the Pandavas

What is the history of the ancient city of Indraprastha, and what does the historical record show about the connection of the area around today’s Delhi with the epic war that many historians and archaeologists believe to have taken place around 1000 BCE?

Looking for Indraprastha

Over the last seven decades, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) has carried out seven rounds of excavations at Purana Qila for evidence that would establish a link between the area and the events described in the Mahabharata.

It is believed that the 16th century fort, built in parts by the Mughal emperor Humayun and the Afghan Sher Shah Suri, stands at the site of the city of Indraprastha, the capital of the Pandavas.

The first excavation at the site was carried out by archaeologist B B Lal in 1954, but it was not until 2014 that the ASI discovered fragments of pottery known as Painted Grey Ware or PGW that is typical of the Iron Age Indo-Aryan culture of the western Gangetic plain and the Ghaggar-Hakra valley, and is usually dated between c. 1100 BCE and c. 500-400 BCE.

Site of the excavation carried out in 2023 (Express Photo)

Satarupa Bal, an assistant archaeologist at the site, had told The Indian Express last year that the discovery, made in July 2014 at the fag end of the ASI’s fourth dig at Purana Qila, was like “finding gold”.

“Right before closing down for the season, we decided to make one last attempt in a small trench… just in case. And we got lucky! It was like finding gold,” she had said. For under a layer of compact yellow fluvial deposit, lay a collection of PGW sherds.

PGW and Mahabharata

Does the finding of PGW sherds at the Purana Qila site establish that the fort stands at the site of the historical Indraprastha?

PGW is smooth, grey-coloured pottery – mostly open-mouthed bowls and dishes with geometric patterns – that was produced by sophisticated firing techniques. The dating of PGW broadly matches some of the wider estimates of when the Mahabharata was composed. While some scholars suggest that the epic was composed between c. 400 BCE and c. 400 CE, there are others who place it more narrowly between the mid second century BCE and first century CE.

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Vasant Swarnkar, who led the ASI’s 2014 excavation, had told The Indian Express last year that PGW formed the lowest cultural deposit in each of the other Mahabharata-related sites that B B Lal had excavated – such as Hastinapur, Tilpat, and Kurukshetra. In Swarnkar’s understanding, therefore, the presence of PGW at Purana Qila provided evidence for the site’s connection with the Mahabharata.

“With this find of PGW we can claim with certainty that the history of Delhi can be traced back to 1200 BCE. It was well established by B B Lal that PGW is associated with the Mahabharata period, so now we can say that some activities of the Mahabharata period happened in this site. The Purana Qila excavation also proves that there has been continuous habitation in Delhi from 1200 BCE till today,” Swarnkar said.

Not all archaeologists are as sanguine as Swarnkar.

“The only logic of connecting the Mahabharata sites to PGW is that they were found in these other sites that feature in the epic. But then, that’s how most things are settled in history,” R S Bisht, who retired as Joint Director General of the ASI, and is best known for leading excavations at multiple Indus Valley Civilisation sites, told The Indian Express.

Y S Rawat, the current Director General of ASI, said: “It is hard to connect PGW with Mahabharata because we don’t even know when the events in the Mahabharata actually happened.”

Rawat had noted that in many of the sites excavated by Lal, cultural levels older than PGW had been found. “As an archaeologist, I will not say that this is a Mahabharata site,” Rawat said.

According to historian Upinder Singh, the presence of PGW at the sites related to the story of the Mahabharata simply suggests that these sites were “inhabited from about 1000 BCE onwards and that people who lived there shared a similar material culture”.

In fact, PGW had also been found at many sites that were not connected with the Mahabharata, she had told The Indian Express last year. “For instance, in and around Delhi itself, PGW has been reported from places such as Salimgarh, Majnu ka Tila, Bhorgarh, Mandoli, Kharkhari Nahar, Jhatikra, Gordon Highlanders’ Column near Badli ki Sarai, Bankner and Chhansa – all in Delhi – and in Sihi in Gurgaon, Bisrakh in Greater Noida, Loni in Ghaziabad, and Bhopani in Faridabad,” she said.

Singh’s conclusion: “The occurrence of PGW in itself does not necessarily mean that a site is connected with the Mahabharata story. It means that these are among many ancient, roughly contemporaneous settlements, based on a broad similarity of material culture.”