From Asiatic Society to Archaeological Survey of India: The long journey to map the historicity of subcontinent

In the rich socio-cultural, religious landscape of India, the number of structures of historical importance are a lot more than those listed under the ASI. Although the process of listing a monument under the ASI is an ongoing process, a majority of them were brought under its protection years before the Independence of the country. The survey and examination of the monuments were carried out by the Europeans and British officials who were curious to map the historicity of India and thereby founded the ASI in 1861.

The survey of monuments before the ASI

The earliest people to document the built heritage of India, long before the ASI was established, were the European travellers in the 16th century. Archaeologist Dilip Chakrabarti in his book, A history of Indian Archaeology: The beginning to 1947 (1988), writes that these references were of two kinds. The first were the observations on the extant temples of the period and the other were those on the monuments of Western India, particularly the ones at Elephanta, Ellora and Kanheri. The systematic scholarly attention to the archaeology of India started only from the middle of the 18th century.

From the mid-18th century, the first accurate descriptions of monuments began to appear along with research on the historical geography of the country. The French Indologist, Anquetil du Perron, for instance, is known to have minutely studied the rock cut caves of Ellora in 1758 along with measuring their dimensions.

The South Indian temples were a major focus of interest to French scholars of the period. The explorer Pierre Sonnerat, who visited India between 1774 and 1781, is credited to have provided the first concise description of the gopura (gateway) of a South Indian temple. The gopuras were of particular interest to the European antiquarians because of the historical connections they drew between them and the Egyptian pyramids.

The gopuras were of particular interest to the European antiquarians because of the historical connections they drew between them and the Egyptian pyramids.

In 1784, British Indologist Sir William Jones established the Asiatic Society in Calcutta. The establishment of the Asiatic Society was in keeping with the scientific spirit that had emerged in Britain in the 18th century. Jones, for that matter, owed the idea of the society to the Society of Arts that was founded in Britain in 1754. The Asiatic Society aimed to inquire into the history and antiquities, the arts, sciences and literature of Asia. This was happening at a time when India was increasingly turning into a point of philosophical interest among scholars of the West.

However, Jones and his contemporaries working for the Asiatic Society were not archaeologists. They were less interested in observing the antiquities and monuments of India, and more keen on learning the history and language of India and connecting it to the larger Biblical notions of the origins of human civilisation and culture. In that sense, till about the mid-19th century there were very few reports on discoveries of ancient monuments and sites. The few findings carried out during the period included a Buddhist site discovered by Jonathan Duncan at Varanasi, the excavations of megalithic graves near Hyderabad by Captain Robert Young, and the exploration of Mahabalipuram near Madras.

From the 1830s there was an increase in the number of archaeological writings, with specific interest in individual sites. This was largely due to the efforts of James Princep who was appointed as Secretary of the Asiatic Society in Calcutta between 1832 and 1838. Princep is credited to have made Indian archaeological work more data oriented. But his biggest contribution was in deciphering ancient inscriptions. He wrote extensively on inscriptions from Central India, East Bengal, Andhra, Tibet, and the north western part of the subcontinent. His crowning achievement though was the reading of the ancient Brahmi script and deciphering the inscriptions of the Mauryan king Ashoka.

This was also the time when several Buddhist sites and antiquities were discovered in the northwest in light of the emerging evidence of the contact of this region with the Graeco-Roman world.

The need for an archaeological survey of India and the establishment of the ASI

By 1851, the British government in India saw the need for a systematic archaeological survey of the country. By then the basic nature of the monuments and historical sites of India was well understood. Consequently, the ASI was established in 1861. Alexander Cunningham, a protege of Princep, was appointed as the first director-general of ASI.

Cunningham was appointed to undertake a systematic survey of ancient and medieval monuments and sites in India. He largely followed the footsteps of the Chinese pilgrim Hiuen Tsang (Xuanzang) and in his two tours (1861-65 and 1871-85) as director-general of the ASI he explored a great part of North India.

Alexander Cunningham (Wikimedia Commons)

Archaeologist Amalananda Ghosh in his work, An Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology (1990), notes that Cunningham was the first to excavate Harappa but failed to recognise its cultural content or significance. Among the other major achievements of Cunningham were the identification of Bairat, Kosambi, Nalanda, Shravasthi, Taxila and Vaishali.

The ASI was abolished in 1865 and reopened again in 1870 with Cunningham as its director-general once again. He retained the post till he retired in 1885. During this period he produced 24 reports containing a trove of information on the structures of historical significance in India.

The appointment of John Marshall as the director-general in 1902 ushered in a new phase of activity in the ASI. In the first two decades of the 20th century, excavations were carried out at Bhita (Uttar Pradesh), Charsada (Khyber Pakhtunwa province of Pakistan), Nalanda and Pataliputra (Bihar), Sanchi (Madhya Pradesh), and Sravasthi (Uttar Pradesh) among others. While these excavations were very significant, they were practically put in the shade when in 1921-22 preliminary trial diggings at Harappa and Mohenjo Daro revealed a forgotten civilisation that pushed back the beginnings of Indian cultural history to the third millennium BCE. For the next decade large scale excavations and field surveys were carried out in these two regions.

It is worth noting that the ASI at the time of its conception was established with the aim of surveying and documenting Indian historical remains. By the early decades of the 20th century, the need was felt by the government to also make provisions for the conservation and protection of such structures of historical importance. Consequently, the Ancient Monuments Preservation Act was passed in 1904 with the objective of “the preservation of ancient monuments, for the exercise of control over traffic in antiquities and over excavation in certain places, and for the protection and acquisition in certain cases of ancient monuments and of objects of archaeological, historical or artistic interes.” In its amended form it is called the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act (or AMASR Act) (1958).

Vasant Swarankar, Director of Conservation at ASI, explains that since 1904, the Act has allowed thousands of monuments to be brought under its protection and that it is an ongoing process. A monument in Murshidabad, West Bengal, was one of the first to be listed under the act in 1906. In 1920, a large group of more than 700 monuments were declared protected. The last ones to be listed happened as recently as July 2020 when two Harappan period sites at Dholavira, Gujarat were brought under the aegis of the ASI.

The process of listing a monument under the ASI involves regular field surveys by the ASI officials. “Sometimes we also get petitions from private individuals to protect a monument in their locality. In that case, our team would first examine the monument to find out about its historicity and to take a call on whether it is of national and historical significance. In many cases the process can take up to several years,” Swarankar says.

In case a monument is felt to be of local historical importance, but not of national significance, it is brought under the protection of the state archaeology department instead of the ASI. An example of this is the Mehrauli Archaeological Park in New Delhi which contains over 100 historically significant structures. Some among them such as the Jamali Kamali mosque and tomb and Balban’s tomb are listed under the ASI, whereas a large majority of them come under the protection of the Delhi State Archaeology Department.

Swarankar explains that once a monument is listed under the ASI, causing any damage to it becomes punishable by law, and no construction or mining activities can be carried out within 100 metres radius of the monument.