Archaeology after excavation : Ayodhya
By, Mandal, D. And Shereen Ratnagar
Publisher: Tulika Books
Class No.: 934 MAN
Accession No.: 021959
Year: 2007
Pages: 136 p.

The controversy over the history of a small site in the city of Ayodhya has been a blot on the recent history of India, not least because it has led to the deaths of hundreds of people. Was there indeed a temple commemorating the birth of the god Ram under the Mosque built by a general of Babur? For many who were not drawn into one or other position, this began to look like a matter of ideology rather than fact. This, until the time when the High Court of Allahabad directed the Archeological Survey of India to open up the ground under the Mosque, by then broken down by the vandals of 1992, to search for temple remains. The Archaeological Survey excavated the site of six months in 2003, and submitted its Report the same year. The Report gave the suggestion that there are traces of a pillared temple in strata under the Mosque. While this book places on record the reasons why two scholars conclude that claims about the temple are not credible, in the broader sense it also indicates why attempts to ‘restore’ holy places to their ‘original’ owners can be self-defeating projects.

In this book two archaeologists discuss the excavated data and the presentation and interpretation of these data by the Archaeological Survey.