Vaishali Abhinandan Granth

SR No.: 012088
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Yogendra Mishra
Publisher: Research Institute of Prakrit Jainology and Ahimsa
Publication Year: 1985
Total Pages: 592
Language: Hindi, English
Classification: Smruti_Granth
File Size: 17 MB

Page 188

The Glory that was Vaisali 147 and the latest believed to belong to the late Kusana and early-Gupta age. In the core of the earliest defences were a few grey pot-sherds with paintings, identical pottery, having been found with the N. B. P. Ware in a habitation site as well. A trench, 135 ft. long and 21 ft. wide, at one of the highest points in the south-eastern corner of the fort, revealed that the defences fell into three Periods. In period I, the defence-wall was made of baked bricks, as evidenced by thick brick debris, and possibly belonged to the Sunga period, as it rested on a deposit with N. B. P. Ware and wares associated with it. The debris suggested that the breadth of this wall had been about 20 ft. in thickness. In Period II, the defences consisted of a massive rampart, 68 ft. in width at the base, 21 ft. in width at the extant top and 13 ft. in extant height; it was made of earth, the digging of which left a moat around the fort. A sealing of Agnimitra found in one of the post-rampart layers, with characters of the 2nd century B. C., was a pointer to the date of the erection of the rampart. In Period III, probably of the late Kusana and early-Gupta age, a brick rampart, 9 ft. wide was constructed, with military barracks, some of them built of bricks measuring 14" x 9"x2" at least in the southeastern corner of the fort; spear and arrowheads and other iron implements unearthed from the area of the barracks proved that they had been used by soldiers. A few Kusana coins were found in this area. The open space between the barracks and the defence-wall, about 30 ft. wide, might have been used as a road. In some trenches excavated within the fort a network of structures belonging to three Periods, was met with. Period I, with but a single structure of bricks measuring 19'' x 101" X 3' probably belonged to the Sunga age. Period II, associated with the sprinkler and deep bowl and probably attributable to the Kusana age, bad extensive brick buildings; one of the walls was traced to a length of 77 ft. Period III, which yielded Gupta sealings again had a substantial brick wall running north-south over a length of 57 ft. with rooms of varying dimensions attached to it. The building represented by them probably had a roof of tiles, fragments of which were found in the debris. A few broken pottery jars, in a few cases placed vertically one above the other, similar to those in Period III, of Hastinapura, were found in a trench.