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JAIN JOURNAL : Vol-XXXIV, No. 4 April 2000 yet to ascertain when they were demolished,” he said, clearly voicing the premise of his project but hedging on whether it was the Mughals or a Hindu invader of a previous period who was responsible for the wide-scale destruction.
Says historian Harbans Mukhia, who specialises on Medieval India and plans to take a trip to the site : "I'm not surprised by the findings. Medieval society worked in a different manner. Demolitions in that age were conducted as an act of conquest or as an act of rebuilding. One needs to see them in the right perspective."
The excavation at Bir Chha-bili-ka-Tilla is fascinating for more reasons. It shows layers of civilizational deposits, beginning from 2nd Century A.D. (a medium-sized redstone figure of Ambika with an infant Ganesha on her lap and Kartikeya on right side) to 9-10th Century Jain sculptures (a Saraswati from the Gurjar Pratihara dynasty).
However, more than the unique Saraswati (incidentally, dressed only in ornaments) is the 60-cm redstone kund in which 23 of the other sculptures were found dumped, including a black marble Tirthankara.
"We just picked them up one by one. Obviously, they were disposed of in a hurry," a woman archaeologist from Manipur at the site pointed out, as she brushed away the fine dust accumulated on the ancient structure.
From The New Indian Express, Chennai, Wednesday, February 16, 2000
by Santwana Bhattacharya.
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