Pathik 2003 Vol 43 Ank 10 11 12

SR No.: 535516
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Bhartiben Shelat, Subhash Bramhabhatt
Publisher: Mansingji Barad Smarak Trust
Publication Year: 2003
Total Pages: 168
Language: Gujarati
Classification: Magazine, India_Pathik, & India
File Size: 11 MB

Page 13

independent thinking will be stunted. But to an uninitiated, he would explain even the most intricate details. In our excavation camps, he would gladly take school children round the site and explain them significance of artifacts. It was his constant endeavour to take Archaeology to the masses and hence had written, in Hindi, Marathi and Gujarati. This made him the most well-known archaeologist in India. People from every nook and corner writing to him and supplying him information. His reasoning was that we are spending public money and people have every right to know what we are doing with it. It is for this he organized cxhibitions at excavated sites which were a roaring success.
Nor is this all. He was also alive to public issues which endanger the unity of the coundry, such as linguistic states, communal strife and what not. He frequently was writing letters to Sakal, a Marathi daily of Pune and Times of India, Bombay. His opinions forthright and without any platitudes. As a crusader he was undaunted and was steadfast in his views.
A distinguishing quality which I have found in him during my thirty years' association with him is that all through his life he was very receptive to new ideas. A casc in point is now Archacology. Revolutionary change began to take place in archaeological method and theory from 1962 and some of us were cnthralled by them. Dr. Sankalia was also alive to them and gave lectures on New Archaeology which are published in a book form. This indeed is a rare quality which is conspicuously absent among Indians who have an unshakable faith in bābā-vākyam-pramāņam. As a person he was always cheerful, but he was psesimistic about archacology in India. Wanton destruction of ancient sites and rakpant smuggling of antiquities made him sad. We have to agree with him that our past has no future."
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His demise on 28-1-1989 at the age of 80 was a great loss to the field of Archaeology. He will be remembered for ever through his outstanding contributions to Indian Archaeology*
+ Reprinted from History and Archaeology : Prof. H.D. Sankaliya Felicitation Vol
ume with few changes. * By the editors
lase Quilts - 7440S-24]"22-2442*42, 2003 • 8