Sambodhi 1993 Vol 18

Author(s): J B Shah, N M Kansara
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 85

78
SAMBODHI activity on the Earth. The other is its presentation in the time sequence.
The notion that this search draws a better picture of past human activities than the one that is available in the verbal record of different cultures, forms the basis of this activity in Archaeology. The first aspect of the search of places with archaeological remains for understanding the activities of Man in Nature is the foundation store of Archaeology. When this aspect is further analysed, it points to two different activities. One of them is the search of the sites that preserve the relics and the other is the understanding of the process of the formation of the site.
It is noted that the material remains form the mound. This aspect of the formation of the mounds is noted by Vyāsa in the Mahābhārata XII.225.1.2. It is noted that “All the Movable and Stable life elements get destroyed and become the part of the Earth. When these destroyed forms of life have become the part of the Earth it looks barren like the back of a tortoise."
This observation of the features of destroyed elements is the reversal of the process of creation as indicated in XII.224.74.
Archaeology tries to understand the process of creation through the mounds indicative of the process of the living that is turned into the element of Earth, by a
of the order of the formation of the mounds by excavations and study the materials discovered in this process.
Archaeology from this angle becomes a study of the creation, through the remains of the process of destruction. These process take place in Time and therefore the notions of time or Kāla become important.
It is observed on any archaeological site that the process of beginning, continuity and destruction are observed. However, on the site with a long life, these processes are repeated and, therefore, the processes of regeneration and destruction are also observed. With the basic notion of time as an irreversible aspect of natutre, the observations of the cycles of origin continuity and destruction are treated as different links in a continuous chain.
With our advanced methods of calculating the time-factor at different places, it is known that, the cycles of origin, stability and destruction as well as the repetition by regeneration etc., are well-known. This cyclic phenomenon is again correlated on a linear pattern that suggests that at different places on the habitable globe the cyclic pattern of origin, stability and destruction is a well-known phenomenon.
This cyclic pattern is known to belong to different time-spans and therefore, the relativity of the existance of different sites is also a well-known phenomenon.
Thus, Archaeological activities that are the reversal of the processess of destruction, by both destruction by excavations of the site and preservation of the remains as well as their study on the time-scale are similar at a refined level, to the Human experience of the linear, cyclic and relative patterns of time.