Eternal India Encyclopedia

ARCHAEOLOGY

Eternal India

encyclopedia

Discovery of Dwaraka

Before describing the discovery of Dwaraka, it is necessary to

state briefly why it is of great importance. This is because Krishna

is said to have founded the city. The very mention of the name of

this God-hero brings to one’s memory his teachings in the

Bhagavad Gita.

Krishna was born to Vasudeva and Devaki who were kept pris-

oners in the jail by Kamsa at Mathura (Uttar Pradesh). The child

was carried to Gokula for safety and brought up by Yasoda as her

own child. Mathura, the place where Krishna is believed to have

been born, is presently known as

Krishna Janma Bhumi.

The

exploratory work done here by archaeologists from 1950 to 1980

revealed some traces of proto-historic (PGW) settlements heavily

eroded by the frequently changing course of the river Yamuna. To

mark the holy site of Krishna’s birth a subterranean temple at the

proto-historic habitation level has been built and a cultural centre is

established by the Sri Krishna Janmabhumi Trust.

In the land known as Vraj especially in the villages around

Vrindavana near Mathura Krishna, in exercise of his supreme yogic

lila, decided to play and dance the great rasa in the autumnal moon-

light which attracted the gopis (cowherdesses) or Vraj. It is an ex-

pression of love — a love that binds him to the gopis who symbol-

ize the individual souls,

Jivatmas

: he is the Supreme Soul,

par-

amatmw,

their love is the longing of the individual for the divine.

The music flowing from Krishna’s flute is much more than

simple melody; it is the call of the Divine which pervades the magic

landscape of Vrindavana inviting all creatures to rejoin God in

eternal bliss. Even as a lad Krishna revealed his quality of leader-

ship by rescuing the residents of Gokula to the rock shelters of

Govardana hill.

The

Mahabharata

(Sabha Parva

13.65) clearly states that the

Yadavas migrated to Dwaraka from Mathura as they were har-

assed by the attacks of Jarasandha who was infuriated by the death

of his son-in-law Kamsa at the hands of Krishna.

A question often asked by historians and archaeologists is why

did Krishna choose to take the Yadavas to a far off place like

Dwaraka on the west coast instead of going to the Himalayas or

the Vindhya mountains? The answer is simple. Anarta, the ancient

name of Gujarat, was one of the provinces of the Yadava Kingdom

where his Yadava ancestor Raivata had founded the capital

Kusasthali sometime before, to which there is a reference in the

Mahabharata

itself

(Sabha Parva

13,49-52). He did not want the

Yadavas to live in misery in the forest or desert.

The

Rig Veda

makes mention of the Yadavas in Anarta, the

country named after Anarta, the son of Manu. Thus Krishna pre-

ferred a remote but already known ancestral home for resettling

the Yadavas. Dwaraka being open to the sea commerce brought

wealth to the new settlers. Saurashtra has, throughout history,

acted as a refugee colony. For instance, the Harappans migrated in

several waves from the Indus estuary when Mohenjo-Daro,

Chanhu-Daro and other prosperous towns and cities were de-

stroyed by floods in 1900 B.C. In the early historical period Ksha-

trapas sought shelter in Saurashtra. The persecuted Parsees

migrated from Iran to Gujarat in the 8th century A.D. After the

partition of India the Sindhis from Pakistan also came in very large

numbers to Saurashtra and North Gujarat.

Krishna is said to have founded a city near Kusasthali which

was in ruins and named it Dvaravati or Dwaraka. It was well

fortified and made impregnable. Krishna belonged to the Vrishni

clan, a branch of the Yadavas. There is copious reference in the

Mahabharata

, Harivamsa and other texts to the prosperity and

impregnable character of Dwaraka city. But its prosperity did not

last long. Immediately after Krishna left his mortal frame the city

was swallowed by the sea. At Prabhasa, Vasudeva (Krishna)

warned Arjuna that Dwaraka would be submerged and asked him

to get it vacated. The Mausala Parva of the

Mahabharata

says

that as the city was being vacated by the residents the sea went on

encroaching on it.

The historians and archaeologists were greatly concerned

about the historicity of the

Mahabharata

which has been dubbed as

a myth. A seminar arrived at the conclusion that there is a core of

truth in the epic (Lai and Gupta). The date of the

Mahabharata

has

been discussed by S.B. Roy, Pusalkar and N. Mahadevan after

taking into account the archaeological, astronomical and literary

evidences. The conclusion was that it should be the latter half of

the 15th century B.C. The generally accepted date of the

Ma-

habharata

war is 1424 B.C.

The first attempt to determine the antiquity of Bet Dwaraka

which is also associated with the Krishna legend was made in the

thirties by Hirananda Sastry. He could date it to 2nd century B.C.

on ceramic evidence. In 1963 the Deccan College of Poona exca-

vated the present Dwaraka town.

In their report “Excavations at Dwaraka” (1963) the excava-

tors M.S. Mate and Z.D. Ansari observed that “one can definitely

say that this is the Dwaraka mentioned in the

Mahabharata,

the

Dwaraka Mahatmya

Skanda Purana

and

Ghata Jataka

(Mate

and Ansari 1966). In particular one can say that the Dwaraka

described in such a great detail as a sacred tirtha by the Harivamsa

probably came into existence after the second submergence in the

sea of two earlier Dwarakas because it gives very minute descrip-

tions of so many temples and this could have been only by a writer

who had probably visited Dwaraka and seen the temples”. This

statement runs counter to all known historical evidence because

the

Mahabharata

War took place long before the birth of the

Buddha in the 6th century B.C. and Krishna had been deified by the

8th century B.C. according to the

Chandogya Upanishad,

and the

great grammarian Panini explains a sutra in which the suffix Vun is

used for Vasudeva and Arjuna to indicate divinity. Lastly, there are

several Late Harappan sites within a radius of 20 km from Dwar-

aka, some of which were inhabited in the post-Harappan period,

that is, in the 15th-14th centuries B.C. It is inconceivable that the

port town of Dwaraka with a great tradition would have been left

uninhabited in the 15th century B.C. or even earlier. The modern

town of Dwaraka is situated at the mouth of the Gomati river.

Ancient texts also refer to the same location. Another site known

as Mul Dwaraka which is considered by some as original Dwaraka

was explored by S.R. Rao and Sankalia but no evidence of habita-

tion earlier than 1st century B.C. has been found. Hence its claim

as Krishna Dwaraka could not be sustained.

It was felt necessary to excavate Dwaraka on the nearby island

of Bet Dwaraka in order to establish or reject their identity as

Krishna’s Dwaraka.

An incident that took place gave an opportunity to ascertain the

antiquity of modern Dwaraka. In 1979 a modern two-storied