Faridabad: Climbing the Aravallis in Haryana’s Mangar Bani village in 2021, Sunil Harsana discovered the oldest palaeolithic site in the subcontinent, dating back thousands of years. The moment was a turning point in his life as well as in India’s history.
“I was conducting a wildlife survey on leopards when I first encountered archaeology. From then on, I started documenting the Aravallis with an archaeological lens. My findings have taken the history of India to far back,” said 35-year-old Harsana, standing with a bamboo stick in hand and pointing at cupules, a rock art motif on Aravallis near the Delhi-Haryana border.
Across India, a dedicated band of amateur archaeologists and explorers has unearthed stunning discoveries, driven solely by passion. A school teacher, a fisherman, an engineer, a journalist and even a school dropout, these unsung heroes have shed light on the rich cultural heritage and reshaped the understanding of India’s historical narrative. Without formal training or funding, they have braved rugged terrain, deciphered ancient scripts and uncovered hidden treasures — from West Bengal’s Sundarban, Rajasthan’s Bundi, Maharashtra’s Konkan, Haryana’s Aravallis to Tamil Nadu’s Sati temples and Eelam coins.
Sunil Harsana from Haryana, Om Prakash Kukki from Rajasthan, Biswajit Sahu from West Bengal, Amit Rai Jain from Uttar Pradesh, Sudhir Risbud from Maharashtra, and V Rajaguru from Tamil Nadu have dedicated precious years of their lives to the cause. Finally, some acknowledgement is coming.
A four-day national conference on public archaeology titled Archaeology Beyond Academics and Administration is scheduled to be held in Ratnagiri, in December. To be organised by the Konkan Geoglyphs and Heritage Research Centre, it will be the first such gathering bringing together archaeologists, citizen researchers, and local communities.
“This is a chance to see how ordinary citizens can play extraordinary roles in preserving our heritage,” reads an advertisement of the conference.
“These people who work in interior areas are the first ones to find things before it reaches ASI,” said Shubha Majumdar, superintendent archaeologist at ASI.
We are doing what ASI is unable to do. We provide resources to ASI at the local level and because of that, discoveries like Sinauli came to the world which changed the history of India.
—Amit Rai Jain, history enthusiast from Uttar Pradesh
A Sundarban fisherman, a passionate schoolteacher
57-year-old fisherman Biswajit Sahu’s home in West Bengal’s Sundarban resembles a museum. Of the five rooms, three are filled with more than 10 thousand artefacts such as stone tools, terracotta objects, and pottery, which he collected while fishing over 40 years.
Born in Gobardhanpur area of Sundarban, Sahu’s passion for collecting artefacts took a fresh turn when he was 16. A visit to a Kolkata hospital for the treatment of appendicitis landed him at the nearby Indian Museum where he encountered objects similar to what he had seen while fishing. Upon his return to Sunderban, he actively started looking for such objects. He had realised their importance and value.
Four decades later, his house is a must-visit reference point, and is flocked by professors, archaeologists and historians. Sahu maintains a visitors’ book. He even registered his house as a museum—the Gobardhanpur Sundarban Pratna Sangraha Sala.
“Sahu collected many valuable archaeological artefacts, mainly from Dhanchi island. His findings can play a significant role for the reconstruction of the ancient history of coastal Bengal as well as eastern India,” said Tapan Kumar Das, professor in the Department of Ancient India History and Culture at Calcutta University. Das first visited Sahu in November 2015.
In 2016, PK Mishra, former regional director (eastern region) ASI visited Sundarban with his team and met the fisherman by chance. Mishra submitted a 35-page report to the central government and sought permission for the explorations after identifying seven sites across the delta that hold evidence that the region’s history goes back to the Mauryan period.
According to Das, Sahu’s collection indicates that human settlement in the Sundarbans dates back to the Mesolithic or Neolithic periods. His findings include Brahmi inscriptions indicative of the Mauryan period (321-185 BC), terracotta figures, bone tools, beads, seals, sculptures etc.
ASI has informally identified around 20 sites in the Sundarbans but there is no detailed exploration yet. Sahu’s work helps understand the region’s history from much before it was mainstreamed by the British Empire.
V Rajaguru from Tamil Nadu’s Ramanathapuram district has no formal training in archaeology. But this government schoolteacher has brought his district on the archaeological map of the state.
In 2010, the DMK government announced the formation of heritage clubs in schools. When Rajaguru searched for a local topic to educate students, he did not find anything. “Because of that, I started my archaeological quest with the help of my students, looking for archaeological traces, coins and inscriptions,” he said.
In 2015, his team discovered Sati temples and Eelam coins issued by Rajaraja Chola I. In 2016, he found a ninth-century Jain temple with sculptures and carved stone images of Parshavanath—the 23rd Tirthankar of Jainism.
“So far I have found more than 100 new inscriptions, including the inscription of a synagogue near Ramanathapuram,” he said.
Synagogue inscription, according to Rajaguru, has been found for the first time in India which is a source to know about the Jews who lived in India. “When this inscription was found, it travelled all the way to Israel and received worldwide attention, which made me very happy,” he said, adding that he got no support from ASI.
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Konkan’s geoglyphs, and West UP on archaeological map
In the late 1980s, Sudhir Risbud, now an engineer and avid bird watcher, first came across the pattern on the rocks spread over various sites in Ratnagiri. He had no idea that he was seeing 10,000-year-old geoglyphs.
Unesco describes Geoglyphs as “rock art produced on the surface earth either by positioning rocks, rock fragments or by reduction technique i.e. carving out or removing part of a rock surface to form a design.”
In 2010, Risbud formed a group called Adgalnavarche Konkan (Unexplored Konkan). But the real journey started in 2012 with the help of locals. In 2015, he met an 80-year-old shepherd at Barsu Sada who helped him discover the geoglyphs.
“We discovered 42 figures at that site and these things were coming in front of the world for the first time,” said Risbud. His team till now discovered more than 2,500 geoglyphs across Konkan’s 250 sites.
“These are our heritage, so conserving them is important as well as challenging,” said Risbud.
In 2017, the state archaeology department started exploring the sites and in August this year, the Maharashtra government declared the six geoglyphs sites in Ratnagiri as protected monuments under the Maharashtra Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act 1960.
Risbud said only pride and paisa (money through tourism) can save heritage. “More than 2 lakh tourists are coming to see these geoglyphs,” he said, adding that it’s a discovery of the entire human mankind.
“This is going to write a different page in history because the scale of the geoglyphs is unique, nothing of this size has been found anywhere else.”
Risbud is the convenor of the upcoming conference on Public Archaeology. “Some of the most remarkable discoveries in Indian archaeology have been made by individuals who are not formally trained in the field,” reads a concept note of the event.
While it’s geoglyphs that interest Risbud, for 46-year-old Amit Rai Jain, unearthing more information on a Mahabharata site is the mission.
Jain claims that his discoveries and efforts have shed light on the culture and history of western UP. In 1994, he founded Shahjad Rai Research Institute in Baraut, a repository of 13,000 valuable manuscripts and ancient coins in Baghpat. He made contributions to two significant excavations of the area — Sinauli and Lakshagraha.
Jain said that after years of pleading before the culture minister and ASI officials, the ASI started excavation in 2018 at Barnava, which according to the legend, is the site of the Lakhshagrah mentioned in the Mahabharata. The excavation report is not published yet but Jain claims the cultural sequence here is the same as what BB Lal had found during the excavation at Hastinapur in 1951-52.
“We are doing what ASI is unable to do. We provide resources to ASI at the local level and because of that, discoveries like Sinauli came to the world which changed the history of India,” said Jain who has written more than 20 books and holds a Master’s degree in five subjects.
The archaeology enthusiast said that more than 80 people have done research on the collection of manuscripts, coins and artefacts present in his institute and currently, the digitisation of about 13 thousand manuscripts is going on.
Discovery Channel is making an hour-long episode on Jain’s contribution to its History Hunter program.
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Rock and cave paintings of Aravallis
Aravallis is too untouched for decades despite its archaeological importance and proximity to Delhi where all the top ASI officials sit. Haryana has always been called the land of Harappan civilisation but now evidence from even earlier times is emerging.
Harsana, known as the guardian of Mangar Bani in forest and archaeology circles, said it would have remained untouched had a video not been made by the Indian Wildlife Club in May 2021 — just one month after his findings. There are less than 2,000 views on the video but its impact is huge.
“That video changed everything. Because of that, ASI noticed these sites for the first time and from then, half-a-dozen times officials visited and documented the site,” said Harsana, showing the video on YouTube.
Harsana has a Bachelor’s degree in journalism but never pursued it as a profession. He runs an eco-club educating children about Aravallis’ biodiversity. His archaeological quest is on and also the struggle to get a detailed study and preservation of these sites done as many are open-air sites. A proposal for research at the Aravallis Mangar Bani site has been pending approval since 2021.
Harsana has worked for more than a decade for the conservation of the region from illegal mining and developments. Conservation of pre-historic figurines, animals, and foliage is his next goal. And Harsana wants to equip himself for the job at hand. He is now pursuing a degree in anthropology from IGNOU.
Rajasthan’s Bundi is 400 km from Faridabad and surrounded by Aravalli hills on the course of river Chambal. It’s home to many pre-historic sites.
69-year-old halwai-turned-amateur archaeologist Om Prakash Kukki discovered more than 100 rock painting sites in the Hadoti region of Rajasthan. His journey started in the 1980s with the search for coins and it is going on to date. However, there is no attempt from ASI to conserve the sites.
Giving recognition to such people can prove to be dangerous because many times such people are also found involved in the smuggling of artefacts. Therefore, ASI keeps a distance from them but keeps an eye on their activities.
—ASI official, New Delhi
Kukki, a school dropout discovered the longest-running rock painting site covering about 40 km. In his quest, he also found ostrich eggshells, copper age mounds and stone tools. He donated most of the artefacts to Kota, Jaipur and Bundi museums and he complains that he has not been given credit anywhere except at Bundi.
“The rock paintings discovered by me after 1995 are from the chalcolithic, neolithic and Mesolithic period,” said Kukki, recalling his first discovery of rock painting in the Rameshwar Mahadev area after a search of three years in October 1997. Rameshwar Mahadev area is 16 km from Bundi.
Kukki was honoured at the district level in 1998.
“I have discovered all in yayavari (nomadism). Since childhood, I have loved ruins and deserted places. Whenever I get a chance, I set out for new exploration,” said Kukki, who calls himself a freelance archaeologist on Facebook. But it hasn’t been an easy road for Kukki. Many times, he had to face mafias in the Aravallis.
He is guide to professors, archaeologists, historians, zoologists, YouTubers and general visitors whose interest in cave paintings brings them to Bundi. In December 2023, travel vlogger Harish Bali made a video on rock paintings of Bundi featuring Kukki. It has 176,000 views.
“This way I fulfil my hobby and also earn some money,” said Kukki, adding that over the last four decades, he continuously read archaeological stuff across the world, especially on rock cave paintings. “Koi maa ke pet se nahi sikhta. Maine prakriti se sikha hai (No one learns from the mother’s womb. I have learnt from nature).”
Kukki recalled the visit of Austria-based rock painting expert Ervin Neumayer in early 2000. “He knew about me from the Deccan College and I took him around all the places on my Bajaj 150 scooter. His famous book Lines on the Stone published in the mid-90s gave me a great understanding of rock paintings,” said Kukki.
But Kukki’s most admired finding is a painting of Pañca-Vṛṣṇi Vīras, which he discovered in 1999. They were finally acknowledged last year by ASI’s Jaipur Circle Superintendent Archaeologist Vinay Gupta.
“When I saw that image on Facebook, I immediately understood its significance, which Kukki had not understood for two decades,” said Gupta who visited the site with Kukki before writing a paper titled Vṛṣṇis in Ancient Art and Literature. Gupta acknowledged Kukki in his paper and mentioned him as an archaeology enthusiast.
The Vṛṣṇis constitute one of the most important groups in Mahābhārata, and Vṛṣṇi is the clan in which the most famous of the epic’s characters, Vāsudeva-Kṛṣṇa, was born.
However, veteran archaeologist DV Sharma holds an exclusive view of who an archaeologist is and who isn’t.
“Archaeology is a field training profession and people like Kukki and Jain cannot be placed in this category. Kukki is very knowledgeable but he can’t tell the features of his discoveries,” said Sharma, adding that calling them “collectors” or “explorers” is more appropriate.
Gupta, however, said not all big discoveries are made by mature or skilled archaeologists. “Often these people do not get credit which is wrong.”
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Limited recognition, no formal system for citizen explorers
In July this year, Haryana’s archaeology department came up with a comic book titled Our Haryana: Prehistoric Period. Harsana is the protagonist of the book who teaches archaeology to two kids.
“He has been more like a cape crusader for the forests of Faridabad and Gurugram. It is because of him that today there are more than 500 prehistoric sites that have been documented so far,” wrote Banani Bhattacharya, deputy director of the Department of Archaeology and Museums, Haryana in the book.
The Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts also came up with a book — An Introduction to Rock Art of Faridabad District — in Hindi and Harsana has been made the co-author.
Sahu’s also got a citation of excellence from ASI’s Kolkata circle in 2017 for a vast collection of archaeological remains, which throw light on the history of Sundarbans.
While Kukki’s work over the years became a part of various competitive exams in Rajasthan. The history buff was credited in the Bundi’s gazetteer and is often invited to seminars. But Kukki recalled that he had to fight for several years to get the credit for giving the artefact to the Bundi Museum, and only then in 2017, his name was written in small letters.
In 2017, Rajaguru was given the Young Archaeologist Award and a cash prize of Rs 25,000 on behalf of the Pandya Nadu Centre for Historical Research patronned by Thangam Thennarasu.
But not all amateur archaeologists find recognition. “Professors and archaeologists take information from me and go away without giving me credit,” said Kukki.
According to the ASI, there is a limited count of these archaeology explorers and there is no official group integrating them. ASI have their own fear in mind.
“Giving recognition to such people can prove to be dangerous because many times such people are also found involved in the smuggling of artefacts. Therefore, ASI keeps a distance from them but keeps an eye on their activities,” said a senior ASI official in Delhi.
But Kukki summarised his journey using lyrics from an old Hindi song: “Jaate the Japan pahunch gaye chin samajh gaye na (Going to Japan but reached China)” — he never planned for the archaeology but fate brought him here.
(Edited by Anurag Chaubey)