Pages from History : Dr. S.R. Rao: A World Class Archaeologist from Karnataka

by Prof. A.V. Narasimha Murthy, former Head, Department of Ancient History & Archaeology, University of Mysore

Dr. Shikaripura Ranganatha Rao, popularly known as Dr. S.R. Rao all over the world, has made not merely Karnataka but our country proud by his contributions to Indian Archaeology, art and culture. It was my good fortune that I was his contemporary and I have learnt a lot from him and his works. Added good fortune is that I have been asked to deliver the third Dr. S.R. Rao Memorial Lecture at Bengaluru arranged by his daughter Dr. Nalini Rao, a Distinguished Professor of World Art in one of the American Universities. This is not an ordinary achievement indeed!

If my memory is right, Dr. Nalini Rao prepared her thesis under my guidance and I am proud of such a brilliant student. Now she has taken the initiative to arrange Dr. S.R. Rao Memorial Foundation for Indian Archaeology, Art and Culture where our Central Minister Ananth Kumar will inaugurate the photo exhibition at Bengaluru (Mythic Society) on Sunday, 24th July 2016.

About Dr. S.R. Rao: Born in 1922 at Anandapuram in Shimoga district, he received BA (Hons) and MA degree from Mysore and Nagpur Universities. Mysore University awarded the D.Lit degree to him for his magnum opus Lothal and Indus Civilisation. After retiring from the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), he met Jawaharlal Nehru, our first Prime Minister and apprised him of the Indus civilisation. Nehru shrugged his shoulders and said that Harappa and Mohenjodaro have gone to Pakistan and what will you do sitting in India. Dr. Rao had a stock reply: But now I have discovered Lothal in Gujarat which is a better maritime site than Harappa.

Immediately Nehru saw that Dr. Rao was conferred with the Jawaharlal Nehru Fellowship. Dr. Rao did not turn back. He researched and wrote the book Lothal and Indus Civilisation. Though lot more research has been done now even today it is considered as the most authentic book on Lothal. When he discovered the dockyard, the first of its kind in the ancient world, he did not like to presume things on his own. He invited technical experts who examined the Lothal dockyard and said that large ships could come down to Lothal and proved that Indus people participated in international trade during that period, which is more than 5,000 years old. The world of scholars were astonished at this great discovery.

Another special feature of Indus sites was the occurrence of small, square or rectangular clay seals which generally had an animal and a pictographic label writing above. Scholars all over the world tried to decipher this script, but nobody could give a satisfactory reading. Dr. Rao also tried to decipher the script by following a scientific methodology and learnt ancient scripts of Babylonian and Assyrian and began comparing the letters. Many scholars had presumed Indus civilisation to be Dravidian and tried to read the script as early Tamil. By this time it was known that Indus civilisation was the creation of the Aryans themselves. Without any presumption

Dr. Rao prepared a concordance of all the symbols found on the Indus seals and analysed them. He found that certain symbols occurred very frequently. Thus he came to the conclusion that Indus people were evolving an alphabet from picture writing. This gave him certain readings like pala, mahapala, baka, mahabaka etc. Thus he showed that they were proto-Samskrita and not Dravidian.

David Diringer, the greatest authority on ancient scripts exclaimed that Dr. Rao has hit the nail on its head. The Russian and Scandinavian scholars agreed to the suggestion of Dr. Rao. Dr. Walter Spink of Michigan University hailed the readings of Dr. Rao’s Indus script. It could safely be said that nobody has improved upon the readings of Dr. Rao. Many scholars suggested that this work deserves a Nobel Prize. Thus Dr. Rao’s contribution to the study of Indus Valley civilisation has not been surpassed by anybody. He was hurt when Dr. Mortimer Wheeler who become the Director-General of ASI wrote a book titled ‘2,500 years of Pakistan’ and even a school child knows that Pakistan was born in 1947. Thus he tried to give a false boost to Pakistan.

Another important contribution of Dr. Rao was the inauguration of under-water archaeology, known as Maritime Archaeology. He may be called as the founder of this branch of study in India. ASI did not show much interest in this branch. Without the active support of the government, he swung into action with the help of corporates interested in it. Many people thought that Krishna’s Dwaraka was a literary bunkum and was based upon myths. But Dr. Rao disagreed with this and went to Dwaraka (Bet Dwaraka) and with the help of deep sea divers went down to the bottom of the water. He collected lots of pottery and other artefacts which were in use at Dwaraka during Lord Krishna’s period and the scholars all over the world were greatly impressed by this. The devotees of Sri Krishna expressed their gratefulness to Dr. Rao for this great discovery. With assistance and guidance from National Institute of Oceanography, Goa, Dr. Rao opened up a new branch to trace the rise and fall of maritime civilisation. This led him to take interest in ancient as well as modern ship-wrecks. Apart from all these, Dr. Rao took interest in murals of Ajanta, Ellora, Badami, Lepakshi, Padmanabhapuram, Mattancherry and traditional paintings of Karnataka. He also gave more interest to conservation of monuments and also beautified the surroundings by gardens and lawns.

Yet another achievement of Dr. Rao is the formation of a Circle Office at Bangalore (Mid – Southern Circle) which was given the responsibility of maintaining monuments in Karnataka. Thus Hampi, Shravanabelagola, Pattadakal, Aihole and other places flourished well under his guidance. When he was in Hampi, he found a stone image of a saint and immediately he identified it as that of Purandaradasa. A workaholic, Dr. Rao did not take any rest and worked hard to spread the message of India through archaeology, art and architecture. When he passed away, condolences poured in from scholars all over the world.

source: http://www.starofmysore.com / Star of Mysore / Home> Feature Articles / July 23rd, 2016

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