Braj Basi Lal (born in
JhansiJhansi is a city of Uttar Pradesh state of northern India. Jhansi is a major road and rail junction, and is the administrative seat of Jhansi District and Jhansi Division...
, India in 1921), more known as
B. B. Lal, is a well-known
IndiaIndia, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal...
n archaeologist. He was the Director General of the
Archaeological Survey of IndiaThe Archaeological Survey of India is a department of the Government of India, attached to the Ministry of Culture . It is responsible for archaeological studies and the preservation of archaeological heritage of the country by various acts of the Indian Parliament...
from 1968 to 1972, and has served as President of the World Archaeological Congress. He also worked in for
UNESCOThe United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations established on 16 November 1945...
committees. He received the
Padma BhushanThe Padma Bhushan award is an Indian civilian decoration established 2 January 1954 by the President of India. It stands third in the hierarchy of civilian awards, after the Bharat Ratna and the Padma Vibhushan, but comes before the Padma Shri...
by the
Government of IndiaThe Government of India, also known as the Union Government or the Central Government, was established by the Constitution of India, and is the governing authority of a union of 28 states and seven union territories, collectively called the Republic of India...
in 2000.
He has done excavations in the
Indus Valley CivilizationThe Indus Valley Civilization was a Bronze Age civilization which centred mostly in the western part of the Indian Subcontinent and flourished around the Indus river basin....
with
Mortimer WheelerBrigadier Sir Robert Eric Mortimer Wheeler CH, CIE, MC, FBA, FSA , was one of the best-known British archaeologists of the twentieth century.-Education and career:...
and other archaeologists.
Braj Basi Lal (born in
JhansiJhansi is a city of Uttar Pradesh state of northern India. Jhansi is a major road and rail junction, and is the administrative seat of Jhansi District and Jhansi Division...
, India in 1921), more known as
B. B. Lal, is a well-known
IndiaIndia, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal...
n archaeologist. He was the Director General of the
Archaeological Survey of IndiaThe Archaeological Survey of India is a department of the Government of India, attached to the Ministry of Culture . It is responsible for archaeological studies and the preservation of archaeological heritage of the country by various acts of the Indian Parliament...
from 1968 to 1972, and has served as President of the World Archaeological Congress. He also worked in for
UNESCOThe United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations established on 16 November 1945...
committees. He received the
Padma BhushanThe Padma Bhushan award is an Indian civilian decoration established 2 January 1954 by the President of India. It stands third in the hierarchy of civilian awards, after the Bharat Ratna and the Padma Vibhushan, but comes before the Padma Shri...
by the
Government of IndiaThe Government of India, also known as the Union Government or the Central Government, was established by the Constitution of India, and is the governing authority of a union of 28 states and seven union territories, collectively called the Republic of India...
in 2000.
He has done excavations in the
Indus Valley CivilizationThe Indus Valley Civilization was a Bronze Age civilization which centred mostly in the western part of the Indian Subcontinent and flourished around the Indus river basin....
with
Mortimer WheelerBrigadier Sir Robert Eric Mortimer Wheeler CH, CIE, MC, FBA, FSA , was one of the best-known British archaeologists of the twentieth century.-Education and career:...
and other archaeologists. He has had a spectacularly successful and exemplary archaeological career spanning more than half‑a‑century. He was trained in excavation by the veteran archaeologist, Wheeler at
TaxilaTaxila is an important archaeological site in the Punjab province of Pakistan.It dates back to the Ancient Indian period and contains the ruins of the Gandhāran city of Takshashila an important Vedic/Hindu and Buddhist centre of learning from the 6th century BCEto the 5th century CE...
,
HarappaHarappa is an archaeological site in Punjab, northeast Pakistan, about west of Sahiwal. The site takes its name from a modern village is located near the former course of the Ravi River, some southeast of the site....
and other famous sites in the forties of the last century. Out of his many pupils Wheeler chose Lal to entrust the excavation of the Early Historic site of
SisupalgarhSisupalgarh or Sishupalgarh are ruined fortification in Khurda District in Orissa, India. It is the largest and best preserved early historic fortification in India.-Description:...
in
OrissaOrissa , is a state of India, located on the east coast of India, by the Bay of Bengal. It is the modern name of ancient republican nation of Kalinga, which was invaded by the Indian Emperor Ashoka in 261 BC, that led to a turning point in the Emperor's life when deeply saddened by the bloodshed...
before relinquishing the charge of the Director‑General of Archaeology in India in 1947.
The eminent British archaeologists,
Stuart PiggottStuart Ernest Piggott CBE was a British archaeologist most well known for his work on prehistoric Wessex....
and D.H. Gordon, in their reviews of B. B. Lal’s classic article on the
Copper Hoards of the Gangetic basin (Piggott 1954), and his
Hastinapura excavation report (Gordon 1957), both published in
Ancient India, the annual journal of the Archaeological Survey of India, hailed them as models of research and excavation reporting. In subsequent years Lal excavated the Mesolithic site of Birbhanpur in
West BengalWest Bengal is a state in eastern India. With Bangladesh, which lies on its eastern border, the state forms the ethno-linguistic region of Bengal. To its northeast lie the states of Assam and Sikkim and the country Bhutan, and to its southwest, the state of Orissa...
, the Chalcolithic site of Gilund and the Harappan site of
KalibanganKalibangān is a town located at on the left or southern banks of the Ghaggar , identified by some scholars with Saraswati River in Tehsil Pilibangān, between Suratgarh and Hanumāngarh in Hanumangarh district, Rajasthan, India 205 km. from Bikaner...
, both in
RajasthanRājasthān is the largest state of the Republic of India in terms of area. It encompasses most of the area of the large, inhospitable Great Indian Desert , which has an edge paralleling the Sutlej-Indus river valley along its border with Pakistan...
, and the
RamayanaThe Ramayana is an ancient Sanskrit epic. It is attributed to the Hindu sage Valmiki and forms an important part of the Hindu canon . The Ramayana is one of the two great epics of India, the other being Mahabharata...
sites of
AyodhyaAyodhya is an ancient city of India, the old capital of Awadh, in the Faizabad district of Uttar Pradesh. Ayodhya is described as the birth place of Hindu god Shri Ram, and the capital of Kosala Kingdom. This Hindu holy city is described as early as in the Hindu Epics. During the time of Gautama...
, Bharadwaj Ashram, Nandigram, Chitrakut and Shringaverapura in
Uttar PradeshUttar Pradesh , [often referred to as U.P.] is a state located in the northern part of India. With a population of over 190 million people,...
.
For his academic achievements and the high quality of his scholarship Professor Lal has been honoured by many prestigious institutions in India and abroad. In 2000, the President of the Indian Republic conferred upon him the coveted title of Padmabhushan.
Works
- The Earliest Civilization of South Asia (1997)
- India 1947-1997: New Light on the Indus Civilization (1998)
- Lal, B.B., (1984) Frontiers of the Indus Civilization.1984.
- Lal, B.B. 2005. The Homeland of the Aryans. Evidence of Rigvedic Flora and Fauna & Archaeology, New Delhi, Aryan Books International.
- Lal, B.B. 2002. The Saraswati Flows on: the Continuity of Indian Culture. New Delhi: Aryan Books International
External links