The archaeology of Ayodhya concerns the excavations and findings in the Indian city of Ayodhya in the state of Uttar Pradesh, much of which surrounds the Babri Mosque location.
British-era studies
In 1862–63, Alexander Cunningham, the founder of Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), conducted a survey of Ayodhya. Cunnigham identified Ayodhya with Sha-chi mentioned in Fa-Hien's writings, Visakha mentioned in Xuanzang's writings and Saketa mentioned in Buddhist legends. According to him, Gautama Buddha spent six years at this place. Although Ayodhya is mentioned in several ancient Hindu texts, Cunningham found no ancient structures in the city. According to him, the existing temples at Ayodhya were of relatively modern origin. Referring to legends, he wrote that the old city of Ayodhya must have been deserted after the death of Brihadbala "in the great war" around 1426 BCE. When King Vikramāditya of Ujjain visited the city around first century CE, he constructed new temples at the spots mentioned in Ramayana. Cunningham believed that by the time Xuanzang visited the city in 7th century, Vikramaditya's temples had "already disappeared"; the city was a Buddhist centre, and had several Buddhist monuments. Cunningham's main objective in surveying Ayodhya was to discover these Buddhist monuments.
In 1889–91, an ASI team led by Alois Anton Führer conducted another survey of Ayodhya. Führer did not find any ancient statues, sculptures or pillars that marked the sites of other ancient cities. He found "a low irregular mass of rubbish heaps", from which material had been used for building the neighbouring Muslim city of Faizabad. The only ancient structures found by him were three earthen mounds to the south of the city: Maniparbat, Kuberparbat and Sugribparbat. Cunningham identified these mounds with the sites of the monasteries described in Xuanzang's writings. Like Cunningham, Führer also mentioned the legend of the Ramayana-era city being destroyed after death of Brihadbala, and its rebuilding by Vikramaditya. He wrote that the existing Hindu and Jain temples in the city were modern, although they occupied the sites of the ancient temples that had been destroyed by Muslims. The five Digambara Jain temples had been built in 1781 CE to mark the birth places of five tirthankaras, who are said to have been born at Ayodhya. A Śvetāmbara Jain temple dedicated to Ajitanatha was built in 1881. Based on local folk narratives, Führer wrote that Ayodhya had three Hindu temples at the time of Muslim conquest: Janmasthanam (where Rama was born), Svargadvaram (where Rama was cremated) and Treta-ke-Thakur (where Rama performed a sacrifice). According to Führer, Mir Khan built the Babri mosque at the place of Janmasthanam temple in 930 AH (1523 CE). He stated that many columns of the old temple had been utilized by the Muslims for the construction of Babri mosque: these pillars were of black stone, called kasauti by the natives. Führer also wrote that Aurangzeb had built now-ruined mosques at the sites of Svargadvaram and Treta-ke-Thakur temples. A fragmentary inscription of Jayachandra of Kannauj, dated to 1241 Samvat (1185 CE), and a record of a Vishnu temple's construction were recovered from Aurangazeb's Treta-ke-Thakur mosque, and kept in Faizabad museum.
Excavation of 1969-1970
Awadh Kishore Narain of Banaras Hindu University led an excavation in Ayodhya during 1969–70. He dated establishment of Ayodhya to early 17th century BCE, and also observed that there was evidence of strong Jain presence in the area.
Ramayana sites (1975-1985)
Excavations Professor B. B. Lal led a more detailed ASI study of the area in 1975–76. The team of archaeologists of the ASI, led by former Director-General ASI (1968–1972), B. B. Lal in 1975–76, worked on a project titled "Archaeology of Ramayana Sites", which excavated five Ramayana-related sites of Ayodhya, Bharadwaj Ashram, Nandigram, Chitrakoot and Shringaverapura.
Though the results of this study were not published in that period, between 1975 and 1985 an archaeological project was carried out in Ayodhya to examine certain sites referenced to in the Ramayana or that belong to its tradition. Ascribed to the 14th century AD, it is the oldest image found in Ayodhya. The Babri Mosque site was one of the fourteen sites examined during this project. B. B. Lal conducted excavations in Ayodhya and found a terracotta image showing a Jain ascetic.
Jain claims Jain Samata Vahini, a social organisation of the Jains stated that the excavation conducted at Hanuman Garhi by Prof B. B. Lal in 1976 threw up a grey terracotta figurine that was dated back to the fourth century BCE, and Prof B. B. Lal, former director-general of the Archaeological Survey of India also acknowledge the same.
Lal's pillars (1990) Lal took a controversial stance in the Ayodhya dispute. Writing in 1977, Lal stated in the official ASI-journal that finds were "devoid of any special interest."
In 1990, after his retirement, he wrote in a RSS magazine that he had found the remains of a columned temple under the mosque,Reinhard Bernbeck, Susan Pollock (1996), Ayodhya, Archaeology, and Identity. Current Anthropology, Volume37, Supplement, February 1996, p.S139 and "embarked on a spree of lectures all over the country propagating th[is] evidence from Ayodhya." In Lal's 2008 book, Rāma, His Historicity, Mandir and Setu: Evidence of Literature, Archaeology and Other Sciences, he writes (that):
R.S. Sharma and Suraj Bhan both concluded the ruins were 'an ordinary structure of reused bricks, which was neither religious nor monumental'. K. V. Soundararajan, who was Co-Director (with B.B. Lal) of the first phase of the Ramayana Project, endorses this view. He recalls that 'The [pillar bases] are not arranged in any kind of harmony reflecting a common origin.'
In a 2003 statement to the Allahabad High Court, Lal stated that he submitted a seven-page preliminary report to the Archaeological Survey of India in 1989, mentioning the discovery of "pillar bases", immediately south of the Babri mosque structure in Ayodhya. Subsequently, all technical facilities were withdrawn and the project wasn't revived for another 10–12 years, despite his repeated request. Thus the final report was never submitted, the preliminary report was only published in 1989, and in Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) volume on historicity of Ramayana and Mahabharat. Subsequently, in his 2008 book, Rama: His Historicity Mandir and Setu, he wrote, "Attached to the piers of the Babri Masjid, there were twelve stone pillars, which carried not only typical Hindu motifs and mouldings, but also figures of Hindu deities. It was self-evident that these pillars were not an integral part of the Masjid, but were foreign to it."
Lal's stance gave an enormous boost to the Ram Temple cause, but his conclusions have been contested by multiple scholars, questioning both the stratigraphic information, and the kind of structure envisioned by Lal. According to Hole,
Hole concludes that "the structural elements he had previously thought insignificant suddenly became temple foundations only in order to manufacture support for the nationalists' cause."
B. B. Lal's team also had K. K. Muhammed, who in his autobiography claimed that a Hindu temple was found in the excavation, and said that left historians are misleading the Muslim communities by aligning with fundamentalists.
June to July 1992 In July 1992, eight eminent archaeologists (among them former ASI directors, Dr. Y.D. Sharma and Dr. K.M. Srivastava) went to the Ramkot hill to evaluate and examine the findings. These findings included religious sculptures and a statue of Vishnu. They said that the inner boundary of the disputed structure rests, at least on one side, on an earlier existing structure, which "may have belonged to an earlier temple". The objects examined by them also included terracotta Hindu images of the Kushan period (100–300 AD) and carved buff sandstone objects that showed images of Vaishnav deities and of Shiva-Parvati. They concluded that these fragments belonged to a temple of the Nagara style (900–1200 AD).
1992 - Vishnu-Hari inscription
During the demolition of the Babri mosque in December 1992, three inscriptions on stone were found. The most important one is the Vishnu-Hari inscription inscribed on a 1.10 x .56-metre slab with 20 lines that was provisionally dated to ca. 1140. The inscription mentioned that the temple was dedicated to "Vishnu, slayer of Bali and of the ten-headed one".(Puratattva, No. 23 (1992–3), pp. 35 ff.) The inscription is written in the Nāgarī script, a Sanskrit script (or ) of the 11th and 12th century. It was examined by world class epigraphists and Sanskrit scholars (among them Prof. Ajay Mitra Shastri).
Ajay Mitra Shastri, Chairman of the Epigraphical Society of India and a specialist in epigraphy and numismatics, examined the Vishnu-Hari inscription and stated:
Following allegations that the Vishnu Hari inscription corresponded to an inscription dedicated to Vishnu that was supposedly missing in the Lucknow State Museum since the 1980s, the museum director Jitendra Kumar stated that the inscription had never been missing from the museum, although it was not on display. He showed the inscription held by his museum at a press conference for all to see. It was different in shape, colour and textual content from the Vishnu-Hari inscription.(Hindustan Times, 8 May 2003)
2003 excavations
Claude Robillard, the chief geophysicist stated the following:
The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) excavated the Ram Janambhoomi–Babri Mosque site at the direction of the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court in Uttar Pradesh in 2003. The archaeologists also reported indications of a large structure that pre-dated the Babri Masjid. A team of 131 labourers was engaged in the excavations. On 11 June 2003 the ASI issued an interim report that only listed the findings of the period between 22 May and 6 June 2003. In August 2003 the ASI handed a 574-page report to the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court.
The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), who examined the site, issued a report of the findings of the period between 22 May and 6 June 2003. This report stated:Sandipan Deb in Outlook India, (23 June 2003)
Finds Archaeological layers ASI mentioned in its report that they have found ruins of other eras also. These ruins could be the ruins of a Jain temples.
1000BCE to 300BCE: the findings suggest that a Northern Black Polished Ware (NBPW) culture existed at the mosque site between 1000 BCE and 300 BCE. A round signet with a legend in Ashokan Brahmi, terracotta figurines of female deities with archaic features, beads of terracotta and glass, wheels and fragments of votive tanks have been found.(Pioneer, 9 September 2003. Ayodhya: lost and found By Sandhya Jain) Shunga Period. 200 BC: Typical terracotta mother goddess, human and animal figurines, beads, hairpins, pottery (includes black slipped, red and grey wares), and stone and brick structures of the Shunga period have been found. Kushan period. 100–300 CE: terracotta human and animal figurines, fragments of votive tanks, beads, bangle fragments, ceramics with red ware and large-sized structures running into twenty-two courses have been found from this level. Gupta era (320–600 CE) and post-Gupta era: typical terracotta figurines, a copper coin with the legend Sri Chandra (Gupta), and illustrative potsherds of the Gupta period have been found. A circular brick shrine with an entrance from the east and a provision for a water-chute on the northern wall have also been found. 11th to 12th century CE: a huge structure of almost fifty metres in north–south orientation have been found on this level. Only four of the fifty pillar bases belong to this level. Above this lay a structure with at least three structural phases which had a huge pillared hall.
Animal remains