Intensive explorations and excavations in India have completely changed the archaeological culture-pattern of the Indian sub-continent. Thus we find that the Harappan civilization and its straggling continuation extending from the western seaboard to the Ganga-Yamuna doab in the east and upto the Tapti valley in Khandesh; the Painted Grey Ware from Rajasthan in the west to the middle Ganga valley in the east and upto Ujjain in Malwa; the Black-and Red, once exclusively associated with the megaliths of the South and iron now being found over the entire country from the Harappan to historical levels.
As a sequel, archaeologists began to think that each one of the ceramic industries represented a set of people or community and its diffusion indicated the dispersal or movement of that community. Likewise the viscissitudes of the wares correspondingly reflected the prosperity and decline of that community or their assimilation into other community. Thus the Harappan pottery represented the Dravidians, the PGW the invading Aryans and the megalithic Black-and-Red with the Dravidians again.
However, the extent of the dispersal of the last ware in time and space has thrown the postulation go haywire giving room group for more speculations; one group of archologists linking it with a wave of Aryans moving from the northwest to east and to the south east and the other in opposite camp strongly associating it with the Dravidians migrating from north towards south. This divergence in view is mainly due to insufficient data, isolated approach to the problem and adoption of wrong methodology.
Shrivastava, in this excellent book, collating all the available data has made an analytical study of this ceramic industry in all its aspects viz pot-forms, the cultural horizon of the occurrence of each shape, its co-occurrence with any other known/unknown cultural vestige, etc., in each region to arrive at the tangible conclusion. The book is well illustrated with numerous line drawings of pot-forms reduced to one single scale; a convenient presentation for easy comparison.
Born at Allahabad (U.P.) on 21st September, 1927, Shri K.M. Shrivastava received his early education at Gorakhpur (U.P.). After passing High School Examination he went to Allahabad for higher studies and obtained the degree of Master of Arts in History from the Allahabad University in 1949. He was absorbed in the Archaeological Survey of India after training in field archaeology at Sisupalgarh (Orissa) and Hastinapura (U.P). During the course of his twenty-seven years of service in the Archaeological Survey of India, Shri K.M. Srivastava conducted excavations at many important sites in india, thereby gaining great eminence in the field. It was only because of his long experience that he was selected as one of the members of the expedition to Nubia in United Arab Republic in 1962 to salvage the antiquities from the area which was to be submerged in the reservoir formed by the construction of the Aswan Dam. The greatest contribution which stands to the credit of Shri Srivastava is the epoch-making work of the identification of the lost town of Kapilavastu where Buddha spent the first twenty-nine years of his life. Shri Srivastava has also identified the site where the pious lady Sujata, who offered milk-rice preparation to Buddha just before Enlightenment dawned on him, lived. He received the highest honour from the Government of the Republic of Sri Lanka, where he went in 1978 with the corporeal relics of Buddha discovered by him in the stupa at Piprahwa in District Basti of Uttar Pradesh.
The other pioneering works of Shri Srivastava are the excavation at Lothal, Rangpur, Kalibangan, Gilund and extensive exploration in south-eastern Rajasthan to study the spread and importance of the Black-and-Red Ware in Indian Archaeology. It was the last mentioned work which gave him the impetus to produce this book. For the present he is the Superintending Archaeologist for Museums in the Survey with headquarters at Calcutta.
The idea to write this book, though not in its present form, occurred to me as long back as 1955 when I was conducting excava- tion at Lothal in Gujarat, Lothal happened to be the first site in India where the Black-and-Red Ware was encountered in Harappan context. The archaeologists were very much obsessed on the new find, because till then the Black-and-Red Ware was considered to be only a funerary goods, part and parcel of Megalithic burials in South India. Instead of analysing and studying the new find with an open mind, one of the so-called top-ranking archaeologist of the country went to the extent of remarking, “Mr. Srivastava, you should not talk like this. You have yet to go a long way”. When the Black-and-Red Ware was reported from a large number of Harappan sites in Gujarat, the archaeologists were forced to adjust to the new evidence. Though it may not be appreciated by a majority of scholars, both Indian and foreign, I am very much constrained to point out that pre-conceived notions, ideas and theories, more than often, sound the death-knell of not only archaeology, but all subjects whatsoever. It is much more so, when the evidences are moulded and twisted to establish one or the other pre-conceived theories. Hypothesis is no doubt the beginning of any research work, but the scholars should be conscious enough not to play with the evidences. They should always be prepared to study the new finds in proper perspective with an open mind. There is always a wide gulf between probability and finality. Probability is the hypothesis and finality is the ultimate conclusion. Both these extremes are demarcated by the line of facts and the scholars should feel proud in making any declaration by standing on that line. In research work nothing is final, because once we accept anything as final, future research on the subject will not be undertaken.
The remarks of the top-ranking archaeologist mentioned above, though a little irritating, generated a feeling of challenge in my mind and I decided to study the subject in detail. Having taken such a long time for producing this book may lead scholars to heap scorns, but I may not be far from truth in stating that archaeology was in infancy for a considerably long time, so far as the study of the Black-and-Red Ware was concerned. Further, the book was delayed unduly by many other pre-occupations, of which the excava- tions at Piprahwa, which led to the identification of Kapilavastu stand at the top.
While the excavations at Lothal were in progress, I was called upon to undertake an extensive exploration of South-eastern Rajasthan in the river valleys of Ahar, Berach, Banas and their affluents, which must be considered as the nuclear region for the study of the Black-and-Red Ware. The assignment was indeed a golden opportunity for me. During the course of my explorations, lasting for three seasons from 1956-57, I brought to light many important Black-and-Red Ware sites, of which Gilund in Udaipur District of Rajasthan was the most potential in establishing a link between the Painted Grey Ware Culture of Indo-Gangetic basin and the Black-and-Red Ware of South-eastern Rajasthan. Excavation at Gilund was no doubt undertaken in 1960, but it did not continue for more than a season. Hence, even the cultural sequence of the site could not be worked out satisfactorily. It may be recorded here that Gilund is the first and probably the only site in India, wherefrom both burnt-brick and mud-brick structures have been reported from the Chalcolithic levels. I was fortunate enough in being associated with the excavation and now impatiently feel that no further time should be lost in resuming the excavation at such an important site, I am confident that the results of the excavation will make a great contribution to our incomplete knowledge of the Chalcolithic Cultures in India, particularly South-eastern Rajasthan. They are likely to present an altogether new picture of the inter-relationship between different cultures.
In Indian proto-history, the Chalcolithic Cultures play a very significant part. The characteristic dominant ceramic is black- and-red ware. It is found in Chalcolithic Cultures from Bengal to Gujarat, and also in Rajasthan and Central India. It is found with Harappan at Lothal. In South India it is associated with the Mega- liths in Iron age. They have been also reported from Neolithic layers in Chirand and are possibly present in Neolithic Utnoor and Piklihal. It is therefore both a gigantic task and a challenge to collate the entire data comprising the black-and-red ware culture complex. The wide distribution of the ware in space and time deserves to be studied in depth and on a wide canvas. The inverted-firing technique may be basically the same, but pottery forms and types and associated wares and antiquities show variety from region to region, naturally because of local needs and regional traditions. I had been for some time now thinking that exhaustive studies of pre- and proto-historic Indian wares in context of the total assemblage would be very helpful in filling in the missing details in the life of our ancestors through the dim past.
I had suggested to Sri K.M. Srivastava, a senior officer of the Archaeological Survey of India who was then posted in Patna to take up this subject. I am very happy that inspite of heavy official duties including exacting bouts of field excavations at Piprahwa and Bodh Gaya (Sujata Kutir), Sri Srivastava has now completed the work. He bas taken area-wise studies and has devoted meticulous care in arranging the pottery types and their comparative analysis between the areas of distribution. The total picture as emerging in each area in the entire archaeological context has been well delineated. A criti- cal assessment of the results has been attempted. The work is well docmnented and profusely illustrated.
This very exhaustive and critical work on a specific ceramic- dominated cultures will fill in to some extent the gap in our know- ledge of protohistory of India. Who were the people who introduced this ware or technique ? Whence the inspiration came - migration or stimulus difiusion. Were all these local cultures arising in different parts of the country independently of one another ? Do the string of C14 dates tell any coherent history ? Can these Black-and-Red Ware people or peoples be identified with the Vedic, later Vedic or Epic ruling tribes ? These and many other questions arise and remain unsatisfactorily explained. But a book of this kind will certainly stimulate further researches and provoke thought-dynamism on the entire complex.
I have no doubt that as his excellent monograph on Piprahwa, this work will also be well received by archaeologists and historians.
India is a vast country. A country of such an enormous size is bound to exhibit different cultural patterns influenced by the extraordinary variety of its physical features. Girdled by the lofty Himalayas in the north and Indian Ocean in the south on the one hand, the country has dripping hills of Assam to the waterless desert of Rajasthan on the other. Climatically, the west of Rajasthan is extremely arid, while in the east lies Cherapunji, one of the world’s wettest part. Likewise, the winter temperatures are well below zero in parts of Kashmir, while Ganganagar in Rajasthan may have a temperature approximately 50 degrees centigrade in July, and in Cochin in the south, throughout the year, the temperature is in the vicinity of 30 degrees centigrade. There is hardly any country in the world, where the climatic contrast is more striking. India has an equally varied vegetation, contrasting on the one hand in the tropical monsoon forests with the alpine meadows of the Himalayas from the xerophytic desert vegetation in the marshy Sunderbans on the other. Influenced by the latitudinal and altitudinal difference, the floral wealth of the country is also marked by a large number of varieties. No less remarkable are the numerous races of mankind inhabiting this historic land and speaking numerous languages. The large num- ber of languages- as many as 179 according to the linguistic survey - in India have always been cited to be a hindrance to Indian unity.
Divergent physiographic features of the country play a vital role in exhibiting various patterns of culture, each distinctive of its own region. Local conditions and resources have their own impact on characterizing the religious customs, manners, dietary habits, dress and objects of daily use. They are sometimes found to vary in details even when the regions are not widely separated from each other. Anyone travelling through the country will not fail to observe these cultural differences, many of which have great force and vitality. The variation is much more conspicuous between one regional frontier and the other. These changes are noticed not only in the country- side, but in the cities as well. Quite natural as it is, all geographical and cultural frontiers correspond with linguistic frontiers. The variations in manner and taste between any two major cultural blocks in India are as marked as those between any two major European countries.
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