“To hope within the metropolis of Dwarka, which is immersed within the waters, was a really divine expertise. I felt linked to an historic period of religious grandeur and timeless devotion. Could Bhagwan Shri Krishna bless us all,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrote on X after he visited the Dwarkadhish Temple in Gujarat’s Dwarka on Sunday.
After PM Modi dived into the Arabian Sea, he stated, “These moments will stick with me ceaselessly”.
The submerged metropolis of Dwarka has been a topic of each curiosity and thriller. Offshore excavations have revealed remnants of a city-state relationship again to 2000 BC. However is that town talked about in Hindu mythology?
At current, devotees are primarily drawn to Dwarka for the Dwarkadhish Temple.
The temple is believed to have been established greater than 2500 years in the past by Lord Krishna’s nice grandson, Vajranabh, acording to Gujarat Tourism’s web site. “The traditional temple has been renovated a number of instances, particularly leaving imprints of sixteenth and nineteenth centuries,” it says.
It’s the submerged metropolis of Dwarka which has been the topic of marine excavations and analysis.
CITY OF DWARKA IN HINDU MYTHOLOGY
The town of Dwarka, one of many Sapt Puris of Hinduism, was stated to have been reclaimed from the ocean by Lord Krishna after he shifted from Mathura in Uttar Pradesh to Dwarka in Gujarat.
Dwarka, based on legends, was submerged below the Arabian Sea as Lord Krishna departed from the world, marking the start of the Kali Yuga.
Whereas the legendary narrative about Lord Krishna and Dwarka is rooted within the Puranas, archaeological proof, through the years, factors to a number of constructions and a sudden submersion of a metropolis.
The identical narrative and its being tied to religion was echoed by PM Modi as nicely. He shared footage of himself underwater, carrying scuba gear, praying, as he explored and prayed within the “misplaced metropolis” of Lord Krishna.
“I went deep within the sea and did ‘Darshan’ of the traditional Dwarka metropolis. Archaeologists have written so much about Dwarka metropolis hidden underwater. In our scriptures additionally, it’s stated about Dwarka that it was a metropolis with lovely gates and tall buildings, as tall as the highest of the world. Lord Krishna himself constructed this metropolis,” PM Modi stated as he addressed a rally after the Dwarka Darshan on Sunday, February 25.
Like, PM Modi stated, he had “at all times been curious to go there (underwater in Dwarka) and contact the stays of the traditional Dwarka metropolis”, many inquisitive individuals and Krishna devotees have to be curious too.
Curious to know what precisely the Arabian Sea swallowed, how large town was, what had been the constructions within the submerged metropolis, and whether or not the constructions nonetheless existed.
EXCAVATIONS TO STUDY THE ‘LOST CITY OF DWARKA’
It’s questions like these that hold including to the thriller of Dwarka. Was it a well-planned metropolis or a well-preserved fantasy?
Primarily based on the scriptures, many argue that the submerged constructions could possibly be pure formations or that the relationship of artefacts may not conclusively place them inside the Mahabharata’s timeframe. Nevertheless, there’s a trove to uncover, and an ocean to study it.
The search to uncover Dwarka’s sunken secrets and techniques began within the Thirties by Hiranand Shastri, adopted by the primary intensive excavation being carried out in 1963 by a staff led by JM Nanavati and HD Sankalia.
Subsequent excavations, undertaken by marine archaeologists, unveiled a plethora of historic artefacts and the submerged remnants of the traditional Dwarka.
Between 1983 and 1990, archaeologists unearthed many such secrets and techniques, together with a fortified basis, stone blocks, pillars, stone anchors and irrigation streams, upon which the traditional metropolis partitions of Dwarka doubtless stood, based on UNESCO.
Earlier than that, students like Anant Sadashiv Altekar and DD Koshambi advised that Gujarat’s Dwarka had no hyperlink to the famed kingdom of Krishna.
“Historian DD Koshambi has gone to the size of suggesting that Dwarka might need been in Afghanistan, for there are locations like Daravaz in Afghanistan,” famous Z D Ansari and MS Mate, of Pune’s Deccan School, of their 1963 e-book, ‘Excavations at Dwarka’.
DWARKA: THE GATEWAY TO TRADE WITH WEST ASIA?
‘Dwarka’, which interprets to a ‘gate’ in Sanskrit, has been the gateway to India, which acted as an vital centre of commerce between India and West Asia.
“They (residents) will need to have exploited the marine sources of the Gulf, reminiscent of conch shells and fish,” based on a Nationwide Institute of Oceanography (NIO) examine by marine archaeologists AS Gaur and Sundaresh.
“A number of historic habitational websites had been found within the coastal space of Wager Dwarka island over the past twenty years of marine archaeological exploration. A considerable amount of protohistoric and historic pottery has additionally been collected from these websites,” added AS Gaur and S Tripathi, in 2000.
Notably, the island of Wager Dwarka is situated some 30 kilometres north-east of the Dwarkadhish Temple in Gujarat.
Nevertheless, the fabric examination and carbon relationship of the man-made objects recovered from the seabed in Dwarka, reveals urnam constructions from pre-Harappan instances, which bolsters the argument for Dwarka’s historic actuality.
The fortified foundations found alongside the banks of the Gomti within the Nineteen Eighties additional affirm the existence of a well-planned metropolis on the location which has historically been related to Krishna’s Dwarka.
“The onshore explorations of 1969-70 dropped at mild quite a few potsherds of intervals starting from the Late Harappan to the Medieval interval. Intensive onshore and offshore exploration by NIO, Goa have yielded related outcomes,” based on the NIO examine of 2003.
This dates the stays from 1900 BC to 1300 BC.
Thermoluminescence dates floor explorations recommend that the earliest habitation on the island commenced within the mid-second millennium BC.
EVIDENCE OF A ‘CITY-STATE’ DATING BACK TO 2000 BC
Latest offshore explorations dropped at mild quite a few stone anchors of the Medieval interval, a lead anchor and stays of amphorae of the early historic interval, based on a 1998 examine known as ‘Archaeology of Wager Dwarka’, within the journal Man and Setting.
In keeping with archaeologist SR Rao, the archaeological proof from the positioning of Dwarka, which is submerged, confirms the existence of a city-state, with a few satellite tv for pc cities, dated round 1500 BC.
Nevertheless, “onshore and offshore explorations of Wager Dwarka Island have demonstrated a protracted cultural sequence starting from the protohistoric interval (2000 BC) to the trendy interval”, stated marine archaeologists AS Gaur and S Tripathi, in a 2000 paper ‘Latest underwater explorations at Dwarka and environment of Okha Mandal’.
The marine archaeologists additionally pointed to the significance of the placement of Dwarka as a buying and selling centre.
Commenting on whether or not the archaeological web site of Dwarka was the one which discovered point out within the Puranas and the Mahabharata, SR Rao opined that the antiquities and constructions discovered on the web site could possibly be linked to those talked about in our epics.
“This discovery has turned fantasy right into a actuality,” famous Rao.
The presence of credible proof positively pushes one to take a peek into under-water visuals, like PM Modi just lately did. This could possibly be a actuality quickly, because the Gujarat authorities has initiated the method to assemble and function a submarine/submersible for underwater tourism to discover the misplaced metropolis of Dwarka.