B. B. Lal

Braj Basi Lal was one of India’s best-known archaeologists, and headed the Archaeological Survey of India as its director general between 1968 and 1972. He was named for the Padma Vibhushan in 2021 in the field of archaeology, from Delhi ^[1]. He had earlier received the Padma Bhushan in 2000 ^[2].

Into the field

Lal was born on 2 May 1921 ^[2]. He took a master’s degree in Sanskrit from Allahabad University, coming first in the first class, and joined the Archaeological Survey of India in 1946 ^[2]. After leaving the Survey he took early retirement to follow his own research, first as a professor at Jiwaji University in Gwalior and then at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study in Shimla, which he also directed ^[2].

Digging through time

His excavations ranged from the Old Stone Age to early historical times ^[2]. At Kalibangan in Rajasthan he uncovered a prosperous Harappan city, with evidence of the earliest ploughed field and the earliest recorded earthquake ^[2]. He also dug at Hastinapura, Indraprastha, Ayodhya and Shringaverpura, sites linked to the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, and in 1961 worked in Egypt, adding to knowledge of its prehistory ^[2].

Books and honours

Lal published more than 150 research papers in India and abroad ^[2]. His books include The Earliest Civilization of South Asia (1997), The Saraswati Flows On (2002), Historicity of the Mahabharata (2013), The Rise of Civilization in the Ganga Valley (2018) and Indraprastha: The Earliest City Going Back to the Mahabharata Times (2021) ^[2].

In 1994 the Institute of Archaeology in St Petersburg gave him an honorary DLitt, and the same year he presided over the World Archaeological Congress ^[2]. He chaired and sat on several UNESCO committees, and Deccan College in Pune gave him an honorary doctorate in 2014 ^[2].

Lal died on 10 September 2022, aged 101 ^[3].