How marine archaeologists found Dwaraka

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Srinivasan Kalyanaraman <kalyan97 wrote:

 

How marine archaeologists found Dwaraka

V GANGADHARAN

Chennai, Feb 1:

 

The submergence into the sea of the city of Dwaraka, vividly

picturised in the great epic of Mahabaratha, is indeed true! A chance

discovery made by a team of scientists, in the Gulf of Cambay region,

establishes that the Mahabaratha story is not a myth. The rich city

with fertile landscape and great rivers had indeed submerged into the

seas several thousand years ago.

 

But before we get to the present, a bit of history is quite

in order.

 

There is a vivid description in the Mausalaparvan of the

Mahabaratha about the submergence of Dwaraka. The people of Dwaraka

including Arjuna seemed to have witnessed strange things before its

submergence in the sea. 'The event was preceded by the unabated

rumbling noise of the earth throughout the day and night, birds

screamed continuously, and heavy winds swept the land. The sea, which

has been beating against the shores, suddenly broke the boundary that

was imposed on it by nature. Huge tide with great height surrounded

Dwaraka. The sea rushed into the city submerging beautiful buildings.

The sea covered up everything and in a matter of few moments, there

was no trace of the beautiful city.' It was something of an ancient

tsunami.

 

And now the scientists at NIOT (National Institute of Ocean

Technology, of the Department of Ocean Development) have established

this. While working for British gas in the Gulf of Cambay region, a

few years ago, the scientists of the NIOT, were stunned to see images

of objects and things, completely alien to the marine domain.

Immediately a team swung into action and samples were collected and

sent for analysis and dating (it is usually done to scientifically

establish the antiquity of the excavated objects).

 

Samples collected include artefacts, wood pieces, pottery

materials, hearth pieces, animal bones. They ere sent to Manipur

University, Oxford University, London, Institute of Earth Sciences,

Hanover, Germany for analysis and dating. The results were

astonishing. It was found beyond doubt that the samples belonged to a

period varying from 7800 to 3000 years (BP) Before Present !

 

The even more flooring discovery happened soon. NIOT, which

carried outside scan and sub-bottom surveys in the year 2002-03,

established beyond doubt the presence of two large palaeochannels

(river channels which existed once and later submerged under the sea)

in the Gulf of Cambay. Alluvium samples were collected from different

locations in the areas of the palaeochannels by the gravity core and

grab method.

 

Badrinarayanan, Marine Archaeologist and formerly coordinator

for the project, says 'the most astonishing thing was that all of the

crew-members, including the ship master who was a catholic, had

dreams full of strange visions, on the night of discovery. We felt we

had stumbled upon something great and unusual.'

 

The study of the samples under microscope revealed the

occurrence of fragile and highly sensitive Ostracods (tiny marine and

fresh water crustaceans with a shrimp-like body enclosed in a bivalve

shell) overlain by regular marine fauna.

 

These results strongly indicated that the freshwater

deposition which took place in this area was very much a part of the

onshore land region and later submerged to the depths varying from 20

to 40 meters. The alluvium (fresh water sand) samples sent to the

Earth Science Department, Manipur University for OSL (optically

stimulated luminescence) dating gave the OSL determinant of 3000

years (BP) Before Present !

 

Prof.Gartia (The Journal of Indian Ocean Archaeology, No.2 of

2005, Pg.144) after conducting extensive investigations concluded

that Gujarat region had experienced at least three large killer

earthquakes about 1500, 3000 and 5000 years BP respectively.

Geomorphological evidences also show beyond doubt that the North-

Western part of the Indian landmass was seismically active during the

last 10,000 years. These killer quakes are likely to have caused the

shifting of the rivers and sea level fluctuation including the

sinking of the legendary city of Dwaraka, capital of the Lord-King

Krishna. The discovery about the availability of fresh water from the

now submerged major rivers along with other marine-archaeological

evidences, corroborates the Mahabaratha reference that Dwaraka, the

ancient city of Sri Krishna, lies under the great ocean !

 

http://newstodaynet.com/01feb/ss1.htm

 

 

 

 

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