Keezhadi excavation - A treasure trove of ancient Tamil civilization

     

The Hindu extremists currently in power portray India as the land of Vedas and Vedic culture as the Indian culture, shoving their Aryan brahmanical culture upon the people. But, prior to the Aryans there were Dravidians, who were more advanced as a society, in arts, literature and culture, living in this land. This is already well established from the linguistic research by Caldwell and others, from the Sangam literature and from Indus valley excavations.

Recently the ongoing excavations at Keezhadi has also given us proof for this statement, by confirming the existence of a pre-vedic urban civilization in Tamil Nadu as described in the Sangam literature. Trying to suppress this important finding which goes against the false stories spun by Hindu fundamentalists, the central government run by the RSS-BJP had tried to block this excavation. After this skulduggery by the central government was condemned by intellectuals, political parties, democratic forces and many others in Tamil Nadu, the centre backtracked saying that the excavation in Keezhadi will continue.

Still the central government’s attempts to sabotage the Keezhadi excavations continue. After stalling the project for some time by demanding an interim report, now it has transferred Mr. Amarnath, the archeologist in-charge of the excavation to Assam while the excavation at Keezhadi is still in its early stages. Though the Central Aministartive Tribunal has recommended for Amarnath to continue, the archeology department still transferred him. Central minister for culture Mahesh Sharma along with commerce minister Nirmala Seetharaman recently visited the Keezhadi site to ‘clarify’ the central government’s intentions. When people protested their visit, condemning the transfer of Amarnath, they were attacked by the local BJP goons even in the presence of police. Overall the visit was just to promote the lie that the central government is not against the excavation.

Over the last two years, Archeological Survey of India (ASI) has conducted two stages of excavation in Keezhadi near Thiruppuvanam, Sivagangai district. The archeological mound of Keezhadi Pallichanthai Thidal, called by researchers as the Vaigai valley civilization, is about 110 acres wide. Through the current excavation in just 50 cents of this area, many artifacts were found, which reveal the lifestyle and culture of those who lived in South India around 1000 BC.

Regularly placed canals, big tanks near these canals, inlet and outlet structures for these tanks, six furnaces small and big placed along the canals, round-shaped wells at the source of the canals, three kinds of drains: open, closed and with earthen pipes – such structures in Keezhadi clearly show an advanced urban settlement, found for the first time in South India.

Further the findings at Keezhadi indicate the presence of houses/buildings made with fired bricks and tiled roofs and water wells near these houses as mentioned in the Sangam literature of Pattinappaalai. Carnelian beads from Afghanistan, earthen pots from Rome and writings in north Indian Prakrits have been found. Clay pieces in black and red colour of around 1000 kg also have been found from this excavation.

Even in the clay pots obtained in the Indus valley civilization, only the exteriors were fired, as they were black only on the outside. In Keezhadi, the pots were also found with black interiors revealing that the pots were fired on both sides. This is an indication of how the civilization at Keezhadi was more advanced in technology.

There are also remains of workshops found in these excavations. Starting from the ‘thakkai’ used in weaving, numerous technological tools have been identified. More than 5300 artefacts collected at Keezhadi give evidence for trade, art, technology and knowledge of writing. Overall, Keezhadi was a well-developed civilization.

In the Indian History Congreess held last December at Thiruvananthapuram, a resolution was passed that the excavation at Keezhadi should continue. The renowned historian Romila Thapar who presided over that session has said that Keezhadi is a very important discovery in Tamil Nadu and that this excavation calls for a rewriting of Tamil Nadu’s history.

All the findings at Keezhadi till now are in just 50 cents of land. If the whole of 110 acres is excavated, not only will it rewrite the history of Tamil Nadu but it will without a doubt rewrite the Indian history. After 1970, Keezhadi is the only archeological excavation conducted by the central government in Tamil Nadu.

It is to be noted that none of the artefacts found at Keezhadi till now has any religious connection. The ancient Tamil culture was based on ancestor worship and Nadukal (hero stone) worship and religions were only a later phenomenon. Keezhadi is a clear example of a pre-religious civilization as mentioned in Sangam literature. Linguist Robert Caldwell’s analysis that “Tamil is a secular language” has strong evidence in the form of Keezhadi’s civilization. The saffron forces which say that the only culture in India was the Vedic brahmanical culture could not digest these findings that there was a civilization in India without big gods or religion.

That is why the BJP government decided to stop this excavation in its beginning stages itself. There have been excavations at Dholovira in Gujarat for 13 years, at Lothal for five years and Nagarjuna Gonda for ten years. But the BJP government is badly trying to close down the Keezhadi excavations within two years. Now fearing public backlash, it announced that the third stage of excavation will start. If the people of Tamil Nadu are not vigilant enough, this saffron government will not hesitate to shut down the project.

Also, the authority to decide how many samples to send for carbon dating rests with the central government’s archeology department. While 20 samples from Dholavira and 28 from Kalibangan in Rajasthan were sent for carbon dating, atleast 10 should have been sent form Keezhadi. But the central archeology department has sent only two samples from Keezhadi for carbon dating.

While the saffron forces running the government spend crores and crores of money to find the non-existent Saraswati river claiming that it was the origin of Indus valley civilization, it looks at the scientifically happening excavations happening at Keezhadi with disregard. Whereas 151 crore rupeess is alloted for Ramayana museum at Ayodhi by the central government for its own political agenda, it allotted just 1 lakh rupees to spend on sending samples from Keezhadi for carbon dating.

The Hindutva horde never accepts the fact that Aryans were migrants who came into the subcontinent from Central Asia. According to the Hindutva version of history, Aryans were indigenuous to India, Vedic culture was the only culture in India and Sanskrit is the mother of all Indian languages.

The Hindutvawadis further attempt to hide the ancient history by saying that concept of Dravidian, Aryan-Dravidian conflict and subjugation of Dravidians by Aryans were all British conspiracies.

The Hindutva forces persistently try to rewrite history to favour their political ambitions, to build their dream of one culture, one language, one nation – Hindu, Hindi, Hindustan. But they do not have scientific evidence to prove their dream version of history. They could only point at myths from puraanas and ithihaasas to show as evidence. They made the search for evidence to prove their imaginary version of history as the full-time job of the archeology department.

Throughout history, Tamil Nadu remains a symbol of resistance against this false propoganda by saffron forces. From time to time, Tamil Nadu has been at the forefront of the Aryan-Dravidian conflict, fighting against the Aryan subjugation of Dravidians. The false propoganda of Sanskrit being the root of all languages has been clearly disproved by Caldwell, by proving that Tamil is a classical language independent of Sanskrit and that Tamil and other South Indian languages were from a different language family separate from Sanskrit.

Keezhadi excavation has given a fatal blow to the saffron horde’s attempts at establishing the Aryan-Sanskrit hegemony. The saffron horde thinks that it could suppress the history of the ancient Dravidians. This is nothing but a daydream.