A picture of Hasmukh Dhirajlal Sankalia; Image Source- bharatdiscovery.org

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I, personally had no idea about Hasmukh Dhirajlal Sankalia before I joined my college to study history. The very semester of any history student is entirely devoted to the study of prehistory, protohistory and ancient Indian history. For context, prehistory is the period in history that has no written records whereas protohistory is the period where written records are available but have not been deciphered.

Sankalia was an auteur in the field of prehistory, protohistory and ancient Indian history. it was in my semester that I came across the institution and authority that is Sankalia. The sole credits of discovering Neolithic and chalcolithic settlements in Indian as far back as 2000 BC goes to him.
He carried out large scale excavations at Kashmir, Nasik and Deccan region to expose the existence of early humans in India belonging to the Stone Age. At these settlements, his excavations exposed numerous stone or flake tools that helped historians etch out the lifestyle of the early humans in India. He also found the first human Stone Age skeleton in Gujarat.

The skull of a mesolithic human found by Sankalia; Image Source- Live History India

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In his endeavours, he was profoundly influenced by F.E. Zeuner who was an authority on environmental archaeology. It was through his works that Sankalia learnt about stratigraphic layers of settlements, geology and geochronology that is etching out chronological patterns through geography. The very approach of Sankalia was very holistic whereby he amalgamated history, archaeology and geography.

> It must be remembered that during his time, there was no vast scale computerisation and data modules that would etch out archaeological mappings and corroborate it with genetics etc. Standing in that era, he made tremendous discoveries.
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Most people have a tendency to quickly dismiss Indian epics such as Ramayana as “myths” and not take into account any historical perspective from such a text. Here again, Sankalia proved us wrong. He was very well versed in Sanskrit and devoted a huge chunk of his life studying the different iterations and versions of Ramayana found in various parts of India, Sri Lanka and Indonesia. After carefully studying these texts, he attempted to corroborate them with substantial archaeological findings to debunk the fact that the epics of India cannot be dismissed on the grounds of being mythological.

In my first semester, I remember being completely blown away by his work and findings, all of my preconceived ideas and approaches were challenged and that too with hard evidence. It is a shame to see that his works, contribution and legacy aren’t given proper weightage in contemporary times. Most people still believe Indian epics to be a concoction of mythical happenings despite of the existence of hard evidence that points out that these texts upheld the historical mise-en-scene of that era.

It is thus the need of the hour to talk and initiate discourses about Sankalia, his works and his ideas.

Through his work, research and digging myths were turned into reality and the annals of Indian history was pushed back by thousands of years. Hasmukh Dhirajlal Sankalia devoted his entire life to uncovering uncharted territories of Indian history.