Rakhal Das Banerji
1885–1930
Biography
Rakhal Das Banerji (1885–1930), known in English scholarship as R. D. Banerji, was an Indian archaeologist and historian who worked for the Archaeological Survey of India. He joined the survey in 1911. After leaving it he held a professorship of ancient Indian history and culture at Banaras Hindu University, from 1928 until his early death in 1930.
He is best remembered for his work at Mohenjo-daro, the great city of the Indus valley. He was the second officer of the survey sent to examine the site, in 1919, and he returned to dig there in the 1922–23 season. In a 1923 letter to John Marshall, he was the first to argue that the site was of great antiquity, and that the Harappan culture it belonged to was far older than had been assumed. That argument reshaped the early history of the subcontinent.
He also wrote in Bengali for general readers. Pashaner Katha, first published in 1914, is narrated by a stone that recalls its life, from the sand of a seashore through the temples, kings and invaders it came to know. It is the book on this site credited to him, and it shows the same interest in the physical remains of the past that ran through his archaeology.
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Books
পাষাণের কথা
by রাখালদাস বন্দ্যোপাধ্যায়
A stone tells its own life, beginning with its childhood as sand on a sea beach and going on through the temples, kings and invaders that it came to know after it was cut and set up. Rakhaldas Bandyopadhyay, the archaeologist who found Mohenjo-daro, published this book in 1914.…
Summary written by Claude Sonnet 5.5.