As mentioned earlier (pp. 20ff.), excavations were carried out
in the Janma-Bhµumi area at Ayodhyå as a part of the project
ëArchaeology of the Råmåyaƒa Sitesí. Of the trenches laid out
in this area, one was immediately to the south of and almost
parallel to the boundary wall of the Babari Masjid, the
intermediary space being hardly four metres. The lowest levels
in this trench were characterized by an early stage of Northern
Black Polished Ware, and on the basis of the Carbon-14 dates
provided by the Birbal Sahni Research Institute of
Palaeobotany, Lucknow, the beginning of the settlement at
Ayodhyå would appear to go back to the last quarter of the
2nd millennium BCE.
In the uppermost levels of this trench, hardly 50 centimetres
below the surface, were encountered rows of pillar-bases,
squarish on plan and made of brick-bats sometimes intermixed
with a few stones. While most of these bases were well within
the trench, a few of them lay underneath the edge of the trench
towards the boundary wall of the Masjid (Fig. 2.1). Associated
with the pillar-base-complex there were successive floors made
Was there a Temple in the
Janma-bhµumi Area at Ayodhyå
Preceding the Construction of
the Babari Masjid?
CHAPTER II
WAS THERE A TEMPLE IN THE JANMA-BHªUMI AREA
| 55
of lime mixed with brick jelly. No coin or inscription was found
on these floors but on the basis of the associated pottery and
other antiquities the entire complex could be dated from the
twelfth to fifteenth century CE.
Attached to the piers of the Babari Masjid there were twelve
stone pillars which carried not only typical Hindu motifs and
mouldings but also figures of Hindu deities (Figs. 2.3 and
2.4). It was self-evident that these pillars were not an integral
part of the Masjid but were foreign to it. Since, as already
stated, the pillar-bases were penetrating into the Masjid-
complex, a question naturally arose whether these bases had
anything to do with the above-mentioned pillars affixed to
the piers of the Masjid.
A summary report on the essentials of