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CAUTION AGAINST TIIE USE OF LITERAKY SOURCES • ••• 159

of Egyptians, Phoenicjans, Greeks and Romans. Thcre is, however, no doubt that the painler of Ajanta bas done juslice to his painling of Vijaya’s landing in Ceylon by dcpicting horscs and elcphants of Vijaya’s army in boats, comparatively very smali in size than the weight of horses and elephants with their riders, earried in the boats. The painter employed by the employer donor was not a sailor, and thcrefore was ignorant of the details of a sea-going ship and maritime activities. Or, very probably the painter has worked from diagrams by unskilled hands or verbal descriplions. He, therefore, never rcalised that his boats were loo smali to carry his łigurcs. He also has failcd to realise in the other painling that long heavy stecring oars, thrce masls, square sails, a steersman and sewn ruddcr could not be componcnts of a ship along with “paddles” of a Coastal ship which he was aware of. Such paintings, therefore, could never be rcliable aulhentic sourccs of marinę archacology.

Flinder Alexandcr of the National Archacology Socicty of London, ąuoling Taylor in his Kcynolc Address, has slatcd that “if marinę archaeology was not to fali inlo the wrong hands, it was csscntial to first of all convince the tradilional archacological establishment of the validily of archacology undcrwalcr as a conccivablc scicnlific disciplinc..."⁴⁷. And in spite of V.R. Mchta’s rcmarks in his Inaugural Address that “Archaeology like any other rcscarch pursuit, is indiffcrcnt to political boundarics and I hope the archacologisls from Indian Ocean Countrics will dclibcrate on a common strategy without inhibitions and obscssion ”⁴⁸, some participanls have dcscribcd the tuming of “mythology into history” by a marinę archaeologist as “a very grcal achievement. ”^4Q Furthcr, notwithstanding the precautionary remark of D.P. Agrawal that a bilingual scal found in the course of cxploration of submerged Dv5raka may throw some lighl on trade and language of the Harappans and the “bilingual tcxts which may help the dcciphcrment of the Indus script’*⁵⁰, some scholars have indicatcd that the “Indus language being old Indo-Aryan, the Harappans were by and large Vedic Aryans”⁵¹, and that the “group of sevcn stars callcd ‘Riksha ⁹ by the Harappans”, and “ Scptcndri which is synonymous with the much carlicr Harappan term ‘Trisapta¹ used in the seal inscriplions ”⁵² were proper dcciphermcnts. Such wrilings are not only prcmature bul hannful to scientillc study of marinę archaeology, as the scals of the Harappans have no rcfcrence whalsoevcr in the tcxt of the Rgveda, and the Vcdic composilions havc no knowlcdge of any script. A marinę archaeologist *s inducemcnt in the undcrwalcr rcscarch at Dvaraka should be not the mylhical Krsna but the hislorical Dvarak&. In this contcxt I would conclude this papcr by ąuoling the concluding remark of theShrimati Nabadurga Bancrji Endowmcnt Lcclure dclivcrcd at the Asiatic Socicty of Bombay on 7th April 1993 by the emincnl historian Dr. Romila Thapar that “Whalcvcr the political impcrativcs may bc for insisting on idcntilying and locating the Aryans, for the ^Ł:storian il would be morę meaningful to move away from this obsessr and attempt a rcconslruction of the roots of Indian socicty