Date:16/12/2005 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2005/12/16/stories/2005121621630300.htm

Karnataka - Bangalore

`Underwater heritage needs to be protected'

Staff Reporter

Preserve Dwaraka from vagaries of weather, says scholar

POPULAR HISTORY: Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Founder, Art of Living Foundation, along with Bangalore University Vice-Chancellor M.S. Thimmappa going through the exhibits on display at a conference on Indology, archaeology and history in Bangalore on Thursd ay. — Photo: K. Gopinathan

BANGALORE: India has one of the richest underwater cultural heritage in the form of hundreds of shipwrecks and scores of submerged ports like Dwaraka, Kurkai, Poompuhar, Sopara and Kalingapatna, all of which were great emporia of trade and outlets for expansion of political power in South-East Asia, the former Deputy Director-General Archaeological Survey of India S.R. Rao said here on Thursday.

Mr. Rao, who is president of the four-day joint conference of five societies devoted to the study of archaeology, history, epigraphy and indology that have come together for the first time and the four-day meet which began on Thursday, will be a celebration of Indian civilisation from the time ancient people settled down to agriculture and villages were formed and civilisation developed.

Scholars, historians and the archaeologists are deliberating the Aryan invasion and the vanishing of the Indus Valley civilisation.

Mr. Rao, who has the distinction of having deciphered the Indus script and identifying its language as akin to Vedic Sanskrit, was on the UNESCO team that drafted the convention on the protection of underwater cultural heritage. He said the preservation of Dwaraka needs to be addressed urgently before the vagaries of the weather and the sea changes destroy the structures uncovered during a 12-year effort of exploration and documentation.

The Art of Living founder Ravishankar guruji, who inaugurated the conference, set the tone by calling for making the study of history popular.

"History gives people a sense of pride and nurtures a feeling of being connected with heritage, and helps place our own existence in perspective," he said.

Bangalore University Vice-Chancellor M.S. Thimmappa said a student of Indology or Indian history must have pride in the subject. Most South-East Asian nations have history with a good bit of Indology in it and it seems that Indology is more celebrated outside India.

Dr. Thimmappa released the journals of five societies.

The five societies that have chosen to come together for the first time are: Place Names Society of India; Epigraphical Society of India, Indian Archaeological Society, Indian History and Culture Society and Indian Society for Prehistoric and Quaternary Studies.