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Remembering a Pioneer in the Bicentenary, Sir Alexander Cunningham and the Study of Indian Temple Art

Author Affiliations

  • 1 Hindu College, University of Delhi, New Delhi, INDIA

Int. Res. J. Social Sci., Volume 3, Issue (6), Pages 62-67, June,14 (2014)

Abstract

Alexander Cunningham’s pioneering career as Surveyor General of India and subsequently as the first Director General of the Archaeological Survey of India is a landmark epoch in defining the discipline of archaeology and its official instutionalization in colonial India. His extensive and meticulous field reports published in twenty three volumes is still the primary source of information for the study of Indian art and archaeology throwing an invaluable light on the history of discovery and the method of documentation of various sites and their findings. His inclusive methodology of documentation illustrates the possibilities of ethnographic explorations with keen attention to incorporate local traditions and individual viewpoints. Cunningham became an institution in his life time by nurturing the talents of a generation of archaeologists and epigraphists who started their careers under the guidance of Cunningham. That material remains of the past alone not only grand monuments but also dilapidated structures and ruins can form an authentic source of reconstructing history was established by Cunningham and his contemporary James Fergusson. Both the approaches received a firm foundation in India in terms of their respective followers and their influence over the subsequent scholarship. Cunningham’s almost evolutionary approach of tracing the development of the Indian temple architecture from the relatively simpler flat roof to the more complex developments of superstructure and the temple building has set the tone of the subsequent scholarship. The present article attempts to relook at the contribution of a pioneer in his bicentenary.

References

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  7. Cunnigham, Alexander, Four Reports Made During the Years 1862-63-64-65, Archaeological Survey of India , vii, (1871 Reprint 2000) (2000)
  8. Cunningham, Alexander, Four Reports Made During the Years 1862-63-64-65, Archaeological Survey of India, preface (1871 Reprint 2000) (2000)
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  10. Singh, Upinder, Cunningham’s, “was a vision that included much and excluded little, and its wide scope can be connected to the fact that Cunningham was never an armchair scholar. His archaeological inquires involved extensive travel and intensive contact with the people and places of India” in The Discovery of Ancient India, Early Archaeologists and the Beginning of Archaeology, 346 (2004)
  11. Cunnigham, Alexander, Report of a Tour in the central Provinces in 1873-74 and 1874-75, IX, 43 (1879, reprint 2000) (2000)
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  14. Cunningham, Alexander. Report of a Tour in the Central Provinces in 1873-74 and 1874-75, Archaeological Survey of India, New Delhi, IX, 42-43 (1879/2000 reprint)
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  18. Cunningham in a letter written to the Director of the East India Company which was subsequently published in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society in 1843 made the above comment. See Singh, Upinder; The Discovery of Ancient India, Early Archaeologists and the Beginning of Archaeology, 38 (2004)
  19. Apparently this kind of comment “may look like proof of hidden political and evangelical agendas behind Cunningham’s archaeological investigation, the revelations of an unguarded moment by a young man in the course of personal correspondence.” Cunningham’s voluminous writings of the later years never exhibit such a kind of bias which has dominated the writings of his contemporary like Fergusson. See Singh, Upinder; The Discovery of Ancient India, Early Archaeologists and the Beginning of Archaeology, 38 (2004)
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