Bhagwan Lal Indraji

Bhagwan Lal Indraji or Bhagwanlal Indraji (8 November 1839 – 16 March 1888) was an Indian archaeologist and scholar. A member of the Royal Asiatic Society's Bombay branch. He made transcripts of several ancient Indian inscriptions, including the Hathigumpha inscription. He discovered many archaeological relics, including the Mathura lion capital, the Bairat and Sopara Ashokan inscription, the Nanaghat reliefs, the Mathura Vishnu image, drum miniature stupa with a frieze of eight metopes representing the four principal and four secondary scenes from Buddha's life, Jain Aayagpata, various Mathura railing pillars, Mankuwar Buddha, Besnagar coping stone depicting Bodhi Tree, and Gadava surya frieze. He was the first Indian to receive an honorary doctorate from a foreign University (Leiden University).

Early life

Bhagwan Lal Indraji was born in 1839 in Junagadh. He obtained his primary education in Junagadh, and learnt Sanskrit from his father, a Prashnora Nagar Brahmin.

Initiation into archaeology

As a teenager, Bhagwan Lal frequented Girnar, which had several rocks with inscriptions in the Brahmi script. Colonel Lang, the Political Agent of Kathiawar took a lot of interest in these inscriptions. In 1854, he handed over a copy of James Prinsep's paper containing the Pali Brahmi alphabet to Manishankar Jatashankar, a local scholar. Jatashankar shared it with Bhagwan Lal, who made a copy of his own. Using this copy, Bhagwan Lal tried to decipher the Rudradaman I inscription on a Girnar rock. He could not understand the compound letters and the matras. So, he wrote to a friend in Bombay, requesting research material related to Girnar rock inscriptions. In response, he received several journals of the Royal Asiatic Society's Bombay branch. Using this material, he mastered the Pali alphabet, including its several varieties from different periods. He was able to make out unfamiliar letters and address omissions and inaccuracies in Prinsep's copy. He finally succeeded in making a completely new transcript of the Rudradaman inscription, which greatly impressed Colonel Lang. He mastered the Brahmi script. A.K. Forbes, who succeeded Lang as the Political Agent, introduced Bhagwan Lal to Bhau Daji, a renowned Bombay-based scholar of India antiquities. He discovered 'Kambojika' (a Gandhara-style life-size statue). He purchased several Bactrian and Scythian coins from the local markets, until he ran out of money.

Bhagwan Lal was a pioneer in Ashokan studies. He discovered the archaeological sites at Bairat and Sopara. He excavated Sopara and published an excavation report. He was the first Indian to excavate and publish the report. Most of the inscriptions in Archaeological Survey of Western India Reports volume 4 and 5 were his contributions. He was co-author (with James Burgess) of Inscriptions from the Caves Temples of Western India with descriptive notes. He was the main contributor to Burgess' Ajanta Notes and Rock-cut Temples at Badami in the Deccan.

Bhagwan Lal did not know English, which greatly impeded his research and reach of his contributions. He died on 16 March 1888, after a prolonged illness.

Awards and honours

Honours accorded to Bhagwan Lal include:

Honorary membership of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1877 Fellow of Bombay University, 1882 Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of Philology, Geography and Ethnology of the Netherlands Hague, 1883 Honorary Doctorate from Leiden University 1884 Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain