Few cities in India could claim the long continuity and status that Delhi has enjoyed. In the dim protohistoric past, at the site of the sixteenth century citadel Purana-Qila (Qal'a-i-Kuhna) lay perhaps Indra prastha, capital of the heroes of the epic Mahabharata. This settlement, known by different names at different times, has been recently excavated by the Archaeological Survey of India on a large scale revealing a continuous occupation from the Mauryan to Early Mughal period - from the third century b.c. to the sixteenth century a.d. Earlier relics of the Mahabharata age, if represented by the characteristic Painted Grey Ware, as believed by some scholars, have turned up among the rubbish and debris of later dates, evading, thus, the archaeologist's anticipated horizons, yet prompting him not to relinquish the search for a distinct settlement of the Painted Grey Ware people in Delhi.
Y. D. Sharma
Delhi and Its Neighbourhood...
