PRICELESS TREASURES OF HARYANA'S RAKHIGARHI

RAKHIGARHI, 8,000 YEARS OLD

VILLAGE IN HARYANA, INDIA

www.hinduismtoday.com - Rakhigarhi is a cluster of two sprawling villages - Rakhikhas and Rakhi Shahpur - in Haryana, around 106 miles from Delhi, India. That Rakhigarhi was a large Harappan town was known in 1963, when the area was first surveyed. What archaeologists are finding out now is that it is the biggest ever Harappan city, larger and more extensive than the massive Mohenjo Daro. "It's in critical condition because of encroachment and construction," says Vasant Shivram Shinde, professor of archaeology and joint director of the Deccan College Post-Graduate and Research Institute, Pune. 
About 40% of the Rakhigarhi site is protected by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) - which translates to a fenced boundary wall and a guardroom with no guard. The wall is broken in several places, and the protected area is used by the villagers as a place to dry cow dung.

The unprotected areas have houses and farmland. The ancient Harappan city lies buried under. "People pick up Harappan objects from their fields and sell them for as little as Rs.100," says local villager Wazir Chand Saroae. "They don't mean to do anything illegal; it's just that they have little awareness about it." However, all of this is set to change. The Global Heritage Fund (GHF), a non-profit organization based in the US that works to preserve the world's most endangered heritage sites, put Rakhigarhi on its project in 2012. 
This makes the Harappan site one of GHF's 13 projects worldwide. GHF will not only coordinate an ambitious excavation and conservation project at the site, led by Prof. Shinde, beginning this month, it will also work with the local community to develop home stays, train tour guides, and establish an on-site lab and museum with the help of the ASI, Deccan College, and other government agencies to turn Rakhigarhi into a heritage tourism hot spot.

Even though the Harappan or Indus Valley Civilization is one of the three oldest urban civilizations, along with Egypt and Mesopotamia, it is the least understood. Its script is yet to be deciphered, and the knowledge of social structures and life during that period is scant. Rakhigarhi promises to change this too. It is one of the few Harappan sites which has an unbroken history of settlement starting with the early Harappan farming communities from 6,000 to 4,500 BC, to the mysterious collapse of the civilization around 1,800 BC. There is no evidence of an Aryan homeland outside of India. Scholars and indologists have consistently proved that Vedic Culture is indigenous because existing cultural continuity in the Vedic literature from the early Harrapan civilization up to the present day India.

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US? 

It can be scientifically proven that the Vedic Culture is indigenous, through archaeology, the study of cultural continuity, by linguistic analysis, and genetic research. For example, the language and symbolism found on the Harappan seals are very Vedic. We find the Om symbol, the leaf of the Asvatta or holy banyan tree, as well as the swastika, or sign of auspiciousness, mentioned throughout the Vedas. Om is mentioned in the Mundaka and Katha Upanisads as well as the Bhagavad Gita. The Holy Asvatta tree is mentioned in the Aitareya and Satapata Brahmanas as well as the Taittiriya Samhita and Katyayana Smrti. ... Other archaeological finds are culturally consistent, such as the dancing girl, whose bracelets are similar to those worn by women of Northwest India today as well as the three stone Siva Lingas found in Harappa by M. S. Vats in 1940. The worship of the Siva Linga is mentioned in the Maha Narayana Upanisad of the Yajur Veda and is still ardently practiced today.

Śrīla Bhakti Bhavan Vishnu Mahārāja :
“Scientific Verification of Vedic Knowledge”
“The Vedic Culture is indigenous to India”
http://gosai.com/ashrama/swami-bb-vishnu
http://gosai.com/writings/science-of-the-sacred

Published by dasavatara das - "Vedic Views on World News"
http://www.vedicviews-worldnews.blogspot.com.ar/