AHMED HASSAN DANI: (1920-2009)

Author(s): Luca M. Olivieri

Source: East and West, Vol. 59, No. 1/4, BON: THE EVERLASTING RELIGION OF TIBET.
TIBETAN STUDIES IN HONOUR OF PROFESSOR DAVID L. SNELLGROVE (December 2009), pp.
379-384
Published by: Istituto Italiano per l'Africa e l'Oriente (IsIAO)
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AHMED HASSAN DANI
(1920-2009)
Ahmed Hassan
Dani, archaeologist,
Professor Emeritus at
Quaid-e
Azam
University,
Islamabad and
Honorary
Director of the Taxila Institute for Asian
Civilizations, passed away
on 26
January
2009 at the
age
of 88.
Time and
place
do not make a man a witness
by right
of birth. Witnesses are those who
actively
mark their
eras,
or else those
through
whom an era manifests itself. The
biography
of
A.H. Dani
places
him in the first
group.
A.H. Dani was born into a Kashmiri
family
in
Basna,
in the state of
Chahattisgahr,
Central
Provinces,
British India. His interest in
antiquities
led him to
study
Sanskrit at
Banaras Hindu
University,
where he was the first Muslim student to obtain a MA honours
degree
in 1944. The same or the
following year
he
began training
as a field
archaeologist
at
the Taxila School of
Archaeology
under Mortimer
Wheeler; again
under the
guidance
of the
great
British
archaeologist,
in 1950 he attended the
Mohenjo-daro
School. Wheeler's
watchful
eye
had from the outset fallen
upon
Dani and other
young persons, including
F.A.
Khan,
and
they began
to form the basic nucleus of his
reorganization
of
Archaeological
Survey
of
India,
which enabled the British administration to
bequeath
to the future States a
comprehensive
and efficient
government archaeological
service.
While F.A. Khan
(x)
was
beginning
his career in West Pakistan
(in
the late 1950s he
became the Director General of the
Department
of
Archaeology
& Museums of
Pakistan),
Dani, already
an officer of the
Archaeological Survey
(first
posting
to the
Taj Mahal, Agra)
was
posted
to the East Pakistan in 1947. In 1949 he was
promoted Superintendent-in-Charge.
These were
years
of
transformation,
in which the
Department
of
Archaeology
of Pakistan still
borrowed its
positions,
nomenclature and
management
from the old
Archaeological Survey.
In
this sense,
as Dani left the service in the
early
1960s,
it
may
be said that if he ever
belonged
to
the structure that would later be known as
Department
of
Archaeology
and Museums
(DOAM),
it was
only
for a few
years,
above all in the Dhaka
period
(1950-1962) when,
as well
as the
university chair,
he held the
post
of Curator of the Dhaka Museum.
In 1950 he was
appointed
Assistant Professor
(History)
at Dhaka
University.
In 1955 he
received a PhD at the Institute of
Archaeology
of
University College
of London. It was
precisely
in the
university
that Dani was to find the environment most favourable to the
expression
of his
capacity.
In addition to
study
and
research,
he also had a
genius
for
organization
and
dissemination,
as well as
being
an interlocutor
open
to civil
society.
His work as a scholar
capable
of
embracing
vast areas of
history
and
archaeology
and of
combining
a scientific
approach
with an interest in
popularization, clearly emerges
from the
long
list of his
monographies
(2):
Bibliography of
the Muslim
Inscriptions of Bengal (1957),
{l)
See F.A. Khan
obituary,
this Volume.
(2)
During
the
past twenty years
his
publisher
was
generally Sang-e
Meel of Lahore.
[i]
379
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Prehistory
and
Protohistory of
Eastern India With a Detailed Account
of
the Neolithic Cultures
(1960),
Dacca: A Record
of
Its
Changing
Fortunes
(1962),
Indian
Palaeography (1963),
Alherunis Indica: A Record
of
the Cultural
History of
South Asia about AD. 1030
(University
of
Islamabad, 1973),
Indus Civilization: New
Perspectives (Quaid-i-Azam University,
Islamabad, 1981),
Thatta: Islamic Architecture
(Institute
of Islamic
History,
Culture &
Civilization, 1982),
Chilas: The
City of Nanga
Parvat
(Dyamar) (1983),
The Historic
City of
Taxila
(Centre
for East Asian Cultural
Studies, 1986), Perspectives of
Pakistan. National
Institute
of
Pakistan Studies
(Quaid-e-Azam University, 1989), History of
Northern Areas
of
Pakistan
(Historical studies,
National Institute of Historical and Cultural
Research, 1989),
A
Short
History of Pakistan,
Book One: Pre-Muslim Period
(University
of
Karachi,
3
editions,
1967, 1984, 1992),
Peshawar: Historic
City of
the Frontier
(2nd
Revised
edition, 1995),
Human
Records
on Karakorum
Highway (1995),
Central Asia
Today (1996),
New
Light
on Central Asia
(1996),
Romance
of
the
Khyber
Pass
(1997), History of
Northern Areas
of
Pakistan
(Up
to 2000
AD) (2001),
Historic
City of
Taxila
(2001), History of
Pakistan: Pakistan
through Ages
(2007).
To the above works must be added the two volumes
published by
UNESCO of which
Dani was the co-editor:
History of Humanity,
Volume
III,
From the Third Millennium to the
Seventh
Century
BC
(1996)
and the first of the six volumes of
History of
Civilizations
of
Central Asia
(1992).
He was an able
organizer
of museum
displays
(1947-1949,
Verandra
Museum, Rajshahi;
1950-1962,
Dhaka
Museum;
1962-1971: Peshawar
Museum,
Lahore
Museum;
1993:
Islamabad
Museum).
He often held
management positions
on committees and
scholarly
societies
where,
as an
important interlocutor,
he was able to
bring
the needs of research closer to civil
society.
His
many posts
include: 1950:
Secretary
General of the Asiatic
Society
of
Pakistan;
1955:
President of the National Committee for
Museums;
1970: Chairman of the Research
Society,
University
of
Peshawar;
1979: President
Archaeological
and Historical Association of
Pakistan;
1992-1996: Advisor on
Archaeology
to the
Ministry
of
Culture;
1994-1998:
Chairman of National Fund for Cultural
Heritage;
1978-2007:
Director,
and later
Honorary
Director of the Centre for the
Study
of the Civilizations in Central Asia
(from
1997: Taxila
Institute of Asian
Civilizations, TIAC).
It is
apparent
from his
many publications
and
scholarly positions
that his
early
career
was centered in Dhaka while the later
stages
were
organized
from Islamabad. The central
phase
of his career was
spent
at
Peshawar,
to which
university
Dani was called in 1962. This
is
probably
the
explanation
of the
pause
mentioned earlier. It
represented
Dani's most
intense,
if not his most fruitful
period
as a field
archaeologist.
It coincides with the creation
of the
Department
of
Archaeology
of the
University
of Peshawar
which,
in the short
space
of
a
few
years
was to become the
cutting edge
of
archaeological
studies in Pakistan. Here Dani
not
only
lectured: here he succeeded in
setting up
a school of studies
and, together
with his
pupils,
who later became
professors
in the same
Department,
he
promoted important
excavation
campaigns
in the North West Frontier Province.
In
1958,
while Dani was still in
Dhaka,
F.A.
Khan,
now Director General of
DOAM,
invited Mortimer Wheeler to resume an old excavation
programme
at Charsadda
(scheduled
for
1947) (3).
This led to the
discovery
of
part
of the ancient
city
of Pushkalavati.
However,
(3)
See the introduction in M.
Wheeler,
Ch?rsada. A
Metropolis of
the NW
Frontier,
Oxford 1962.
380 [2]
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this
extremely important
excavation was not followed
through
and all we know about the site
is contained in the
extremely
succinct results of the excavation of five trenches
(4).
In 1963
Dani resumed the
project, focusing
in
particular
on the artificial mesa of
Shaikhan-dheri, just
North of the
high ground
of
Bala-hisar,
where Wheeler's excavations had been carried out.
The
photographs accompanying
the
report (5)
betray
the Dani school of field
archaeology:
it
is
impossible
mistake the
military precision
of the
camp,
with the
paths
marked with chalk
on to which
carefully aligned
tents
open
-
the order learned at the Taxila School of
Archaeology
under Wheeler's
guidance?
Also the excavation of
Shaikhan-dheri,
in which the
British
archaeologist
F.R. Allchin had been invited to
participate,
was
unfortunately
interrupted
after the second
campaign.
His
working group
at the
University
of Peshawar focused on several different
fields,
all
linked to the
major
themes of the
regional archaeology
of the NWFP. The fieldwork
reports
were
published
in numerous
monographic
issues of the
journal
conceived
by
Dani for the
Department
of
Archaeology
of the
University
of
Peshawar,
Ancient Pakistan
(6).
His
working
team carried out initial excavations of a rock shelter at
Sanghao,
between
Mardan and
Buner,
the finds
relating
to which were
initially
attributed to the Palaeolithic
{Ancient Pakistan,
Vol.
I, 1964)
and then in the
early-historic
age
urban settlement at
Shaikhan-dheri
(Ancient Pakistan,
Vol.
II, 1965-66).
Dani then
gradually
moved
slightly northward,
to the Lower Dir
valley,
a
region
adjoining
Swat.
Here,
in the
meantime,
the IsMEO
Archeological
Mission led
by Giuseppe
Tucci had
begun
(1956)
multiple
excavation activities. In
Dir,
in the area around
Timargarha,
the theme of the
protohistorical necropolises
was
tackled,
while in the
meantime,
the Italians had
performed
extensive excavations in
Swat;
in the same
area,
also
a
large
settlement
dating roughly
to the same
period
was excavated at Balambat
(Ancient
Pakistan,
Vol.
Ill, 1967). Later,
Dani's team concentrated on the excavation of several
Buddhist sacred areas
(in
particular
Andhan-dheri and
Chatpat),
and on the excavation of
the
multiphase
settlement of Damkot
(entrusted
to Abdur
Rahman) (Ancient Pakistan,
Vol.
IV, 1968-69).
After
completing
his research in the area of
Dir,
Dani focused his efforts on the Gomal
plain,
D.I.
Khan, (Ancient Pakistan,
Vol.
V, 1970-71),
but the results of the excavation of the
pre-Harappan
site of
Rahman-dheri,
the most
important
of the
plain,
will be
published by
F.A.
Durrani,
who
replaced
him at the head of the
Department
of
Archaeology,
and Farid Khan.
Dani's
strategy
consisted of
organizing
thematic
working campaigns
with a
grand
deployment
of forces for the duration of a
campaign (generally
one
season).
For
instance,
the
(4)
In recent
years,
the excavations have been resumed within the framework of an
Anglo-Pakistani
project;
see R.
Coningham
& L
Ali,
Charsadda. The British-Pakistani Excavations at the Bala
Hisar,
Oxford 2007.
(5)
Published in the
Journal
of the
University
of
Peshawar,
Ancient
Pakistan,
Vol.
Ill,
1965.
(6)
Ancient Pakistan should be considered a
journal
(or
rather a research
bulletin), although,
because of the
monographic
nature of
nearly
all its
volumes, initially
edited
by
Dani
himself,
and then
by
his
successors,
is
generally
considered in Pakistan as a series and cited as such
(after
a
long pause,
the last
issue, XVI, 2005,
dedicated to Farid
Khan,
came out last
year;
the new issue
(XVII)
is in
preparation).
Prof. Nasim Khan of the
Department
of
Archaeology
of the
University
of Peshawar
recently
set
up
a new
journal,
Gandh?ran
Studies,
of a miscellaneous rather than
monographic
nature,
dedicated to historical research. Volumes
I,
II and III have
already
been
published.
[3]
381
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season of the Buddhist excavations involved the simultaneous excavation of several
sites,
while another
group explored
the late-ancient fortified settlements. At the end of each
campaign,
as we have
seen,
a
prompt
excavation
report
was
published
in Ancient Pakistan.
For the Italian
archaeologists working
in
Swat,
three excavation
reports
are
particularly
important:
the one dedicated to the Shaikhan-dheri excavations
(Vol. II),
the one on the
excavations
performed
in Dir in
protohistoric necropolises
(Vol. Ill)
and the one dedicated
to the excavations carried out in Buddhist sacred
areas and late-ancient
settlements, again
in
the Dir area
(Vol. IV).
These consist of three of the main
topics
tackled in
parallel (although
not
simultaneously)
also
by
the Italian Mission in Swat under the direction of Domenico
Faccenna: the urban settlements
(Udegram, Barama, Barikot),
the
protohistoric necropolises
(mainly
Katelai and
Loebanr),
the sacred areas
(Butkara I, Panr,
Saidu
Sharif).
Also in other
aspects,
of the Italian
research,
such as the documentation of the Buddhist rock
sculptures,
Dani
promoted
activities that broadened the
scope
of the Italians'
work,
such as the
discovery
of the Dir
sculptures.
The
interpretations proposed by
the two
working groups
in different occasions
diverged
but the scientific discussion was
although always
marked
by great
mutual
respect.
Dani was
indeed one of the
foreign guests
invited
by
IsMEO to Rome in 1982 to the
presentation
of
the Domenico Faccenna's final
report
on the Butkara I excavations. To
acknowledge
the
profound
scientific bonds
linking
him to
IsMEO,
the Institute nominated Dani
Honorary
Member in 1986.
In the final
phase
of Dani's career we find him
working
in
Islamabad,
where he set
up
that
splendid
institute
represented by
the
present-day
TIAC,
now
directed
by
Ashraf Khan.
In 1967 the
University
of Islamabad
(later
the
Quaid-i
Azam
University)
was authorized
by
the
Ministry
of
Education,
Government of Pakistan to establish a
Research Centre for the
study
of the Civilizations of Central Asia. The
guiding spirit
behind this idea was
actually
A.H.
Dani,
who was later able to dedicate himself to it full
time,
in
particular
after
retiring
from
teaching
in 1980. The
Centre,
under Dani's
guidance,
became a
participating
member
of
UNESCO, representing
Pakistan in the
country's programmes
on Central Asia. In
UNESCO there was a
proposal
to
expand
the
scope
of the Centre and make
a
comparative
study
of the civilizations of the whole of Asia. With the consent of the Government of
Pakistan, Quaid-i-Azam University accepted
the
proposal
in 1997 and thus the name of the
Centre was
changed
to Taxila Institute of Asian Civilizations
(TIAC)
exactly
30
years
after its
birth and was deemed to be a constituent institute of the
Quaid-i-Azam University
(7).
The
flexible structure of the Centre and TIAC enabled Dani to create a
dense network of
high
level relations and
exchanges
with the
principle
fellow scholars of the
Republics
of Central
Asia and Russia
(still USSR), Afghanistan, China, Mongolia,
India and Iran. The activities
centering
around these relations are
reflected in the contributions to the Centre's fine official
bullettin,
the
Journal of
Central
Asia,
the
present-day Journal of
Asian Civilizations
(8),
and in
the research
activities,
such as the well-known Silk Route UNESCO
Expedition
of 1990
1991. The interest in Central Asia also underlines
a
geopolitical conception
on which
many
(7)
Today
TIAC is
actually
also a
post-graduate training
centre for PhD students.
(8)
The last issue of the bullettin
(Vol. XXXI,
nos.
1-2, July
and
December, 2008),
is
monographic
and it is
entirely
dedicated to German
ethnographic
and
anthropological
research in Northern Pakistan
('Masters of
Understanding:
German Scholars in the Hindu Kush and
Karakoram, 1955-2005').
382
[4]
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of Dani's historical reconstructions are based. In this
conception,
both in the
past
and in the
present,
the focus of the
cultural, strategic
and commercial interests of the lands South of the
Karakorum-Himalaya,
from the
Harappan
civilization to modern
Pakistan,
was
always
Central Asia.
This was the direction taken also
by
Dani's last
large-scale archaeological
and
epigraphical enterprise
-
the co-direction with Karl
Jettmar
of the Pak-German
Study Group
in
Karakorum, starting
in 1980. The
project
arose out of an idea and the
early
research
conducted
by
a Karakorum
veteran,
K.
Jettmar,
but found an
extraordinary support
in
Dani
(9).
To
give
a concise
description
of the aims and results of this
project
is no
easy
matter. In the ultimate
analysis
it consists of
a work of
documentation, study
and the
publication
of tens of thousands of
inscriptions
(also
in Chinese and
Hebrew)
and
engravings
(from
prehistory
to historical and late-ancient
times)
found
along
the
upper
course of the
Indus, along
the routes
linking Kashmir, Tibet,
the Pamir
area,
ancient
Gandhara, Swat,
and
so on.
Today
these routes are
partially
followed
by
the modern Karakorum
Highway,
the
opening
of which marked the
beginning
of
Jettmar
and Dani's
project. Today
the
project
is
being
continued under the direction of H.
Hauptmann
and the series of
monographic
publications
in German and Urdu is now
quite
voluminous
(10).
In the
years
of the research in
Karakorum,
there were less occasions for
meetings
between Italian
archaeologists
and Dani.
Then,
unlike
today,
Swat and the
Upper
Indus
appeared
to be two
separate
worlds. In
spite
of
this,
there were some occasions for contact
with the Italian Mission. In those
years
Umberto Scerrato had
begun
to work on
documenting
the wooden
mosques
of
Upper
Swat and the Kohistan
valleys.
Also
on this
subject
Dani did not fail to
give
his contribution. Another occasion was
provided by
the
important congress organized by
Dani's Centre at
Gilgit
in 1983
(n),
attended
by practically
the entire Italian Mission which travelled to
Gilgit directly
from Swat.
To confirm the
strong relationship
between Dani and the Italian Mission of IsMEO
IsIAO,
I recall that Domenico
Faccenna,
particularly
in the last ten
years,
when his
trips
to
Pakistan became much less
frequent
and then
impossible,
whenever
we were
leaving
for
Pakistan,
never failed to remember
us to
pay
visit to
Dani,
or to
give
us written
message
of
greetings,
or a
book,
for Dani.
Within the same
period
of less than six months A.H.
Dani,
D. Faccenna and F.A.
Khan,
namely
the main
figures
in this
story,
have
passed away, preceded briefly by
others. In
short,
since
2000,
an entire
generation
has been
swept away.
The task
they
have left us is a difficult
one,
not
only
in view of the
promise
made
by
oriental studies
regarding
a historical
synthesis,
also in view of the conditions
currently prevailing
in the field where the winds of war are still
blowing,
but
precisely
because of the loss of such
figures
that served
as a
point
of reference
and
comparison.
To
prevent
the field of studies
pursued by
these Master
throughout
their
(9)
See
p.
85 in K.
Jettmar, Tetroglyphs
as Evidence of
Religious Configuration'
in
Journal of
Asian
Civilizations, 2008, XXXI,
l-2.This is an
English
translation of the Afterword written
by Jettmar
for the
first
unabridged English
edition of
Religionen
des Hindukusch. The
project
of the
English
edition
was
then abandoned
by
the editors
(see
the Foreword to the same issue of the
Journal).
(10)
The last volume
(Band 9) of the series Materialien zur
Arch?ologie
der
Nordgebiete
Pakistans
(Die
Felsbild Station
Thalpan IV, by
D.
Bandini-K?nig)
came out in Summer 2009.
(n)
International Conference
on
Karakorum
Culture, Gilgit
24-30
September
1983,
the
proceedings
of which were
published
in four issues of the
Journal of
Central
Asia, VII, 1-2, VIII,
1-2.
[5]
383
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lives
(and
I
specifically
add also K.
Jettmar
and M. Taddei to these brief
pages)
from
falling
prey,
as a
direct result of the
exploitation
of the
present conditions,
to rank amateurs and art
merchants,
to uncertain
provenances
and
private collections,
is the task of those who are
left,
but above all of those who remain faithful to their
teachings.
Post
scriptum
In
general,
this
type
of short article is concluded
by
a
long
list of titles or honours. This
has
already
been seen to
by
other
Journals
(12).
Here I shall
only
mention that Professor
A.H. Dani was awarded the title of
Knight
Commander
by
the Italian
government
in 1994.
Luca M. Olivieri
(12)
For
instance,
the
obituary published by
H. van
Skyhawk
in the above-mentioned
monographic
issue of
Journal of
Asian Civilizations
(XXXI, 1-2, pp. 367-69).
[6] 384
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