Who was the first Director General of the Archaeological Survey of India?
- (a)John Marshall
- (b)Alexander Cunningham
- (c)Mortimer Wheeler
- (d)Francis Buchanan
Answer
Why
Correct — B, (b) Alexander Cunningham. Cunningham was the first Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India, taking charge on 1 January 1871 and holding the office until he retired in 1885. The history behind that date is worth knowing because it explains why he, and not one of the more famous excavators, holds the title. Cunningham was an officer of the Bengal Engineers who had spent his Indian service tracing ancient sites, and in 1861 the Government of India created for him the new post of archaeological surveyor. That first survey was wound up in 1865 for want of money. It was revived under Lord Mayo in 1870, this time as a permanent department, and Cunningham was made its first Director-General the following January. His method was as distinctive as his appointment: he used the travel accounts of the Chinese pilgrims who had come to India centuries earlier as field guides, matching their descriptions and distances against the ground to identify sites that had been lost, and among his identifications is the ancient city of Taxila. He excavated at Bharhut, worked at Sarnath and Sankisa, and published a long series of survey reports, which is why he is generally called the father of Indian archaeology. The other three names on the list are all real figures in the same field, and the question is testing whether a candidate can order them in time.
Why the others are wrong
- (a)John Marshall — John Marshall was Director-General from 1902 to 1928, appointed by Lord Curzon as part of the revival of the Survey that also produced the Ancient Monuments Preservation Act of 1904, and his tenure was the most consequential in the department’s history — it was under him that the excavations at Harappa and Mohenjo-daro were carried out and the existence of the Indus civilisation announced in 1924, and he also worked extensively at Taxila and Sanchi. But he took office three decades after the post was created, and the question asks who held it first. Marshall is the strongest distractor precisely because his name is attached to the discovery that made the Survey famous.
- (c)Mortimer Wheeler — Mortimer Wheeler was Director-General from 1944 to 1948, at the very end of British rule, and he is remembered for method rather than for discovery: he brought rigorous stratigraphic excavation and grid recording to Indian sites, trained a generation of Indian archaeologists, dug at Harappa, Arikamedu and Brahmagiri, and founded the journal Ancient India. His appointment comes three-quarters of a century after Cunningham’s, and choosing him usually means a candidate has confused fame in archaeology with priority in the office.
- (d)Francis Buchanan — Francis Buchanan worked before the Archaeological Survey existed at all. He was a surgeon and naturalist in the Company’s service who conducted the survey of Mysore at the beginning of the nineteenth century and then the great statistical survey of the districts of Bengal between 1807 and 1814, recording agriculture, trade, population and antiquities together. That material is a valuable source and it does contain observations of ancient remains, but it belongs to a period more than fifty years before the Survey was founded in 1861, and Buchanan never held office in it.
Concept
The Archaeological Survey of India has a datable institutional history that examiners like because it can be asked from several directions. It begins with the antiquarian interest of Company servants and the Asiatic Society founded by Sir William Jones in 1784, and with James Prinsep’s decipherment of the Brahmi script in the 1830s, which made the inscriptions of Ashoka readable and turned speculation into evidence. The Survey itself was created in 1861 with Cunningham as archaeological surveyor, lapsed in 1865, and was re-established in 1870 with Cunningham as its first Director-General from 1871. It was revitalised again under Curzon, who appointed John Marshall in 1902 and secured the Ancient Monuments Preservation Act of 1904, giving the state the power to protect and acquire monuments; the Indus discoveries followed in the 1920s. Wheeler’s spell in the 1940s brought modern excavation technique, and after independence the Survey continued under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act of 1958.
This is a straightforward firsts question, and it appears in the middle of a history block that has been asking about people and organisations, so the technique is the same one that answered the earlier items — attach a date to each name and read the ask precisely. What makes it slightly harder than it looks is that all four men are genuinely associated with Indian archaeology or antiquarian survey, so a candidate cannot eliminate by unfamiliarity. EPFO papers construct option sets this way when the topic is small and well documented; the reward goes to whoever has learned the sequence rather than the reputations.
Key facts
- Alexander Cunningham became the first Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India on 1 January 1871 and served until 1885.
- He had been appointed archaeological surveyor to the Government of India in 1861, when the post was newly created; that survey was discontinued in 1865 for lack of funds.
- The Survey was re-established under Lord Mayo in 1870, and it is from that revival that the Director-Generalship dates.
- Cunningham used the itineraries of the Chinese pilgrims to identify lost sites, and identified the site of ancient Taxila in the 1860s.
- John Marshall was Director-General from 1902 to 1928; the Indus civilisation was announced during his tenure in 1924.
- The Ancient Monuments Preservation Act was passed in 1904 under Lord Curzon, who had appointed Marshall two years earlier.
- Mortimer Wheeler was Director-General from 1944 to 1948 and introduced systematic stratigraphic excavation to Indian archaeology.
- 1784 and the 1830s — the background. The Asiatic Society founded by Sir William Jones in 1784, and James Prinsep’s decipherment of the Brahmi script in the 1830s, which made the inscriptions of Ashoka readable and turned speculation into evidence.
- 1861 — the Government of India creates the new post of archaeological surveyor for Alexander Cunningham, an officer of the Bengal Engineers who had spent his Indian service tracing ancient sites.
- 1865 — that first survey is wound up for want of money.
- 1870, and 1 January 1871 — the Survey is revived under Lord Mayo, this time as a permanent department, and Cunningham takes charge as its first Director-General the following January, holding the office until 1885. He used the travel accounts of the Chinese pilgrims as field guides, matching their descriptions and distances against the ground; among his identifications is the site of ancient Taxila.
- 1902 to 1928 — John Marshall, appointed by Curzon, whose tenure produced the Ancient Monuments Preservation Act of 1904 and the announcement of the Indus civilisation in 1924. The strongest distractor, because his name is attached to the discovery that made the Survey famous — but he took office three decades after the post was created.
- 1944 to 1948 — Mortimer Wheeler, remembered for method rather than discovery: stratigraphic excavation and grid recording, the training of a generation of Indian archaeologists, and the journal Ancient India. Francis Buchanan, by contrast, surveyed Mysore and then the districts of Bengal between 1807 and 1814, more than fifty years before the Survey existed.
Study next
Common traps
- Choosing the most famous archaeologist instead of the earliest office-holder. The question asks for a first, not for a reputation.
- Confusing the founding of the Survey in 1861 with the creation of the Director-Generalship in 1871.
- Placing a pre-Survey surveyor such as Buchanan inside an institution that did not yet exist.
- Assuming that the man associated with the Indus discoveries must have headed the department from its beginning.
Institutional firsts are asked in the same flat form across EPFO papers — first Director-General, first Chairman, first Chief Election Commissioner, first woman to hold an office — and they are almost always decided by chronology within a small set of well-known names. The efficient preparation is to hold each institution with its founding year and the first two or three holders of its principal office, plus the one later holder everybody remembers, since that later holder is the distractor the paper will use.
Related PYQs
EPFO_EOAO_2017_Q22Open & attempt →In the context of international affairs, which one of the following is correct about Lord Curzon?
- (a) He advocated a pacifist policy.
- (b) He wanted to establish a British sphere of influence over the Persian Gulf and Seistan.
- (c) He wanted England and Russia to become friends against China.
- (d) He wanted to lead a flag-waving mission to the USA.
Answer(b) He wanted to establish a British sphere of influence over the Persian Gulf and Seistan.
The Curzon item earlier in the block; Curzon is the Viceroy who revived the Survey in 1902 and carried the Ancient Monuments Preservation Act of 1904.
EPFO_EOAO_2017_Q35Open & attempt →Which one of the following is not a characteristic of the Mughal chronicles?
- (a) They present a continuous chronological record of events.
- (b) They were a repository of factual information about the Mughals.
- (c) They allow us to understand how imperial ideologies were created and disseminated.
- (d) They contain brief biographies of the authors of the chronicles.
Answer(d) They contain brief biographies of the authors of the chronicles.
The Mughal chronicles item, which tests the other main class of source for pre-modern Indian history alongside the archaeological one.
Practice
- practice — not a real PYQ
Under which Viceroy was the Archaeological Survey of India re-established in 1870, leading to the creation of the post of Director-General?
- (a)Lord Canning
- (b)Lord Mayo
- (c)Lord Curzon
- (d)Lord Ripon
Answer(b) Lord Mayo
- practice — not a real PYQ
The existence of the Indus civilisation was announced in 1924 during the tenure of which Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India?
- (a)Alexander Cunningham
- (b)John Marshall
- (c)Mortimer Wheeler
- (d)James Prinsep
Answer(b) John Marshall