ABSTRACT

This chapter investigates village-level perceptions of the physical and archaeological landscape of a segment of the Faridabad district, in the Indian state of Haryana. This area, the Ballabgarh tehsil,1 shares its border with Delhi, the Union Capital. Under the British government in India it used to form a part of the Delhi district. In addition to its geographical proximity, it has been perceived as having a history broadly identical to that of Delhi. Volume 1 of the Imperial Gazetteer of India (Gazetteer 1991:281) is representative of this view:

The history of the District is the history of Delhi city, of which it has from time immemorial formed a dependency. Even the towns of…Ballabgarh and Faridabad hardly possess local histories of their own, apart from the city, in and around which are all its great antiquities.