SOCIAL SCIENTIST (old) name of Hastinapura for the modern settlement (5th period) does not necessarily mean that all the earlier settlement at the site bore this name. The excavator himself has pointed out stratigraphical, chronological breaks between all the five settlement periods at the site. In the absence of cultural continuity at the site, it would be very implausible that the same name applied to all the five settlements including the Painted Grey Ware settlement—unless proved by inscriptional evidence from the earlier periods or from the PGW culture levels and such does evidence not exist, (iii) The evidence of the flood at the end of Painted Grey Ware period at Hastinapura also does not help the correlation. Flood is a natural phenomenon and would have affected a number of contemporary Painted Grey Ware settlements along the Ganga around c.800 B.C. Many a PGW settlements might have been deserted as a consequence of it. Which one of these PGW settlements was Hastinapura is difficult to ascertain. In a scientific study one has to compare only comparables with regard to time, space, culture and the socio-economic formation. A culture described in a text dated between c. 400 B.C. and 400 A.D. cannot be compared with one dated between c.l 000 and 800 B.C. In hir editorial note to the Hastinapura Report A. Ghosh, then Director General, Archaeological Survey of India (Ancient India, nos.10 & 11,1954 and 1955) very wisely warned against the frequent references in the Report to the Mahabharata and the place names mentioned in it as also undue emphasis on the fact that Painted Grey Ware was found at some sites associated with the story of the epic. He stated that "a word of caution is necessary lest the impression is left on the unwary reader that the Hastinapura excavation has yielded the truth of the story of the Mahabharata and that here at last is the recognition by official archaeology of the truth embodied in Indian traditional literature. Such a conclusion would be unwarranted... The excavation has no bearing on the authenticity or otherwise of the epic tale. It is indeed tempting to utilize archaeological evidence for substantiating tradition, but the pitfalls in the way should be guarded against, and caution is necessary that fancy does not fly ahead of facts'*. The temptation to substantiate tradition with the help of archaeological evidence, however, continued to grow stronger not only with B.B. Lal but also with other archaeologists. See, for example, S.P. Gupta and K.S. Ramachandran (eds.), Mahabharata: A Myth or Reality, New Delhi, 1976. H.D. Sankalia, the doyen of Indian archaeology, examined the question of the historicity of the Ramayana more patiently. He came to the conclusion that "still one has to say regretfully, after critically examining the descriptions of events, places and persons, that these are very much exaggerated and hence have had no existence in real life. Everyone has become mythical and belongs to a time when Rama was looked upon as an incarnation of Vishnu and Ravana and other adversaries as demons... This was Valmiki Ratnayana, a poet's creation".