Vadnagar: Gujarat's Oldest Living Town

Most old towns in India have layers. Vadnagar has more layers than almost anywhere, and unusually, they have been dug up and counted. Excavations here have traced more or less continuous human settlement across something like two and a half thousand years — Buddhist monastic remains, Kshatrapa-era material, Solanki temples, medieval fortifications, and a town that is still lived in on top of the whole sequence. There are very few places in the country where you can stand on ground that has been a functioning town for that long.

For the visitor, Vadnagar delivers this in a compact, walkable package: a pair of extraordinary twelfth-century ceremonial gateways, a seventeenth-century Shiva temple that is the seat of a whole Brahmin community, a lake with a memorial to two legendary singers, an excavated Buddhist monastery, and an ambitious new archaeological museum built over the digs. It is about 40 km from Mehsana, it is on the way to nowhere in particular, and it repays a half-day handsomely.

The torana that leads nowhere

The image of Vadnagar is its torana — a free-standing ceremonial arch of red-brown sandstone, twelfth century, Solanki, about twelve metres high, with two carved pillars supporting a richly ornamented lintel and a scalloped arch above. There are two of these in the town; the better-known one stands near Sharmishtha Lake. They were built as gateways for processions and celebrations, marking the ceremonial approach to something, and what they now mark is mostly empty ground, which somehow makes them more rather than less impressive.

The carving is worth close attention: bands of geometric ornament, foliage, figures, kirtimukha faces and the elegant bracket work that Solanki masons were exceptional at. This is the same building culture that produced Modhera's Sun Temple and Rani ki Vav at Patan, in the same century, and if you are doing a north Gujarat architecture route the torana belongs in it. It has also become something of a state emblem, appearing on tourism material and in official iconography.

Nearby, Sharmishtha Lake gives the town its centre of gravity — a large tank with ghats, walkways and, on its edge, a memorial to Tana and Riri, two sisters remembered as extraordinary singers of the Malhar raga. The story goes that they were summoned by the Mughal court after their singing was credited with curing the emperor's ailing court musician Tansen, and that they took their own lives rather than be taken from home. A music festival in their name is held in Vadnagar.

A ceremonial gateway that leads nowhere in particular — and has stood for nine hundred years.

Digging up two and a half thousand years

The archaeology is what has changed Vadnagar's status over the last two decades. Excavations by the Archaeological Survey of India and Gujarat's state archaeology department have exposed a deep, continuous stratigraphy — settlement layers stacked from the pre-Christian era through to the medieval and modern town. Among the most significant finds is a Buddhist monastic complex, with cells arranged around a courtyard, confirming Vadnagar as a Buddhist centre in the early centuries of the common era; the town is generally identified with the Anandapura or Anartapura mentioned in ancient texts and, by some accounts, visited by the Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang.

Settlement layers stacked from before the Christian era to the present day — one of the longest continuously inhabited sites excavated in India

That continuity is the headline. Many Indian archaeological sites are cities that died; Vadnagar is a city that did not. The excavations have produced coins, seals, terracotta, pottery sequences, evidence of craft production and fortification walls, and the interpretation of the whole sequence has been published in a series of studies that place Vadnagar among the more important urban archaeological sites in western India.

A large new archaeological experiential museum has been developed over and around the excavated area, designed to display the finds in situ and walk visitors through the stratigraphy layer by layer. This is a substantial state investment and it has changed the visitor experience considerably — where the digs were once fenced trenches you looked at through a gate, there is now a proper interpretive facility. Check its current opening arrangements before you travel, as phased openings are common with projects of this size.

Hatkeshwar, and a town still in use

The living religious centre of Vadnagar is Hatkeshwar Mahadev, a seventeenth-century Shiva temple that is the kuldevta shrine of the Nagar Brahmin community — a community that takes its name from this town and has spread across India from it. The temple sits on a raised platform, carries dense figurative carving over its walls and spire, and is busy in the ordinary way of a working temple rather than the ceremonial way of a monument. Photography inside is restricted; behave as you would in any active shrine.

The old town around it is worth walking. There are fortified gateways, step-wells, narrow lanes of tightly packed houses with carved wooden brackets, small shrines at street corners, and the general texture of a place that has been continuously occupied for a very long time. Vadnagar is also known nationally as the birthplace of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which accounts for a good deal of recent investment in the town's infrastructure, museums and presentation, and for a steady stream of domestic visitors.

Practicalities and the north Gujarat circuit

Vadnagar is in Mehsana district, roughly 40 km from Mehsana town and about 110 km from Ahmedabad — two to two and a half hours by road. It has a railway station with local services, and buses connect it to Mehsana, Visnagar and beyond, but a car makes far more sense given the number of nearby sites. October to March is the comfortable season; April to June is hot and the town has limited shade.

Almost nobody should visit Vadnagar alone. It sits in the densest cluster of first-rate heritage in Gujarat: the Sun Temple at Modhera is about 50 km away, Rani ki Vav at Patan around 60 km, Taranga Hill's Jain temples roughly 45 km north, and Sidhpur's Bohra streets a similar distance. Two days based in Mehsana or Patan lets you do all of it without rushing, and Vadnagar's combination of gateway, temple, lake and excavation makes an excellent half-day within that. Accommodation in Vadnagar itself is basic; Mehsana has the practical hotels.

If you go

• Give the torana proper time and look closely at the bracket and lintel carving — it is the equal of Modhera's best work.
• Check current opening arrangements for the new archaeological museum before travelling; phased openings are common.
• Respect Hatkeshwar Mahadev as an active shrine: restricted photography, shoes off, modest dress.
• Walk the old town lanes and the Sharmishtha Lake ghats — the texture of the living town is half the point.
• Base yourself in Mehsana or Patan and combine Vadnagar with Modhera, Rani ki Vav, Taranga and Sidhpur over two days.

Vadnagar is the rare heritage town where the interest is vertical. A twelfth-century ceremonial gateway standing free in open ground, a seventeenth-century temple that gave a whole Brahmin community its name, a lake with a memorial to two singers who chose death over the Mughal court, and beneath all of it two and a half thousand years of stacked settlement now being properly excavated and displayed. Put it in a north Gujarat two-day loop with Modhera and Patan, and give it a full unhurried half-day.