In 1968 he was appointed the Director General of the Archeological Survey of India where he would remain until 1972. Between 1950 and 1952, Lal worked on the archeology of sites accounted for in the Hindu epic Mahabharata, including Hastinapur.

Lal took a controversial stance on ‘Ayodhya dispute’. Between 1975 and 1980 excavation took place at Ayodhya with Lal writing in 1977, in the official ASI-journal, that finds were “devoid of any special interest”. In a seven-page preliminary report submitted to the Archaeological Survey of India in 1989, Lal only mentioned that his team found “pillar in Ayodhya.

In 1990, after retirement he wrote in a RSS magazine that he found the remains of a columned temple under the mosque and “embarked on a spree of lectures all over the country” propagating evidence from Ayodhya”.

Attached to the piers of the Babri Masjid, there were twelve stone pillars, which carried not only typical Hindu motifs and mouldings, but also figures of Hindu deities. It was self evident that these pillars were not integral part of the Masjid, but were foreign to it.

Lal’s conclusions have been contested by multiple scholars, questioning both the stratigraphic -information, and the kind of structure envisioned by Lal.

Later, independent analysis of photographs of the trench in which Lal has claimed found the pillar bases found that they were actually the remains of various walls of different, non-contemporaneous structural phases and could not have been load bearing structural. Lal has never made the notebooks and sketches of his excavation. They were, therefore, not available to other scholars so that his interpretation could be tested.

In his 2002 book, The Saraswati flows on Lal rejected the widely accepted Arian invasion theory, arguing that the Rig Ved description of the Saraswati River as overflowing contradicts the main stream view that Indo-Arian migration started at CA. 1500 BCE after the Saraswati River dried up. In his book ‘The Rig Vedic people; Invaders? indigenous? Or Immigrants?’ Lal argues that Rigvedic people and the authors of the Harappan civilization were the same, a view outside main scholarship. Both books have been ignored in mainstream scholarship.

What were Lal’s findings in the Ramjanmabhoomi site in Ayodhya?

On the lines of the investigation carried out in Mahabharata sites, Lal commenced on another project in 1975 titled, ‘Archaeology of the Ramayana sites’. The project was funded by ASI, Jiwaji Rao university, Gwalior and Department of Archaeology in the government of Uttar Pradesh. The project was inaugurated at Ayodhya on March 31, 1975. It excavated five Ramyana sites including Ayodhya, Bharadwaj, Nandigram, Chitrakoot and Shringaverapur.

In his 1975 paper Lal wrote about the ongoing excavation: the excavation so far conducted at Ayodhya do not indicate the beginning of the site before 8th century BC. While he mentioned the discovery of coins and pottery at Ayodhya in this paper, no mention was made of the temple town remains then.

However, in 1990, Lal wrote of the ‘pillar-base theory’ on the basis of his excavations. He claimed to have found temple-like pillars which would have formed the foundation of Babri Masjid. Lal’s findings were carried in BJP-affiliated Magazine, Manthan. In his 2008 book ‘Rama’, His historic city, Mandir and Setu: : Evidence of Literature, /Archaeology and other sources’ he wrote :attached to the pier of the Babri Masjid, there were 12 stone pillars, which carried not only typical Hindu motifs mouldings, but also figures of Hindu deities. It was self-evident that these pillars were not integral part of Masjid, but were foreign to it”. His theory of the temple-like pillars was recognized as the interpretive framework of the court appointed excavation team in 2002. (IPA Service)