A 90-acre mound near Uttarakhand’s Rudrapur is the Archaeological Survey of India ’s latest subject of probe owing to its connection with the Mahabharata as well as Chinese scholar Xuanzang. The excavation in Kashipur started this week and is expected to go on until March, ASI officials said.

According to mythology and local legend, this site was the training ground and residence of sage Dronacharya from the Mahabharata, and the Pandavas are said to have built the Drona Sagar Lake as ‘ guru dakshina ’ (an offering) to him, for imparting battle skills to them.

Excavations at Kashipur – also identified as Govisana by Xuanzang who had visited the place in the 6th century – have been conducted by ASI across multiple phases since 1939, uncovering Gupta-to-early-medieval temple complexes, the 90-acre mound near Drona Sagar and rich multi-period artifacts.

“While excavations have been conducted here in the preceding decades also, the idea this time is to find scientific evidence of objects retrieved here…