Dwarka or Dwarawati (The-city-of-Doors) finds mention in many Sanskrit epics including the Mahabharat, Harivansha, Bhagvat Puraan, Skanda Puraan and the Vishnu Puraan.It is one of the sacred quartet that forms Char Dham of Lord Vishnu along with Shri Badrinath, Shri Jagannath Puri and Shri Rameshwaram.

Legend says that the city was built by none other than Vishwakarma, the architect of demigods on the order of Lord Krishna at a site selected by the Divine Eagle Garud.

The end of a Yuga is always a phase of tumultuous transition. We are talking about the period from the Dusk-of-Dvapar to the Dawn-of-Kaliyuga and there was a lot of political upheaval at this time in the civilized world.
Jarasandh, the king of Magadh had emerged as the most powerful and ambitious king of the time, aspiring to become the Lord of the entire land. He had entered into alliance with other tyrant kings like Kamsa and the Kauravs through matrimony and military deterrence and most other rulers were his vassals.
Yadavs were settled on the banks of Yamuna and the cities of Mathura and Shauripuri in present Uttar Pradesh were their major centers. Mathura, the main hub of Chandravanshis was ruled by Kamsa who had dethroned his father Ugrasen and usurped the kingdom.
Another Yadav prince Samudravijay was ruling over Shauripuri, while his younger brother Vasudev (the father of Krishna) was the captive of Kamsa along with his wife Devaki. When Krishna grew up, He liberated His parents from the dungeons of Kamsa, killed the despot and ended his reign of tyranny but Jarasandh (Kamsa’s father-in-law), vowed to take revenge.
Since Krishna was too strong an adversary, Jarasandh, who was a master strategist, decided to target the Yadav subjects and launched a series of raids against the denizens of Mathura. Krishna, being a statesman par excellence, decided to wait for the right time (aka the Mahabharat War) and meanwhile thought of a way to secure His countrymen. He decided to move the entire population of Yadav kingdom to a place far beyond the reach of Jarasandh and picked the western coast of India. The Sabha Parva of Mahabharat gives a detailed account of Krishna’s emigration to Dwarka in order to save the lives of His subjects from unwanted attacks.

Krishna summoned Vishwakarma, the divine architect of the demigods, and commissioned a city that would be the envy of the civilized world. However, the architect wanted to reclaim some land from the sea and the task could be completed only if Varundeva, the Lord of the sea, acquiesced to this proposal. Sri Krishna worshiped Samudra-dev, who gave them land measuring 12 yojans and Vishwakarma then built the magnificent Dwaraka, a city in gold.

Rishi Ved Vyas has described Dwarka in great detail and calls it ‘A city so golden that it cast its radiance on the ocean for miles around it’. The city extended over 104 Kms and was divided into six well-organized sectors, residential and commercial zones, wide roads, plazas, palaces and many public utilities.
It had a special hall called Sudharma Sabha to hold public meetings and the city had beautiful gardens filled with flowers of all seasons and beautiful lakes. It was well fortified and surrounded by a moat, spanned by bridges, boasted of a good sea harbor and had an incredible number of 700,000 palaces made of gold, silver and other precious stones!

After Krishna departed from Earth, about 36 years after the Mahabharat War (3102 BCE), Arjun went to Dwarka to bring Krishna’s grandsons and remaining Yadavs to safety. As soon as they left, the city was submerged into the sea and the eye-witness account is mentioned in the beginning of the post. The Vishnu Puran also mentions the submersion of Dwarka, stating-

Pargiter, a noted historian in British India, was the first to suggest that Dwarka was located near the Raivataka (Girnar) mountain and also mentioned that it was constructed on the remains of an earlier city known as the Kushasthali. The Girnar mountain is considered holy not only by Hindus but is also a major site of pilgrimage for the Jain community. It is the place where the 22nd Jain Tirthankar, Lord Neminath (who BTW was a paternal cousin of Lord Krishna), attained liberation.

Jain legends tell many stories of both the brothers and acknowledge the presence of the Metropolis of Dwarka as being close to the Girnar mountains. According to Jain texts, Shri Krishna negotiated Neminath’s marriage with Rajamati, (the sister of Kamsa), but Neminath, empathizing with the animals that were to be slaughtered for the marriage feast, left the procession and renounced the world!
Interestingly, Jain tradition also recognizes Krishna as Vasudev and Jarasandh as the prati-Vasudev (similar to the Christ & anti-Christ belief) showing how important the rivalry between the two was. The Yadav kingdom at that time spread around Junagadh district and the nearby Gir Forest (which is the last sanctuary for the Asiatic Lions today). The first excavations at the site were conducted by Deccan College, Pune and the Department of Archaeology, Govt. of Gujarat, in 1963 under the direction of H.D. Sankalia.
These and other archaeological excavations unearthed artifacts that prove that modern Dwarka is the sixth settlement of the name on this site. The earlier cities have been, at various times, swallowed by the sea. The waves of the sea still lap the shores of this famous town, lending scenic beauty to this important pilgrimage destination.

Gradually, the myth of Dwarka was coming alive, but the final breakthrough came with the discovery of submerged remains of Dwarka by the Marine Archaeology Unit (MAU) jointly formed by the National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) and the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI).

This exploration was undertaken under the guidance of Dr. S.R. Rao. Dr. Rao is widely considered widely the Grand-father of Indian Archaeology and has served the ASI for over 32 years. He is credited with the discovery of a large number of Indus-Saraswati sites including the port city of Lothal in Gujarat.

Before the underwater ruins were discovered, most scholars were of the view that the Mahabharatwas just a mythological epic and it would be futile to look for the remains of Dwarka. However, Dr. Rao and his team, undertook an extensive search of this city along the coast from 1984-88 and finally succeeded in finding the submerged city off the Gujarat coast. The use of advanced techniques of geophysical survey combined with echo-sounders, mud-penetrators, sub-bottom profilers and underwater metal detectors helped uncover this missing link in our history!
Between 1983 to 1990, the well-fortified township of Dwaraka was discovered, extending more than half a mile from the shore. In his work, The Lost City of Dwaraka, Dr. Rao has given scientific details of these discoveries and artifacts.
You can find a similar report report on the link – {Recent underwater exploration at Bet Dwarka and Okha Mandal }

Offshore exploration of the legendary city was resumed in 1988 and continued through 1990, further seaward of the Temple of Samudranarayana (Sea God) with a view to trace the plan and extent of the port-city and the purpose of the massive stone walls built on the banks of ancient Gomati.
From the structural remains in Dwaraka and Bet Dwaraka waters, it is possible to visualise that the city-ports were large and well planned.
The findings of Bet Dwarka can actually be divided into two broad periods: Protohistoric period which includes seal, two inscriptions, a copper fishhook and late Harappan pottery; and the Historical period which consists of coins, ship anchors and pottery.

The UAW began excavations at Dwarka again from January 2007. The objective of the excavation was to know the antiquity of the site, based on material evidence. In the offshore excavation, the ASI’s trained underwater archaeologists and the divers of the Navy searched the sunken structural remains.
According to the news releases made by the Govt. of India, the radiocarbon testing on a piece of wood from the underwater site has yielded an age of 9,500 years which would place it near the end of the last Ice Age.
As discussed in the previous post {Pralaya – The End of Days}, the last melt-down was responsible for drowning a large number of civilizations all over the globe leading to the Flood Myths. This piece of wood could very well be a remnant of the same lost ante-diluvian civilization on the remains of which Dwarka was created.
Offshore explorations near Bet Dwarka jetty also brought to light a number of stone anchors of different types that include triangular, Indo-Arabian and ring stones.

The curve shows that 14,500 years ago, sea level along the west coast of India was about 100m lower as compared to the present, and rose to 80m depth around 12,500 years ago with a rate of ~10m/1,000 years. It was followed by a quiet period when the level remained unchanged for about 2,500 years, thus providing time for civilization to flourish before being engulfed by the sea again. From 10,000 to 7,000 years ago, sea level rose at a very high rate (~20m/1000 years) and after approximately 7,000 years B.P. it has fluctuated to more or less the present level.

The animation above shows how the shoreline has changed over thousands of years, and how much land has been lost to the sea. All along the peninsula, we have most certainly lost civilizations at various stages of development and out of these, Dwarka was one of the most prominent ones.
In another study conducted on the Seismic activity in the Western region, work in peripheral land areas of the Gulf of Cambay like Kathana, Lothal and Motibaur gave evidences of major earthquakes in the following periods – (1) 2780 ± 150 years BP (2) 3983 ± 150 BP and (3) 7540 ± 130 BP
In the first major event at about 7,600 BCE, the FIRST metropolis found in the underwater ruins appears to have succumbed to the tectonic forces and the sea appears to have inundated it. Because of this catastrophe, people would have proceeded north to the higher sea level and established the SECOND metropolis.
This also got affected by faulting due to earth quakes around 4,000 BP and was destroyed by the second or the last Earthquake around 2780 ± 150 BP, when the sea transgressed to completely submerge it.
We have experienced in the recent years how catastrophic submarine earthquakes can be. They do not affect the land directly but lead to huge waves that are meters tall and are capable of wiping out cities in minutes just as described by Arjun in the beginning of the post!

From our point of view, the older site of 7600 BCE could very well correspond to Kushasthali, the foundation of Shri Krishna’s Dwarka and the second settlement of 4000-2800 BCE would then be the tentative time-frame of existence of the Golden City of the Lord. This also matches very well with Shri Krishna’s historical dates that we arrived at in the post {Krishna – The Historical Enigma} and again proves that our scriptures are not mere figments of fertile imaginations but have a historical basis.