D. R. Bhandarkar

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Devadatta Ramakrishna Bhandarkar (19 November 1875 – 13 May 1950) was an Indian archaeologist and epigraphist who worked with the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI). He came from a scholarly Marathi Gaud Saraswat Brahmin family; his father was the noted Indologist R. G. Bhandarkar. After earning a degree in history, he joined the ASI and worked in the western circle as an assistant to Henry Cousin. As Assistant Superintendent, he led excavations at Nagari in the Chittorgarh district during 1915–16. He became the Carmichael Professor of Ancient Indian History and Culture at the University of Calcutta, serving from 1917 to 1936, following George Thibaut.

Gandhi met Bhandarkar in 1896 in Pune to discuss the South African Indian question. As Superintending Archeologist of the Western Circle of the ASI, he visited Mohenjo-daro in 1911–12 and argued that the site was only about 200 years old, with bricks of a modern type and little carved terra-cotta. This view was later criticized as wrong by scholar John Keay.

He died on 13 May 1950 at age 74.