In order to understand the whole process of star formation, it is important to have a comprehensive
understanding of the evolution of dense cores. The low mass star-forming regions are ideal labo-
ratories for such studies because low mass young stars evolve much more slowly and the sample
of low mass stars is also relatively large as compared to high mass stars. Therefore, the complete
knowledge about different physical properties of the cloud can be extracted out using different
observations. Here, the L1157 dark molecular cloud has been studied. The work is being reported
into two parts: 1) Magnetic field studies in the dark cloud using optical polarimetry and 2) Molec-
ular line studies using radio observations of CO, C18
O, N2H+, HCN molecules. The plane-of-the
sky component of the magnetic field is obtained from polarization maps and different parameters
from these spectral lines data is calculated. This will help in charaterising about the different
evolutionary stages of the cloud that will eventually give rise to star formation.