Indian Antiquary Vol 02

SR No.: 032494
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 428
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 20 MB

Page 308

276
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[OCTOBER, 1873.
porting & covering stone, the front side remaining Shivara i Hills in Salem, and are but rough open, are not anfrequent, especially in the eastern extempore shrines, made and used to-day, but region of the Nilgiris, several of them also suggesting what the use of some of the ancient sculptured within ; but I know of no structures cromlechs may have been. In Central India both of connected cells, like the one described, occur. | closed and open-sided kistvaens abound, but ring either in India or any other country. It it has been observed that, though the former condiffers essentially from the allées couvertes and tain sepulchral remains, urns, &c. in profusion, chambered barrows of Europe. Colonel Congreve the latter never do. I am therefore inclined to describes no such monument in his Antiquities of regard the five-nelled open-sided Nidi Mănd the Nilgiris, and I know of but one other ex. Dolmen as not sepulchral, but intended for a ample, on the hills, namely, at M&her, some rade temple or shrine; and the cut piece of an miles westward at the foot of the Kunda elephant's task found in it had probably been Range, where there appear to have been four con- laid there by some wandering Kuramba, to nected cells, also with sculptured stones, but I represent one of the primeval gods worshipped am uncertain whether with appended lesser cells. by his ancestors before the advent of Indrá and This monument also, I understand, has been Vishnu. The grey weather-worn structure had partially destroyed.
an aspect of quaint mysterious antiquity as it Though the intention of kistvaens, chambered stood in that spot of wild and utter seclusion, barrows, and what are generally called cromlechs, backed by steep converging slopes rough with was undoubtedly sepulchral, I am on the whole rocks and trees, and overlooking in front a wide not sure that it was so with respect to this and jungle-country stretching far below in a labythe other sculptured dolmens of the Nilgiris. rinth of ridges and valleys. The very peculiar Nothing was found on digging up the floor of feature of a small chamber being attached to the cells in the Nidi Månd Dolmen,-which may each end of the great central triple chamber further be said with confidence to have been must not be overlooked. Analogous side-chamalways free-standing, and never covered with a bers are attached to the magnificent cromlech tumulus, -an assertion further strengthened by in Guernsey known as "L'Autel du Dehus," and the sculptures within. With respect to the last these are spoken of as "unique;" they however mentioned feature, I may observe that these contained curious forms of interment. Finally sculptured stones when occurring near their I may add that, when returning, a small cairn villages are worshipped as gods by the Bad a- was observed near the Tod â månd, on opengas, the most numerous race on the hills. This, ing which a curious flattened chatti was found, however, I believe, is only an instance of the its mouth covered with a flat dish, and filled Hindu propensity to venerate anything that with red sand, like none in the neighbourhood. appears mysterious or sacred, and argues no This peculiarity, of vessels being filled with sand other connection with the remains. The Ko- or mould that must have been brought from a rambâs--the wild jungle-tribe that haunt the distance, occurs in cairn-interments both on the densest jungles of the mountain slopes, and Indian plains and in England. whose remote ancestry may have had more to
II. do with megalithic monuments, also pay worship A few years after the discovery of the aboveto some of the cairns and cromlechs on the plateau, described cromlech, a number of weapons were in which they believe their old gods reside. They found in a stone-circle between Kunar and and their forest-kindred the Irulas, "the Kartari, on the Nilgiris. The circle was by no children of darkness," still after every funeral means remarkable, about six feet in diameter, and bring a devva kotta kallu, i.e. a long water-worn the stones of moderate size, only just appearing pebble, and put it in a cromlech to represent the above the ground. It occupied no distinguished deceased. Cromlechs have sometimes been found site, being on the slope of a hill of ordinary filled with such pebbles. Free-standing dolmens appearance, and might easily have escaped no-or, as I should prefer to call them, hat-temples tice unless actually walked over. On digging --closed on three sides, with a fourth open, and into it, however, a number of weapons and imcontaining lingam stones or rude images, are plements were discovered embedded in a thick frequent in the Maisar conntry and on the layer of charcoal, which appears to have had the