Indian Antiquary Vol 15

SR No.: 032507
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: John Faithfull Fleet, Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 446
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 20 MB

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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[OCTOBER, 1886.
strangers. All these I hold to be remnants of Islands, and therefore, should they meet with such some old creed; nor should I despair of finding monuments or stones in India, they are apt to not among the Bad&wis bordering upon the great recognize them; or, if they do so, to fail to desert some lingering system of idolatry. This understand the interest and importance which is plain language.--considering that it is from the antiquarians in Europe would attach to any obeerpen of a traveller who never was suspected of vations they might make regarding them, proa bigoted aversion to the religion of the Prophet. vided they take note of certain points to which And this dispassionate eye-witness elsewhere my attention was drawn by Captain Lukis, who records that there are even among the Badawis assisted his late father, the well-known archæoloof the Hijaz itself, young men who, as an intro. gist, in making excavations in the Channel Islands duction to life, risk everything in order to plunder and Brittany some years ago, and in studying the a pilgrim. They care but little for the value inscribed and cup-marked stones of the sepulchral of the things stolen : the glory of the exploit and ceremonial structures of Brittany and consists in the act of robbing a pilgrim!"
Guernsey. It surely will not be pretended by any sensible Stone structures may be of six kinds :man, that such persons are to be counted among 1. Sepulchral receptacles, i.e. chambers and the trophies of the Prophet ? He was wont to cists. say,- A fast of but one day in a sacred month II. Monoliths, or stone pillars. is better than a fast of thirty days in another III. Avenues of monoliths, composed of two or month; and a fast of but one day in Ramazan more rows of pillars. is more meritorious than a fast of thirty days IV. Monoliths in a single row. in a sacred month." All these months, Ramazan V. Circles of monoliths. included, are (as has been shown) disregarded by VI. Small circular enclosures of stone and the Arabs. Yet the great importance of the earth having a small low entrance or doorway. whole matter of these months, in the judgment | i.e. hut circles, or dwellings. of the founder of the Faith, would, we submit, It is with regard to the sepulchral monumente scarcely have been more forcibly taught; and that hints are specially necessary. placed in juxtaposition with the unconcealed In the first place the observer should learn contempt shewn towards them and towards the to distinguish between a chamber and a cist. religious observances, the performance of which A chamber has three sides enclosed by slabs set they were intended to secure, by the innumerable on end, or by a walling of dry masonry, or by a tribes who form the permanent population of mingling of both, the fourth being open for use the land, the tradition brings to a point the (P when required). Sometimes a passage or view we have sought to establish, that the covered way is attached. A cist has all its four genuine sons of the soil, the men who for all sides closed, and is not intended to be opened intents and purposes are the real masters or again for other interments. The former may Arabia and even of the Sacred Territory itself, therefore be regarded as a family vault; the are not Muhammadans at all.
latter as a grave for one individual. The covering of either consists of flat slabe laid across, or
forming a rude arched roof. SOME HINTS ON LOOKING FOR MEGALITHIC The orientation of both chambers and cista · MONUMENTS AND STONE IMPLEMENTS should be noted by a pocket compass. IN INDIA.
It should also be stated, in any account which Before entering on their career in Asia, few may be given of megalithio monuments, whether Indian officials have had time or opportunity to a mound of small stones or earth covered the study the stone circles, monoliths, and stone im. chambers or cists, or whether any vestige of such plements in England, Brittany, and the Channel mound be observable.
3. The reader will find some scoount of this strange feud, and the certainty of & shut road to future travelcustom in Burckhardt, Arabia, ii. 378; and Pischel, lers, prevent the Turks from attempting to exact reRaces of Man, 220. [See also Robertson Smith, Kinship prisals and they conceal their weakness by pretending and marriage in Early Arabia, passim.-ED.)
that the Sultan hesitates to wage a war of extermination Burton, Pilgrimage, ii. 109.
with the brigands who occupy the Holy-land of the Ibid. 359.
Faith'! The futility of such & pretence is manifest • It is told of the Lahoba, & sect of the 'Auf tribe
enough, when we remember that no army, however well near Rabigh, that & girl will refuse even her cousin, equipped, not even the armies of the Greeks and upless (in the absence of other opportunities) he has
Romans in their best days,--Was ever able to conquer plundered some article from the pilgrim caravan in the
the Badawis in their own Deserta.-Burton, Pilgrimage, very front of the Pasha's links. Detected fifty years
ii. 101. ago the delinquent would have been impaled; now he Salo, Prel. Disc. Sect. iv. (p. 81). Cf. Morran. ceeapos with mero rib-ronatingFear of the blood-'Mahometiem Explained, ii, 2-16 (Edn. Lond. 1793).