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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[Oct. 4, 1872
is to be raised. If the flag selected is not very | mains, and affords practical evidence that respect heavy, it is placed on a wooden framework, and for her memory was not wanting. Its dimen80 carried on the shoulders of the men to its sions are 17 feet 2 inches x 9 feet 2 inches x 10 destination. When however the stone is of inches. large size, it is placed on a kind of truck with
No. II. enormously massive wheels, specially constructed for the purpose. Sometimes it is necessary to make a road for the passage of such a truck ; at others the number of men pushing and pulling with ropes is sufficient to carry it over all the obstacles which are encountered on the way.
No. I.
WA
Group of Cenotaph stones or Menhirs,
at a village Dear Chaibassa, in Singhbhum. The history of the group of stones figured in sketch No. 1 is as follows: The stone on the left was erected to the memory of Kundapathur, Manki, or head man of the village of Pokaria, a few miles south of the station of Chaibasss. The next two stones were erected to Kanchi and Somari, daughters, and the fourth to a son of Pasingh, the present Manki. This was in 1869, since that time others may have been added; possibly Pasingh himself, having lost father, wife and children, has also died.
For some reason there is no memorial stone here to Pasingh's wife Seni. I rather think however, there was one standing by itself somewhat nearer the village. But in the centre of the village, under the shade of some glorious old tamarind trees, a stone, conspicuous among many others from its uncommon size, covers her re-
Menhirs-Cenotaph stones, Singhbham. The second sketch represents a group of stones situated in a plain a few miles to the south-west of the other. Of its history I do not know the particulars.
The groups of Menhirs which occur scattered throughout the Kolehan are, so far as my observation went, in no way limited as to the number of stones. I have counted as many as 80 stones in one group, and my impression is that I have seen more than that number. A circular arrangement is seldom seen, generally the stones are either ranged along a straight line or an arc.
Only one instance can I remember of seeing in Chota Nagpur any attempt at sculpture on stone monuments : this was in the district of Hazaribagh. The stones had the appearance of great antiquity and, whether rightly or wrongly, they were attributed by the people of the neighbourhood to an ancient settlement of Kols.
Though not rich in ancient temples or other Hindu remains--as compared with some other parts of India-the Chota Nagpur division with its stone monuments of the aborigines and its cave temples, mines, and other traces of the early Jains is for the Antiquarian, as it is well known to be for the Ethnologist, a noble field for research.
NOTES ON THE RASAKALLOLA, AN ANCIENT ORIYA POEM.
BY JOHN BEAMES, B.C.S., M.R.A.S., &c., BALASOR.
No. II.- Continued from p. 217. A NOTICEABLE feature in this poem is the trary lengthenings and shortenings of vowels, readiness with which the poet's native language elisions of case and tense-endings which in the lends itself to the metres which he employe. oldest Hindi and Gujarati poems so much obscure Consequently there are very few of those arbi- l the real language of the period. In reading
• Seo "on the ancient copper mines of Singhbhum,"-Proc. 41. Soc. Beng. for June 1869.
