Indian Antiquary Vol 60

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 165

JULY, 1931]
BOOK-NOTICES
by the house of Gorkha. As Mr. Oldham says, "This book, like all Buchanan's work, is a mine of useful information, which has been largely drawn upon by subsequent writers."
In perusing the pages under review the reader has therefore before him a work of the first value-the original observations on a part of India, important historically among other things, for it is Angadesa, the land of the Angas of the Atharvaveda, the Rámá. yana and the Mahabharata, to say nothing of the ancient Buddhist and Jain texts, the old Hindu geographers and the records of the Pâla and Sena dynasties. Its capital was the ancient Champå or Malini, with Modagiri (Monghyr) as its second city, and it played an important part at the time of the Muhammadan conquest and in the days of subsequent Islamic occupation, notably in those of Sher Shah Sur.
Such a history is not only interesting in a high degree in itself, but it has had a remarkable effect on the population, and here Mr. Oldham ought to be quoted in a passage (p. xiv) worth remembering: "It has hitherto perhaps been insufficiently realized to what extent the martial Keatriyas of northwestern and western Hindustan moved eastwards under the pressure of continued shocks [from Muhammadan invaders] to seek their fortunes in new lands. Many of the oldest Rajpût families in Bihar owe their local establishment to such migration. Scores of cases might be cited. *
Soldiers of fortune many of them, they brought in their train others. Attaining control of large areas, these influences became widely disseminated and soon commenced to act as a solvent upon the religious and social customs of the primitive aboriginal inhabitants, conducting to the gradual disintegration of the old tribal organizations. We find these incomers first establishing themselves at convenient and pleasant sites in the immediate vicinity of the hills, extending their sphere of authority as opportunity offered. Within these spheres the aboriginal folk either accepted their superiority and control or else retired deeper into the hills. Those that remained would tend in the course of time to imitate, and eventually adopt, many of the practices of their overlords, the more conservative abstaining from contact and secluding themselves in the more inaccessible portions of the hills. Later on, when more settled government supervened under British auspices, infiltration from the Hinduized population of the plains around would increase in volume and pace. Then we arrive at the stage of which Buchanan was a witness, and of which he has given so many valuable records."
And the country which these mixed Aryans occupied was the home of aboriginal tribes, "representatives (p. xv) of two important peoples, who, if not distinct in race, are distinct at least in speech, namely, the Munda and Dravidian families. The Munda family of languages is represented chiefly by Sontall, the language of the Sontals, who are now
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spread over a greater part of the district that has been called after them. The Dravidian is represented by Malto or Maler, the tongue spoken by the Maler or Sauria Maler in the north-eastern part of the same district"; the very name is Dravidian, hillmen, malai, Tamil, a hill. To these tribes must be added the Paharias or hill-people, aborigines occupying the region known in Buchanan's time as the Jungleterry District, in the rule of which Augustus Cleveland made what was once a great name, largely, however, on the work of Capt. Robert Brooke, 17721774, and Capt. James Browne, 1774-1788, whose names Mr. Oldham most creditably brings forward.
Through the District thus inhabited Buchanan systematically travelled and surveyed, practically without maps to guide him through a large part of it, though the maps of the very capable James Rennell (1773-1779) were available for certain portions. The area covered was of enormous extent when it is "remembered that a very large portion of it consisted of hills and jungle without any road communications, and unvisited hitherto by any European (p. xix)." Truly the modern enquirer has reason to be grateful to Buchanan for his work.
Descriptions of all sorts of places abound in his notes-Rajmahal, Monghyr, Kharakpur, Teliyagarhi made familiar by Sher Shah Sur, the hot springs and the like, not forgetting the "invalid thanas," ""stations," that is, composed of retired and invalided sepoys, settled in the Jungleterry Hills to "establish a kind of militia" to keep the wild hillmen in order. This was an idea of the Capt. James Browne above-mentioned, propounded in 1778; and it lasted till 1821, there being traces of these thanas in the latest Survey and Settlement Reports.
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I fear I have not left myself space to remark on the Journal itself, and the innumerable points of interest therein, so conscientiously annotated by Mr. Oldham, but enough has been said to show the reader that in the Journal of Buchanan's Survey of Bhagalpur he will find much to reward his curiosity and to teach him, however well he may be equipped in matters concerning India.
R. C. TEMPLE.
HANDBOOK TO THE SCULPTURES IN THE PESHAWAR MUSEUM, by H. HARGREAVES. 8 x 5 in.; pp. vii+111, with 10 plates. Government of India Press, Calcutta, 1930.
This is a revised and much enlarged edition of the Handbook published by the late Dr. Brainerd Spooner in 1909, which has been out of print for many years. Since that delightful little guide was issued the number of sculptures housed in the museum has been doubled, owing to the additions from the finds made during subsequent excavations by Dr. Spooner himself and by Sir Aurel Stein and Mr. Hargreaves at Sahribahlol, Shahjt-ki-dheri, Takht-i-Bahi and Jamalgarhi. These accessions, which have been arranged in the halls and galleries and in some 37 additionst