Ethnography of Megalithic Culture in Chhattisgarh

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Chhattisgarh has Contents already revealed its cultural potential in the form of numerous archaeological sites stretching from Paleolithic period to the late medieval period. The importance of archaeology in history deals not so much with invention but discovering historical evidences in different forms (artifacts, even quantitative data) so as to provide the background for making conjectures and their refutation. This book studied both the ancient megalithic as well as the present megalithic monuments among the tribal groups. The present work makes an attempt to find out information from the ethnographic and archaeological fieldwork. The scope of the present work is an attempt for the understanding and re-writing of megalithic culture and present day erection of memorial stone in this area. The tradition of erecting Megalithic monuments still continues amongst the various tribes of this region. The present publication encompasses a remarkable research study on megaliths in Chhattisgarh. The author draws his conclusion mainly on the basis of the study of a number of megalithic monuments. It can be useful for research scholars and academicians having interest on archaeology and tribal culture.

Dr. Tirtharaj Bhoi took his Postgraduation, M. Phil. and Doctoral degree from Central University of Hyderabad. Presently, he is working as Senior Assistant Professor in Department of History, School of Social Sciences, University of Jammu. He has participated in many national and international conferences and published several research papers in journals of national and international repute. He has written extensively on Megalithic culture in central India. His interest areas include Ancient history, Ethno-archaeology and Religious study. His recent publications include a book Religion in Western Orissa: from 200 BC to 600 AD., Forest Management in India: Past and Present (in Press).

Chhattisgarh is a state with intimate connections between various strata of civilization which has grown in course of the past thousands of years, and which has left behind various shades in its course of development, is still visible and is a matter of study for historians and anthropologists. The name Chhattisgarh is not an ancient one, and it has come into popular usage in last few centuries. The region was originally known as Daksina Kosala in ancient time. It literary means the land of treasure and this has been amply proved with the discovery of diamond, iron, manganese, coal, gold, etc. The ancient Indian literature informs us that lord Rama and Laxmana saw Jatayu on a mountain while going to Panchavati via this region.

According to British chronicler J. D. Begler, "the real name is Chhattisgharh not Chhattisgarh. There is a tradition saying that ages ago about the time of Jarasandha, thirty six families (Leather worker), had emigrated southwards from his kingdom and established themselves in this region, which after them is called Chhattisgarh. Another explanation he has made that it denotes the numbers of forts in this region, which are supposed to be thirty six."

The demand for a separate Chhattisgarh was raised in 1924 by the Raipur congress unit and it was discussed in the annual session of Indian Congress at Tripuri. The congress government of Madhya Pradesh took the first legislative initiative for the creation of Chattisgarh in 1994. The separate Chhattisgarh bill was passed in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, paving the way for creation of a separate state of Chhattisgarh. Then President of India gave his consent to Madhya Pradesh reorganization Act 2000 on the 25t of August. The government of India subsequently set the first day of November 2000 as the day on which the state of Madhya Pradesh would be bifurcated into Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh.

Having the great history behind it, Chhattisgarh is one of the most neglected area in matter of archaeology and development. I am trying to through this book to bring out the neglected part such as Bastar region. The work is based on my archaeological exploration during doctoral programme. The Indian Council of Historical Research has awarded JRF on this subject. I am extremely grateful to the authorities of ICHR.

First and foremost, I would like to express my gratitude to Prof. R. L. Hangloo and Prof Sanjay Subodh for their enormous tolerance and guidance.

I would like to thanks Dr. A. K. Sharma, Prof. B. Tripathy and Prof. K. K. Mishra for their useful suggestion and comments that have enhanced the methodological clarity. I would like to thank Prof. L. S. Nigam of Pt. Ravishankar Shukla University, Raipur, and Prof. Pradip D. Prabhu of TISS, Prof. P. K. Behera of Sambalpur University, Dr. K. M. Girhe, Draftsman, ASI, Prehistory Branch, Nagpur for their help and suggestion during the completion of present work.

Lastly, I am grateful to my respondent for sharing with me their priceless information in field and my family unit for their help and encouragement.

Archaeology in recent times has become a generic term that appears in different fields of enquiry ranging from the social sciences to humanities to physical sciences like geomorphology. It acts as a bridge between humanities and science insofar as it deals with all the activities of man in the past and traces his progress in fields of science, technology, religion, arts and social life. Schliemann's' excavation of Troy marked the beginning of Archaeology. It is said that an Archaeologist does not dig as things; he digs up man and more so his ideas which enabled him to make progress in all fields of human endeavors. Archaeology is now concerned not only with man as a social being, artist and craftsman but also as a scientist, technologist, philosopher and thinker.

The importance of archaeology in history deals not so much with invention but discovering historical evidences in different forms (artifacts, even quantitative data) so as to provide the background for making conjectures and their refutation. The debate among the Indian historians over certain disputed historical structures proves this point quite adequately. Archaeology in history, thus, involves extracting the truth from the past by carefully discovering and analyzing the historical data. Ethnography is literally the practice of writing about people. Often it is taken to mean our way of making sense of other people's modes of thought, since anthropologists usually study culture and tradition other than their own.

Archaeologists attempt to understand cosmology, how various past culture have explained their universe-how it originated and developed. Archaeologists also try to understand the past religion, the specific set of beliefs based on ones ultimate relation to the supernatural. Such religious beliefs are manifested in everyday life in a programme of ritual, a succession of discrete events such as prayer, music, feasting, sacrifice and taboos. Research on the monuments and burials referred to as "megalith" or "pandukuls" or "pandukulis" in India was initiated in the beginning of the nineteenth century when Banbinton unearthed an interesting group of Burial monuments at Bangala Motta Paramba in the Northern part of Kerala in 1823. The term "Megalith" was originally introduced by antiquarians to describe a fairly easily definable class of monuments in Europe, consisting of huge undressed stone and termed as Celtic Dolmens, cromlechs and Menhirs.

Indian megaliths' burials and monuments generally belong to the Iron Age and are largely sepulchral in character. However, the sepulchral aspect of this tradition was not a new feature of the Iron Age. One can find the burial practices in Mesolithic and Neolithic period as well. The term "megalith" derives from the Greek words "meghas" meaning "large" and "lithos" meaning "stone". In the earlier stages of research, the term "megalith" was used to refer to large stone monuments. However, subsequently, in India, the term was applied to all the burial and habitation sites compliant the Pottery with black-and-red ware surface in Southern India, irrespective of their association with megalith in the early Iron Age context. Though the incompatibility of the term "megalith" has been discussed by many scholars likei Childe, Deo, Ramanna, Krishna Sastry, Gururaja Rao, Kantha, Rao, Sundara it has been widely used and accepted by a large section of archaeologists and has become a well established term. The New Oxford Dictionary of English defines megaliths "a large stone that forms a prehistory monument made of standing stone or stone circle." The New Standard Encyclopedia defines Megalith as "a huge, roughly hewn stone slab erected by Stone or Bronze Age people, megaliths were used in constructing tomb in various arrangements as monuments." In Southern India, the megaliths have long been known to contain a large number of structures belonging to the early Iron Age. Now one can find such monuments almost throughout whole of the Indian subcontinent. In spite of structural or regional disparities, they share a common cultural apparatus including the wide spread influence of a single technological tradition. One can find the establishment of megalithic culture in East-asian countries by the evidence of Menhirs, dolmennoid cists and capstones in South Korea, China, Malaysia, Java and Japan. Their striking similarities with that of their Indian counterparts point towards a cultural link in the distant past.

The first documentation of megalithic culture around Chhattisgarh is by J. D. Begler in his report on a tour in central provinces, which he undertook in 1873-74. He mentions, "From the village of Navapara to Majhgan runs a long stretch of broken blocks of stone lying loose on each other in irregular masses, and presenting the exact appearance of the ruins of a great fort two miles long, at intervals stand upright stones looking like Sati pillars." He never imagined that, the monuments were Menhirs or Megaliths. It was in 1956-57 that a teams led by M. G. Dikshit of the Madhya Pradesh Department of Archaeology, excavations were carried out on the megalithic sites in Dhanora.

The tradition of erecting Megalithic monuments still continues amongst the various tribes of North East and central India. The tribes like maria Gond of Bastar region, still put up Menhirs and Dolmens in the honour of the departed souls. The Megalithic monuments of Chhattisgarh are concentrated on high rock bench areas. In Bastar region, the erection of Megalithic monuments is a living tradition, which is discussed in the next chapter. The present work deals with megalithic culture and some ethnographical information of their present day erection of memorial memory of the departed soul. This study also deals with the various tribes such as maria, muria and damdami Gonds of Chhattisgarh and explores the funerary practices and beliefs toward the memorial practices.

**Contents and Sample Pages**