THE SACRED MENHIR

The sacred menhir of Lohsigna.

Megaliths are still worshipped in India. Not only by the tribals but even by the Hindus.

The menhirs or the dolmens may have had been raised as memorials of their dead by proto austrolid Mundaric or Dravadian speaking tribes thousands of years ago. Their descendants may not be residing there anymore but these stones are still regarded sacrosanct by all and many of them are still worshipped even by non tribal communities  today.

This menhir is inside the town of Hazaribagh in Jharkhand state of East India. The locality is called 'Lohsingna' which means iron slags or the waste product of iron extraction from the ores. This also means that iron slags were probably once found scattered around here due to the iron smelting by the megalithic Asur tribes. Asurs do not raise menhirs of their dead but lay slabs on them. The monument could be Mundaric in origin as Mundas are known to raise menhirs as memorials of the dead. Whether the megalith belonged to the iron ages or not could  be substantiated only by a proper excavation.

The ritual to satisfy the"gawanth baba".The small pahan feeds the cock before sacrificing it. The bottle contains village brew which the cock will be made to drink after it has pecked a few grains prior to its sacrifice.

That this was a monument of a dead person is not known to many and is today worshipped by the Dalit Bhuiyan community as their "gawanth baba" or the tutelary deity of the village that once was here.

"Gawanths" are male principles as all tutelary deities are."Gawanths" are also known as "gawan ditis" in many villages which I presume is the older term. "Gawan diti" means the goddess of the village is reminiscent of the matriarchal days when deities all over were female. The transformation from "gawan ditis" to gawanths" may have had occurred simultaneously with the change of society from the primeval matrilinear/matriarchal to the present patriarchy.

The sacrifice is done and the "gawan diti" is appeased. The head of the slaughtered fowl can be seen lying in the foreground, encircled.

The menhir also has a phallic stone positioned behind it and is itself placed facing the Winter Solstice sunrise. The stone works as a board where hundreds of sacred vertical vermilion marks can be seen to have been drawn by the revered priest/shamans presently a Bhuiyan  known as the pahan. 


Pic shows the son of a pahan in the absence of the main pahan; his father conducting a ritual to appease the "gawan diti" for a worshipper which to these anthropomorphic people is 'on' the menhir. The custom is simple and same every where, a cock is fed with a few rice grains, a little local brew and water. There after the fowl is sacrificed, its blood is dropped on the earth, couple of incense sticks are lighted and a little water is sprinkled around. No Brahman priest, no uttering of Sanskrit mantras, no flowers and the ceremony is over.