CART RUTS OF INDIA

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Left: Cart ruts of Rajgir. Bihar. Right: Cart ruts of Mahabalipuram. Tamil Nadu

In many places of the world as Bolivia, Malta, Italy, France, Azerbaijan, Portugal and Belgium etc one sees mysterious long deep grooved tracks on stones.

The explanations vary from one person to the other as, the ruts may have been produced on the rocks by the wheels of carts or wagons while quarrying stones, or these could be ceremonial lines of the ancients, or these probably served as drains. Some even associate these ruts with aliens. It therefore seems that are as many interpretations as there are visitors to these enigmatic sites.  

But that India too may house these ruts was not known to many. Below I cite only two cart rut sites known to me. Surely there ought to be more but they have not yet been brought to light.

RAJGIR

Rajgir is in the Bihar state of east India. Here there is a parallel furrow on stone that begins abruptly and runs a small distance towards a neighbouring hill. The ruts softly bend towards the right in a slope towards the hill. The depth of each rut vary, at some place it is quite deep and broad and at times it is slim and shallow. However the distance between the two ruts is largely uniform. 

The ASI board suggests that the ruts are indeed chariot marks occurred due to chariots that belong to the Mahabharata period (?).

Archaeological Survey of India has set up a display that states that these ruts are actually chariot wheel marks created during the Mahabharata period. However the local legend is that it was created by the chariot of Lord Krishna who rode his chariot in such a speed that it created the furrows in the stone (pity the horses).

                               

Studying the cart ruts while Bubu looks inquisitively.

I tried figuring out the real reason that may have created the parallel tracks. I tried tracking the tracks and found that they headed towards an adjacent hill. Was this track therefore created to cart boulders from the neighbouring hill. The boulders were perhaps needed to build the cyclopean wall by Ajatshatru to protect his kingdom. The large boundary wall incidentally is pretty near to this rut site.

Was the pair of ruts built to quarry stones for this cyclopean wall to safeguard Ajatshatru's terittory ?

But this is only speculation as a large section of the world as stated above too hold these ruts of which no body has an appropriate explanation.

Prantik and I gaze at the inscription stone.

The conch shell script on the stone.

  Adjacent to the parallel furrow of ruts are a few outcrops on which are engraved a few Shell Inscriptions also known as the Shankh Lipi. This inscription having Brahmi characters and resembling conchs is not yet deciphered and is said to belong to the 5th/6th cent AD. No body therefore knows what these script on the stones adjacent to the ruts suggest.

The entire complex is today enclosed within a boundary of block of stones.

MAHABALIPURAM

To the Southern part of India is a Hindu site of amazing temples sculpted out of rock boulders and the sculptures display stunning artistry of the skilled artisans of ancient India.

But there is something more here: the cart ruts.

Though a little different than that of Rajgir and of the rest of the world the tracks here run alone and even in a trio. These lines run all over the rocks. 

The tracks do not give an inkling that they are wheel tracks. What purpose did these serve, were they used for some sort of a drainage? Not possible as a few of these tracks can be seen ascending uphill. 

The quality of the incision of these ruts here are relatively better than that of Rajgir's. One three-track set seem to resemble the ones on the stones of the Bolivian woods.

The three parallel ruts of Mahabalipuram

This is a single rut

These tracks have an uncanny resemblance with the ones of Bolivian jungles

The three parallel ruts climbs up the stone in the foreground thereafter disappear in the earth in the middle and then continue to climb on the boulder at the background.

Despite the various interpretations by the multitude of people one cannot say conclusively the purpose of these ruts and why they are all over the world. 

These ruts certainly have kept and would keep firing the imaginations of people till one day an authentic explanation comes our way.

Till then let the interpretations live on...they are indeed fun to read.