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Saturday 28 July 2018

My latest book THE ARCHAEOASTRONOMY OF A FEW MEGALITHIC SITES IN JHARKHAND

The cover of my latest book THE ARCHAEOASTRONOMY OF A FEW MEGALITHIC SITES IN JHARKHAND.

My latest book THE ARCHAEOASTRONOMY OF A FEW MEGALITHIC SITES IN JHARKHAND published by Niyogi Books New Delhi has been released in the International Book Fair in New Delhi in the month of January of 2018. 


The book as such is not specifically on archaeology of the megalithic sites but on their archaeoastronomy. Although archaeology of the sites is indeed dealt in it, the book cites 6 amazing megalithic sites (of which four having discovered by me) constructed by the ancient adivasis with basic mathematics and observational astronomy. 

The book mentions the finds of various pottery, stone tools and other grave yields from the sites. But the book prominently deals with the stunning mathematics and astronomy which the ancients used to create these amazing megalithic sites some time in prehistory.
This being the first ever book on megalithic archaeoastronomy it is cogently written and comprises of stunning photographs and sketches of the positioning of the stones within the megalithic complexes.
       
Two of India's leading newspapers THE HINDU and the BUSINESS STANDARD has reviewed the book and have found it to be amazing. The links to the reviews are as under:


https://www.thehindu.com/books/books-reviews/the-archaeoastronomy-of-a-few-megalithic-sites-of-jharkhand-review-fragments-of-memory/article22918219.ece
                                                                   &
https://www.business-standard.com/article/news-ians/unspoken-wisdom-that-only-megaliths-can-impart-book-review-118050500196_1.html


The book is available in lot many bookstores and also on-line as in Amazon etc.


Monday 7 May 2018

SACRED BREAST SHAPED HILLS AROUND THE WORLD

Various sacred breast shaped hills across the world

The prehistoric world primarily being matriarchal and/or matrilinear was carpetted under the now defunct fertility cult. 
Traces of this ancient civilisation can be still seen in several tribal cultures across the world in places like in China, India, Africa etc. Several shapes of mountains resembling recumbent pregnant women were held to be sacred landscape figures even worshipped as Recumbent Mother Goddess forms.

Breast and vulvas were regarded sacred being representative of the ubiquitous Mother Goddesses: appendages of the fecundity cult.

The world comprises of several natural breast shaped hills which being appendages of the fertility cult of the Mother Goddesses were once very sacred for the the ancients. 
Many megaliths have been placed in alignment to such hills. 

The Punkri Burwadh megalithic site in Jharkhand state of east India is cradled between two breast shaped Amjhori hills oriented to the East-West (Fig 6).

Mams Tor is a Mother Hill in England. Maithan or the Breast of the Mother is a famous hill in Jharkhand on the Jharkhand-Bengal border of east India (Fig 10).

Below are a few photographs of such breast shaped hills of around the world including that of India which were the accessories of the prevalent fecundity cult of the Mother Goddesses. 
These hills therefore were held very sacred by the Mother Goddess worshippers during prehistoric times.


Fig1. Breast shaped hills with nipples. Guizhou Province.China. Source: Wikipedia.



Fig 2, One Breast Hill with nipple.Himalayas. Tibet. Source: Wikipedia.

Fig 3.Breast shaped Hill. Deganwy castle. Wales. Source: Wikipedia.



One Breast Hill. Western Sahara. Source: Wikipedia.

Fig 4.THE EMINENT "PAPS OF ANU" BREAST SHAPED MOTHER HILL. IRELAND


Fig 5. Twin Peak Breast Hill. San Francisco. USA. Source: Wikipedia.

Fig 6. The Amjhori Breast shaped Hills. India. The famous Punkri Burwadih megalithic site is cradled exactly between these two breast shaped hills. The monument is also positioned exactly on the East-West axis. Credit : Author.

Fig 7. Breasts of Aphrodite Hill. Mykonos. Greece. Source: Wikipedia.

Fig 8.Two breasts. Lohardagga. India. Credit: Author.

Fig 9. Virgin Breast Mountain. Somalia. Source: Wikipedia.

Fig 10. The two Breasts of the Maithon Hill. The term Maithan itself means the Breasts of the Mother.


Wednesday 11 April 2018

A NEW MEGALITHIC SITE NEAR GIDDHAUR




Lat: 24 deg. 12'9" N Long 84 54' 46" E


The new megalithic site is found a few kilometers East of the District town of Chatra in Jharkhand, East India on the road to Hazaribagh.

This is a burial site of the erstwhile tribes of which exactly is difficult to vouch with certainty. This site though is badly ruined yet has about 13 menhirs most of them are inclined. They may  have been planted inclined or may have become slanted by the passing time. 

The site
.

The author stands between a few menhirs

The site is similar to the other megalithic sites of Chatra as this site too consists of a tree which is a mahua (madhuca longifolia)  tree. Like in other megalithic sites of Chatra here too few menhirs though placed side by side open up in North-South directions as below:

Few menhirs here like in other megalithic sites of Chatra though are placed close to one another open up towards the North-South directions. Credit:Ujjal Ghosh

Few menhirs like other megalithic sites of Chatra lean on one another as in the photograph below:


The two menhirs in the above like other menhirs in the megalithic sites of Chatra lean on one another.


Most of the menhirs in this ancient megalithic site have been broken and pieces of pottery lie scattered all around confirming the mode of entombment to be that of pot/pitcher burial. However the raised mound on which the megalithc site stands needs to be excavated to confirm the type of burial the site comprises. All around the site are stones and hills which could be the quarry from which the stones were quarried. 

Vijay Singh shares the frame with the author and the megaliths

The raised mound where the burials are below the menhirs are clearly visible

The author stands amidst few tall menhirs


Vikram admires the old stones




Tuesday 9 January 2018

My latest book, "THE ARCHAEOASTRONOMY OF A FEW MEGALITHIC SITES OF JHARKHAND"




My latest book published on the first week of January 2018

(LEFT CLICK ON THE PHOTOGRAPH TO EXPAND IT)

This book is precisely on a few archaeoastronomical megalithic sites of my home state of Jharkhand in East India. 

Megaliths in India are solely considered to be sepulchral or commemorative monuments. That a few are also associated with astronomy is not known and even not recognised by main stream archaeologists of the nation.

This book furnishes evidence how a set of megalithic proto-austroloid Kolarian Mundari tribes who still pursue megalithic burial practices built such megalithic complexes with precise astronomical alignments.

The book deals with 6 megalithic complexes of Furuka, Chano, Katia Murbey etc in both Hazaribagh and Chatra districts  which reveals positioning of the entire site and the stones within them with precise alignments to the notches and peaks of the encircling hills, towards significant sunrises and sets of solstices and equinoxes and even towards the cardinal points. The placements also reveal basic mathematics as ratios, hex-sectionings  et al. 
The book also deals with the general information on megaliths and even other purposes of these ancient monuments.

Thereafter the book sets an inquiry whether it were indeed the proto-austroloid Kolarian tribes who built these archaeoastronomical complexes. If so then why their present day megaliths are devoid of such sciences ? 
Could the makers of the temples be some unknown set of people?

The book questions what may have been the need of such astronomical megalithic temples and at the the same time attempts to provide a reasonable answer to this query.

Lavishly photographed and though written in a scholarly manner the book will induce interest even in the common people who would really want to know the left out unknown chapter of India's past.

The book is available in all the leading book stores of the country and even on-line. The book could also be bought from my publisher:
niyogibooks@gmail.com
Tel: 01126816301, 26818960

Monday 18 December 2017

CART RUTS OF INDIA

CLICK LEFT TO BLOW UP IMAGES:


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.

Friday 8 December 2017

CUPULES/CUPMARKS

CUPULES/CUPMARKS
   
Cupmarks on a natural rock near  the Raja Gosawin menhir. The presence of the cupules near the menhir might suggest that the menhir may have had been a major temple in hoary antiquity.          
   Cupules are a mystery. No one has so far come forth with a suitable elucidation of these tiny hemispherical depressions on stones. These small cavities have been named cupules by the famed archaeologist Roberet G. Bednarik. 
Cupules have been found in all the continents of the world excepting Antarctica. Cupmarks are therefore the oldest surviving rock arts known to human beings. 


CUPULES IN THE PALEOLITHIC ROCK ART OF ISKO

         I also agree with Benarik that cupules must have been made for different purposes during different ages. Many associate these features with the symbols of the primeval Great Goddess. Megaliths were the appendages of the now defunct primitive fertility cult, the world over. The ‘yoni’ or vulva of the female was worshipped, as it was through this organ the child took birth. Pregnant wombs and pregnant women became revered entities under this primitive religion of fertility. 

         Therefore, across the world, a specific shape of a hill resembling a reclining female having a pregnant womb began to be worshipped as the Recumbent Mother Goddess form and the female vagina became the emblem of this Great Goddess and it still is in countries like India.Circles are also the symbols of the womb or the vulva of the Great Mother. 

Cupules in a megalithic complex of Napo. 
   In primitive countries like India, this primordial fertility cult can still be seen mingled with the much later evolved Brahmanical Hindu religion and its Sanskrit rituals. Therefore, circles are drawn in red or ochre on walls during marriages; circles in India are still the symbol of the womb of the Mother.

    It could be that such circular hemispherical engravings made on megaliths known today as cupmarks or cupules, were the symbols of the archaic Mother Goddess. Putting them on megaliths which too were female temples of the Great Goddess was perhaps in a way for the celebration of the glory of the Mother Goddess.

   I have observed two types of cupmarks made on megaliths. One which can be seen made arbitrarily on a specific stone and the other type is a set of two rowed eight in each cupules, rather sixteen cupules in total on a megalith. The second kind I have found to have been made in an east west orientation. Today village children make such cupmarks on stones to play a game with small pebbles in them. The game, I feel is a later alteration of this much primitive arrangement of cupmarks. But do the 16 cupules (two-rowed 8 in each) anything to do with the so-called 16-month megalithic calendar of Alexander Thom?


These two- rowed eight-in-each cupmarks (making a total of 16 cupules) were made in an East-West orientation in most of the horizontal stones, as this recumbent menhir  in Chano. 


   I have found cupmarks on vertical stones in the rock arts India but on megaliths I have always seen them made on horizontal stones and on inclined stone(as in the pic of Napo above) unlike them being found even on vertical stones, abroad (I would however like information on cupmarks on verticals stones in India, if you know of cupulues on vertical megaliths as menhirs or even on dolmens, do inform with a photograph, if possible). The diameters of these depressions range from three cms to a whopping eight inches.

 THE RAJA GOSAWIN CUPULES:



I had the fortune to discover this amazing cupule site about two decades ago. This site comprising of about 350/400 cupules is undoubtedly the largest cupules site of Jharkhand Just adjacent to the Jaganaath Pahari in  Silwar village about 6 kms east of Hazaribagh in Jharkhand is a tall menhir which the villagers revere as the Raja Gosaiwn. At its Northern and western ends surrounding are outcrops which are profusely ornamented with cupules. 




There are hundreds of them in here.The village women also pour milk in them on Saturdays and Tuesdays, the days assigned to the Mother Goddess.For them the cupules are the Goddesses' vulva hence are objects of veneration.


The cupules at the bottom surface of the Bodhayana Shila in the Jaganaath Pahari
     In the Jaganaath pahari itself there is a polyhedron structure whose bottom surface has about 8 to 10 large sized cupules which does not touch the platform on which the stone rests. These were perhaps sculpted before placing the enormous sized stone upon the platform to work as 'grippers' so that the polyhedron structure does not skid to its front while placing.

   One of the oldest dating of cupmarks has  perhaps come from Australia’s Jinmium province where cupules are found to be about 58,000 to 75,000 years old as dated by Australian scientists according to an article published on " The Sydney Morning Herald News Review of Sep 21, 19996". According to Bednarik  cupmarks appear in India in the Pleistocene, but most are from the Holocene, and they were made from Acheulian to the historic period.



This is a ritualistic implement in a Hindu household even used in weddings. Is this an evolved form of the primitive cupules ?




For more information on cupules on megaliths of Hazaribagh, visit: http://chitrolekha.com/cupules-megalithic-sites-jharkhand/

rajeev said...


good infrmation. I was looking for it.













Anonymous said...






This is really interesting. Megaliths are mystery.







Megaliths of India said...






Received by E - mail :-

hey your blog design is very nice, clean and fresh and with updated content, make people feel peace and I always like browsing your site.

- Thomas


THE ENORMOUS MEGALITHIC SITE OF CHOKAHATU in Jharkhand

Lat: 23 deg 10' North
Long: 85 deg 56' East

Chokahatu. 
In the austric Mundaric language (one of the most abundantly spoken languages in primitive India and currently  is the speech of hundreds and thousands of tribals in the east and the central of contemporary India) it means 'the land of mourning'.

Chokahatu, situated about 80 kms south-east of the capital city of Ranchi is primarily a megalithic burial ground of the Mundas. Such burial grounds are known as sasandiri, harsali, haragarhi etc in the local Mundaric languages and can be found in almost all the tribal villages in and around Ranchi.

The sepulchral slabs


The burial slabs. The capstone in the foreground has a porthole

But Chokahatu is different. 
It is enormous in size. It is so huge that you can get lost amidst the sea of stones.

Chokahatu has only two menhirs and the rest are all burial slabs and dolmens. The dolmens are also known as sasandiri to the Oraons, Hos, Mundas and the Asurs.The site was discovered by one T.F.Pepe way back in the late 19th century (Mr.Pepe like Mr.Babington has the rarest disticntion of discovering numerous megaliths in India in the 19th century). Pepe reported the site to Col.Dalton who visited here in 1871.




Dalton was bewildered at the enormity of the site.He wrote in the "Journal of Asiatic Society of Bengal" Vol.42 in 1872 that his helpers counted the sepulchral slabs to be around 8000 and the area was more than a whopping 7 acres. He believed that there must be an understratum of these graves and this site must be about two thousand years old. The villagers however disagreed with me , they affirmed the site is of about 14 acres and must be more than two thousand year of age.
Well that's for the archaeologists to decide, if  they ever arrive here.


Self-portrait alongside a sasandiri dolmen with a large capstone.

People since very olden times must have been bringing the bones of the deceased for a burial in this sacred land from all over the country, the villagers told me. Even today people come from far off places for burial in this holy land. They build dolmens on the dead of their relatives,carting the slabs on vehicles. 


...another sasandiri dolmen




A few moderns day commemorative sasandiri dolmens.


Chokahatu is one of the oldest historical remains of our country and it still being used in an uninterrupted manner since hoary antiquity is also an illustration of its living heritage status. It therefore demands a World Heritage position. 

Chokahatu, such a significant site, lingers in utter negligence like any other megalithic site in India, but then megaliths being tribal heritages are not worthy of respect, here.

I must admit yours is a fantastic website.One learns so much from it.

I am just surprised to learn about Chokahatu. Why cannot Jharkhand capitalise on such sites for international tourism?
S.K.Satpathy
As an interested but total amateur, your pictures as well as the appended information has left me gasping. I am amazed at the indifference of our ASI to what could well be a facet of our heritage that we must be virtually ignorant of. My cousin has just completed her M.A in archaeology from C.U. I have advised her to immediately visit my FB home page and look up your posts. Subhashis, it strikes me that given the slumber of our very own ASI, why should you not take up the matter with the U.N? That our country did at all have any pre-aryan culture is mind boggling. Mind you, this is NOT my view at all! If most of these are burial grounds though, some still in use, it appears that there may be a problem with archaeological "digs," perhaps. CARRY ON THE GOOD WORK, MATE! Our tribals, so long exploited, so long deprived deserve their moment in the sun!
Kalyan
Your reaction is very inspiring. You speak of the indifference of ASI, just go through another post which I had put in last night,read through it and tears are bound to stand on your eyes. Visit my site : www.megaliths-india.blogspot.com and click on the tab "ROLA MEGALITHS AT THE VERGE OF DESTRUCTION". and then react.

Good you have advised your cousin to visit my blog. In fact megaliths in Indian archaeology are not that much venerated perhaps for their aboriginal origin. Neither do they nurture much regard for tribals. Indian Histroy for them is only Hinduism/Brahamnism/Aryanism and Islam . For them tribals had nothing to contribute to our country.

Strangely when i have archaeologists archaeoastronomners, scholars or even simple tourists from UK, France, Russia, Germany visiting my discovered megalithic sites in Jharkhand or elsewhere , I find stark difference between them and us. Their understanding of India is far profound.

When I had visited Chokahatu firstly in 2003/2004, none of the archaeological depts could provide me with any info.In the village I was told I was the only Indian in many years to have visited the site; the site was usually visited by anthropologists from UK and France and Germany.

I am trying to get a World heritage Status for Chokahatu for being not only one of the the largest burial sites but for the practice of the continued living tradition of megalithism since over 2000 years.

Thank you Kalyan for your inspiring words. Take your time and go through my site. Let me brag a bit : Kalyan this is the only blog on megaliths in India.
Among the many things these tell us, they also tell us, our tribals if anything, were not dumb as some make it sound.
They related to nature well. Tried to understand nature and live with nature.
Astronomy and these megaliths are just, one part of this knowledge.

These enhance our respect for the simple native people of this world.
regds
hari dk
first of all i must congrats you for your amazing field work in the contest of Megalithic culture of India.
me too interested in Megalithic culture and doing my PhD on the same subject. currently i am working at Dept of Archaeology Maharashtra and planing to excavate some of the Megalithic burial located in Vidarbha region.
i want to visit the sites you discovered.
have u discovered any megalithic burial site in southern MP or Chhatisgarh area?
i would like to tell you that plese search habitation of these ancient people............

another
Virag Ji,

Thank you for liking my work and I presume you have also looked into other post of my website.

I am very happy to learn that you are working on the burials of Vidharbha. I have some news of a few discovered megaliths of Vidharbha in the " megalithic activities section" of my site. Does that figure your site as well?
You can visit my sites, but please inform me in advance so that I could arrange myself accordingly.

So far as megaliths of Chattisgarh is concerned please visit :http://www.megalithindia.in/2011/11/profile-of-human-head-in-form-of.html

Regards

Subhashis das

So far as
Subhashis I have posted a page about Chokahatu along with your petition. Many thanks for allowing us to use some photos

http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=33786

Kind Regards,
Andy
you are doing phenomenal job.its realy appriciable.since i belong to munda tribe as far as i know my father once told me that all the surname of munda like hurad(kachchap),sandil,nag,etc..are the original surnames.hindus(aryans)have taken this from ours.since aryans invade india they were like landless or can say religionless.so they enter our land and adopt tribal cultures and traditions and populated here.because of this adaptation many festivals and cultures of hindus are similar to tribal's cultures and festivals.for eg:chat puja,baisakhi,pongal,etc etc..aryans not only inhabited tribal lands but also adopted the religion and made their own religion called "HINDU" and also named India as hindustan.
Another interesting fact about jharkhand tribe is,the people are here the real followers or can say the heir of lord Ram and lord Shiva cause their living style and weapons are similar to these lords....:)
Good information. Jeyakumar ramasami