Age of the Stone Monuments.
A glimmering of light seemed to be thrown on this subject by a passage quoted by Sir Walter Elliot from a missionary report from Travancore, in which it was stated that an Indian tribe still continued to bury in "cromlechs," like those of Coimbatore, "constructed with four stones and a covering one."[567] If this were so, we might have got hold of one end of a thread which would lead us backwards through the labyrinth. It looked so like a crucial instance that Mr. Walhouse kindly wrote to Mr. Baker, the author of the report in question, and sent me an extract from his reply, which is curious. "The M[a]la Arryians are a race of men dwelling in dense jungles and hills. Cromlechs are common among them, and they worship the spirits of their ancestors, to whom they make annual offerings. At the present day they are accustomed to take corpses into the sacred groves, and place small slabs of stones, in the form of a box, and, after making offerings of arrack, sweetmeats, &c., to the departed spirit, supposed to be hovering near, a small stone is placed in the model box or vault, and it is covered over with great ceremony. The spirit is supposed to dwell in the stone, which in many cases is changed at the annual feast into a rough silver or brass figure." As Mr. Walhouse remarks, this looks like an echo from megalithic times. The people, having lost the power of erecting such huge structures as abound in their hills and on the plains around, from which they may have been driven at some early period, are content still to keep up the traditions of a primæval usage by these miniature shams. There seems little doubt that this is the case, and it is especially interesting to have observed it here, as it accounts for what has often puzzled Indian antiquaries. In Coorg and elsewhere, miniature urns and miniature utensils, such as one sees used as toys in European nurseries, are often found in these tombs, and have given rise to a tradition among the natives that they belong to a race of pigmies: whereas it is evident that it is only a dying out of an ancient faith, when, as is so generally the case, the symbol supersedes the reality.
The articles found in the cairns and dolmens in India unfortunately afford us very little assistance in determining their age. The pottery that is found in quantities in them everywhere, is to all appearances, identical in form, in texture, and in glaze with the pottery of the present day. No archaic forms have, so far as I know, been found anywhere, nor anything that would indicate a progression. This might be used as an argument to prove how modern they were. In India, however, it would be most unsafe to do so. We have no knowledge as to how long ago these forms were introduced into or invented in that country, and no reason to suppose that they would change and progress as ours do. So far as our present knowledge extends, the pottery found in these tombs may have been made within the last few centuries, but it may also be a thousand or two thousand years old for anything we know to the contrary.
The same remarks apply to the gold and silver ornaments and generally to the trinkets found in the tombs. Similar objects may be picked up in the bazaars in remote districts at the present day, but they may also have been in use in the time of Alexander the Great. Iron spear-heads and iron utensils of the most modern shape and pattern are among the commonest objects found in these tombs; and if anyone were arguing for victory, and not for the truth, these might be adduced to prove that the tombs belonged to what the Germans call "the youngest Iron age." This reasoning has no application whatever to India. Flint implements are found there, and very similar to those of Europe, but never in the tombs. Bronze was probably known to the Indians at a remote age, but no bronze implements have been buried with the dead so far as we yet know, though iron has been, and that frequently; but its presence tells us nothing as to age. So far we know, the Indians were as familiar with the use of iron in the fourth century B.C. as the Greeks themselves were, and, for anything we know to the contrary, may have understood the art of extracting it from the ore and using it for arms and cutting-tools before these arts were practised in Europe.
216. Iron Pillar at the Kutub, Delhi. From a photograph.
One of the most curious and interesting illustrations of this is found in the existence of the celebrated iron pillar of Dhava, in the courtyard of the mosque at the Kutub, near Delhi. This consists of a solid shaft of wrought iron, standing 22 feet 6 inches out of the ground and is 5 feet 6 inches in circumference at about 5 feet from its base. When I visited it, the report was that Colonel Baird Smith had dug down and found its base 16 feet below the surface. Lieutenant Cole[568] now brings home a report that it is 26 feet deep in the ground. Taking, however, the more moderate dimension, a single forging nearly 40 feet long and 5 feet circumference was not made, and could not have been made, in any country of Europe before the introduction of steam-machinery, nor, indeed, before the invention of the Nasmyth hammer.
There is an inscription on the pillar which, unfortunately, bears no date; but from the form of the characters, the nature of the event it describes,[569] coupled with the architecture of the capital of the pillar, it leaves no doubt that it was erected in the third or fourth century of our era.
It must be left to those practically skilled in the working of metals to explain how any human being could work in close proximity to such a mass heated to a welding heat, or how it was possible without steam-machinery to manipulate so enormous a bar of iron. The question that interests us here is, how long must the Hindus have been familiar with the use of iron and the mode of working it before they could conceive the idea of such a monument and carry it into execution? It could hardly have been centuries, it must have been nearer thousands of years, and yet they erect rude-stone monuments in India at the present day![570]
One other instance, at the lower end of the scale, may be quoted as also bearing directly on this subject. Of all the people of India the Khassias are probably the most expert in extracting iron from its ores and manufacturing it when made; and their mode of doing this is so original, and, though rude, so effective, that there can be no doubt that it is the result of long experience among themselves.[571] They have, in fact, practised the art from time immemorial; yet though possessing iron tools for, it may be, thousands of years, they at the present day adhere to the practice of using rude unhewn-stone monuments, like the Jews, in preference to those "which any iron tool had touched at any time."[572] Nor can it be argued that they do this because they do not know better. As just mentioned, at any time, certainly within the last thousand years, they might have seen the Buddhist or Hindu stonemasons of Kamarupa erecting the most elaborately carved stone temples, and can now see the domes of the mosques which the Mahommedans erected in the cities of Sylhet three or four centuries ago.
217. Sculpture on under side of Cap-stone of a Nilgiri Dolmen.
Although it thus happens that all these à priori reasonings and mistaken analogies, drawn from our own progressive state, which are so familiar to European antiquaries, break down at once when applied to India, still there are a few indications from which approximate dates may be obtained, and many more could, no doubt, be found if looked for. One of these is, that the greater number of the dolmens of the Nilgiri hills are sculptured; but only one of the drawings on them, so far as I know, has been published,[573] and though it is ungracious to say so, I fear that it is not a very faithful representation. It is, however, sufficiently so to enable us to recognise at once a similarity to a class of monuments very common in the plains. These are called Viracull, if destined to commemorate men or heroes, and Masteecull if erected in honour of women who sacrifice themselves on their husband's funereal pile. Colonel Mackenzie collected drawings of more than one hundred of these, which are now in the India Office, and photographs of many others have been made but not published.
The similarity in the costume and style of art displayed in the preceding woodcut with that of the memorial stones leaves little or no doubt of their being approximately of the same age. As most of the memorial stones are inscribed and their dates at least approximately known, if the identity can be established the date of the dolmens can also be determined. Till, however, some one will take the trouble of photographing the cairns, so as to enable us to compare them with the standing stones, no certainty can be obtained; but as none of the sculptured stones go back a thousand years, and those most like the woodcut cannot claim five centuries of antiquity, these sculptured cairns in the Nilgiris cannot be so very old as is sometimes assumed.
218. Dolmen at Iwullee. From a photograph.
The second instance is curious and instructive. In the centre of the courtyard of a now ruined Sivite temple at Iwullee, in Dharwar, in the very centre of the dolmen country, now stands a regular tripod dolmen of the usual shape ([woodcut No. 218]). The question is, how got it there? No one who knows anything of India will, I presume, argue that the Brahminical followers of Siva would erect the sanctuary of their god in front of the tomb of one of the despised aboriginal tribes, if still reverenced by them, or would have neglected to utilize it if neglected. One of two things therefore only seems possible. Either a Korumber, or native chief of some denomination, stipulated that on his conversion to the faith of the Brahmins, if he erected a temple in honour of his newly-adopted god, he should be allowed to be buried, "more majorum," in the courtyard. This is possible, but hardly probable. It seems more likely that, after the temple was desecrated and neglected, some native thought the spot fit and appropriate for his last resting-place, and was buried there accordingly. From its architecture, there is no doubt that the age of the temple may be carried back as far as the thirteenth century, but it more probably belongs to the fourteenth. According to the first hypothesis, the age of the dolmen would be that of the temple; according to the second, one, two, or three centuries more modern.
219. Stone Monuments at Shahpoor.
A third indirect piece of evidence is derived from Colonel Meadows Taylor's paper in the 'Irish Transactions.' He represents a tolerably extensive group of these monuments as placed immediately outside the city gate at Shahpoor, and from what he says of them they are evidently of the same age as the other examples he quotes. From their position and arrangement, it does not seem doubtful that they are the usual extramural cemetery so generally attached to Indian cities, and they are, in fact, subsequent in date to the erection of the gate in front of which they are placed. The gateway, I learn from a letter from Colonel Meadows Taylor, undoubtedly belongs to the Mahommedan period. It is a regular arch, of the usual pointed form, and consequently subsequent to 1347 A.D., when the Bahmany dynasty first established themselves in this quarter. This being so, the masons who built the gate would certainly have utilized the tombs of the pagans had they existed previously. They must, therefore, be subsequent to the gate; and as it cannot be five centuries old, we have a limit to their age beyond which we cannot go.
220. Cross at Katapur. From a photograph.
Our next example is still more curious and interesting. In the cold weather of 1867-8, Mr. Mulheran, when attached to the Trigonometrical Survey of India, came accidentally across a great group of "cromlechs," situated on the banks of the Godavery, near Nirmul, about halfway between Hyderabad and Nagpore, in Central India. Some of these he photographed, and sent an account of them to the Asiatic Society of Bengal,[574] from which the following particulars are gleaned. "The majority of the cromlechs consist of a number of upright stones, sunk in the ground in the form of a square, and covered with one or two large slabs of sandstone. In some two bodies appear to have been interred, and in others only one. The crosses are found in the neighbourhood of Malúr and Katapur, two villages on the Nizam's side of the river. The crosses at Katapur ([woodcut No. 220]) are, with one exception, uninjured. All are situated to the right of the cromlechs near which they have been erected. Judging from the one lying exposed at Malúr, they are all above 10 feet in length, although only 6 to 7 feet appear above ground. They all consist of one stone, and are all of the latest form. No information of any kind could be obtained regarding the people by whom the crosses or cromlechs were erected. There can be no doubt, however, that the crosses are memorials of the faith of Christians buried in their vicinity." Close by is a cave, before which a cross was erected, which Mr. Mulheran assumes was thrown down by the Brahmins when they took possession of it; and he adds, "I enclose a note from Captain Glasfurd, who sent a packet of implements, rings, and utensils, found in two of the cromlechs he opened, to the Asiatic Society." No such packet, however, ever arrived, and we are, therefore, left to his photographs and descriptions from which to draw our conclusions.
221. Dolmen at Katapur. From a photograph.
222. Dolmen with Cross in Nirmul Jungle.
In the first place, I think it can hardly be doubted that the crosses are Christian emblems; and secondly, that the cromlechs and crosses are of the same date. Their juxtaposition and whole appearance render escape from this conclusion apparently inevitable. The question, therefore, is, when could any community of native Christians have existed in India who would bury in dolmens and use the cross as their emblems? Their distance from the coast and the form of the cross seem at once to cut them off from all connexion with St. Thomas's mission or that of the early apostles, even assuming that the records of these are authentic. My impression is that this form of cross was not introduced as an out-of-doors self-standing sign till, say, the sixth or seventh century.[575] On the other hand, it is extremely improbable that any such community could have existed after the Mahommedan invasion at the end of the thirteenth century. Between these limits we know that the Nestorians had establishments as far east as China, and extending in a continuous chain westward as far at least as the Caspian;[576] and there seems to be no difficulty in assuming that, between the seventh and the thirteenth centuries a form of Taiping Christianity may have been introduced from the north and established itself extensively in the western and central parts of India, but, owing allegiance only to the potentate we know of as Prester John, may have entirely escaped the knowledge of the Western world. Besides helping to fix the date of the dolmens in India, this discovery opens out a wide field for those who would investigate the early history of the Christian Church in India. There can be little doubt that this group is not solitary. Many more will be found, when people open their eyes and look for them. Meanwhile it is a curious illustration of the policy of Pope Gregory in his advice to Abbot Mellitus, alluded to in the Introduction ([page 21]). It is the same thing as the dolmen at Kerland ([woodcut No. 131]), and that at Arrichinaga ([woodcut No. 161]), repeated in the centre of India, though probably at a somewhat later date.
There is still another point of view from which these Indian monuments may be regarded, so as to throw considerable light on the history of their analogues in Europe, and perhaps to modify to some extent our preconceived views regarding their history. In Ceylon there is a class of dagoba, which, in some respects, is peculiar to the island. Two of these will suffice for our present purposes, both in the city of Anuradhapura, which was the capital of the country from about B.C. 400 till the eleventh century. The first of these, the Thupa Ramayana, was erected B.C. 161; the second, the Lanka Ramayana, A.D. 231.[577] For the sake of the argument it would be best to select the first for illustration; but it was, unfortunately, so completely restored about forty years ago that, as in the case of our unfortunate cathedrals, it requires considerable knowledge of the style to discriminate between what is old and what new. Notwithstanding the four centuries that elapsed between their dates, however, they are so like one another in all essentials that it is of little consequence which we select. Neither is large, and both consist of nearly hemispherical domes, surmounted by a square box-like appendage called a Tee, and both are surrounded by three rows of tall stone pillars, as shown in the accompanying woodcut.
223. Lanka Ramayana Dagoba, A.D. 231. From a photograph.
That the domical part of the dagoba is the lineal and direct descendant of the sepulchral tumuli or cairns, which are found everywhere in Northern Asia and probably existed in India in primæval times, is hardly open to doubt. This the Buddhists early refined into a relic shrine, probably immediately after the death of the founder of the religion, B.C. 543; and we know from numerous excavations[578] that the relic was placed in a cist in the centre of the mound, nearly on the level of the soil, exactly where, and in the same manner as, the body-containing kistvaens of our sepulchral tumuli. To this, however, the Buddhists added a square box on the top, which either was invented by them or copied from some earlier form; but no dagoba was complete without it, and all the rock-cut examples and sculptured representations of topes, with many structural ones, still possess it. That it represented a wooden relic-casket may be assumed as certain, but whether it was ever used as such is not quite clear. The relics were sometimes accessible, and shown to the public on festal occasions,[579] and unless they were contained in some external case like this it is not easy to see how they could be got at. A third indispensable part of a perfect dagoba was an enclosing rail. All the early dagobas and all the sculptured representations possess this adjunct. In the rock-cut examples and in the later structural ones the rail becomes attached to the building as a mere ornament, but is never omitted.
224. Dolmen at Pullicondah.
If we compare such a sepulchral mound as this at Pullicondah, near Madras,[580] or that represented in section, woodcut No. 211, with the Lanka or Thupa Ramayana dagobas, we cannot fail to be struck with their similarity. Both possess the mound, the rail, and the tee; and in this last instance it is a simulated tomb, such as many in Europe are suspected of having been. That a people might both bury in barrows and erect domical cairns to contain relics would not necessarily involve a proof of the one form being copied from the other; but that both should be surmounted by a simulated sarcophagus or shrine, and both surrounded by one, two, or three rows of useless stones, points to a direct imitation of the one from the other which can hardly be accidental.
Assuming for the nonce that the one is copied from the other, the ordinary mode of reasoning with which we are familiar in Europe would be then something like this. If the Thupa Ramayana were erected B.C. 161, this cairn at Pullicondah must probably be as old as B.C. 1000, for it would take many centuries before so rude a style of architecture could be reformed into so polished an example as the Thupa Ramayana, which, as before stated, we may assume as identical with the Lanka Ramayana ([woodcut No.223]).
225. Rail at Sanchi, near Bhilsa.
The conclusions I have arrived at are diametrically opposed to this view. As stated at the beginning of this chapter, the architectural material of India was wood, down to B.C. 250 or 300. It then became timidly lithic, but retained all its wooden forms and simulated carpentry fastenings down, at all events, to the Christian era. The rail at Sanchi, which was erected in the course of the two centuries preceding our era, is still essentially wooden in all its parts, so much so that it is difficult to see how it could be constructed in stone, [581] and these pillars round the Ceylonese dagobas are copies of wooden posts, and not such forms as in any number of centuries would have grown out of rude-stone forms. Had they been derived from the latter original they would have been thick, strong and massive, and never have assumed forms so curiously attenuated as we find here. It is difficult to see what these stone pillars or posts were originally intended for. It may have been either that garlands might be hung upon them on festal occasions, as we see represented in the sculptures, or that pictures might be suspended from them, as Fa Hian, who visited this place in the year 400, tells us was done all the way from Anuradhapura to Mehentele on the occasion of a great procession in honour of the Tooth relic which was there exposed to public view. [582]
Be all this as it may, the question which this comparison raises is simply this: If we admit the similarity between the Pullicondah cairn and the Lanka Ramayana Tope, and that the one grew out of the other, it seems to me perfectly evident that the adjunct of the Tope grew out of a wooden and not out of a rude-stone original. If this is so, and if the Tope did not grow out of the cairn, the conclusion seems to me inevitable that the cairn is only a rude copy of a polished original.
The same conclusion hinted at above was forced on me by the examination of the rude-stone circles which crowd round the elaborate tope at Amravati. Generally, I know of no hypothesis by which the phenomenon of polished-stone buildings, with known dates, existing in India for the last 2000 years side by side with rude-stone monuments which are being erected at this day, can be accounted for, unless we give up our favourite system of sequence and are content to take facts as we find them.
It is quite certain there were no hewn-stone buildings in India before the year 250 B.C., and my impression is that none of the rude-stone monuments now existing there were erected till five, it may be ten centuries from that time, and when they once began that there is no break in the sequence to the present day.
I know nothing that can be fairly urged against this reasoning, except our own ignorance, and that of the natives themselves, with regard to the origin and date of these monuments. Neither is much to be wondered at, as it is only so lately that Europeans have turned their attention to the subject, and the natives know so little about their own monuments that it would be strange indeed if they knew anything at all about those of the hated and despised Dasyus. Any one who has travelled in India knows what sort of information he gets even from the best and most intelligent Brahmins with regard to the dates of the temples they and their forefathers have administered in ever since their erection. One thousand or two or three thousand years is a moderate age for temples which we know were certainly erected within the last two or three centuries. Or ask any native about the date of the rock-cut temples at Ellora or Elephanta, he at once glibly answers, they were erected by the Pandus, 3101 B.C.; and if he breaks loose from that landmark, ten or twenty thousand years is the least you can expect. Yet we know now, from inscriptions and other data, that no rock-cut temple can be carried further back than the second century B.C.
In this infantile state of the native mind it costs them nothing to hide their ignorance in the mists of thousands of years when questioned about these rude stones, but their testimony is absolutely worthless, and it is only by processes like those just described that we can hope to arrive at the truth. Among races so unchangeable as some of those existing in India they may carry us back to a time prior to the Christian era with some classes of monuments; but, unless I am very much mistaken, it will be found that all those mentioned in the preceding pages are of comparatively recent date and are members of an unbroken series which continues to the present day.