Western India.
On the other side of India there are some groups of rude-stone monuments similar to those found in the Khassia hills, and apparently erected for similar purposes. They are, however, much less perfectly known, and are described or at least drawn by only one traveller.[551] The most conspicuous of these is one near Belgaum. It consists of two rows of thirteen stones each, and one in front of them of three stones—the numbers being always uneven, as in Bengal—and on the opposite side four of those small altars, or tables, which always accompany these groups of stones on the Khassia hills. These, however, are very much smaller, the central stone being only about 4 feet high, and falling off to about a foot in height at the end of each row.[552] Whether they were or were not dedicated to the same purpose, Colonel Leslie does not inform us; but their resemblance is so marked that there seems very little doubt that they were dedicated or vowed to the spirits of deceased ancestors.
Another class of circular fanes looks at first sight more promising as a means of comparison with ours. Generally they seem to consist of one or three stones, in front of which a circular space—in the largest instance 40 feet in diameter, but more generally 20 to 30 feet only—is marked out by a number of small stones, from 8 to 20 inches in height, while the great central stones are only 3 feet high. To compare these, therefore, with our great megalithic monuments seems rather absurd. So far as can be made out, the central stone seems to represent a local village deity, called Vetal or Betal, who, like Nadzu Pennu, the village god, one of the inferior deities of the Khonds, is familiarly represented merely by a rude-stone, placed under a tree.[553] In the instance of Vetal, it seems when a sacrifice—generally of a cock—is to be made, all those who are interested bring their own stones, and arrange them, in a circular fashion, round the place where the ceremony is to be performed; hence the superficial likeness. None, so far as is known, are ancient, nor indeed has it at all been made out when and how the worship of this deity arose. It is evidently a local superstition of some of the indigenous tribes, which latterly under our tolerant rule has become more prominent, for the sect is hated and despised by the Brahmins; and so far as facts are concerned, it would be difficult to carry back the history of this form of architecture for a hundred years from this time. It may be older, but there is nothing to show that it is so.
So far as the monuments above mentioned are concerned, there seems nothing in them that affords a real analogy or establishes any direct connexion between the European and Indian examples. The sacrifice of a cock to Vetal, when in sickness, looks like a similar sacrifice to Esculapius, and the human sacrifices and sacred groves of the Khonds are very Druidical in appearance; but no one probably will be found to contend that Vetal and Esculapius are the same god, or that the Khonds are Celts; and without this being established, the argument halts. The case, however, seems different when we turn to the sepulchral arrangements of the aboriginal tribes of India. Here the analogies are so striking that it is hard to believe that they are accidental, though equally hard to understand how and when the intercourse could have taken place which led to their similarity.
205. Dolmen at Rajunkoloor. From a drawing by Colonel Meadows Taylor.
206. Plan of Open Dolmen at Rajunkoloor.