Page:The Indian Antiquary Vol 2.djvu/254

 22 8 THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY. [August, 1873. denotes anything connected with the Pandus, or Pandava brothers, to whom all over India ancient mysterious structures are generally attributed. To call anything ‘ a work of the Pandus’ is equivalent to terming it ‘ Cyclopean’ in Greece, * a work of the Piets* in Scotland, 4 or a work of Nimrod’ in Asiatic Turkey; and it means only that the structure to which the name is applied was erected in some remote age, by a people of whom nothing is now known. When the Tamil people are asked by whom were these Pandu-kuris built and used, they sometimes reply, 4 by the people who lived here long ago;’ but they are unable to tell whether those people were their own ancestors or a foreign race, and also why and when these bur is ceased to be used. The answer which is sometimes given is that the people who built the cairns were a race of dwarfs who lived long ago, and who were only a span or a cubit high, but were possessed of the strength of giants.” The almost total absence of traditional know¬ ledge respecting the origin and use of the tumuli is a strong presumptive evidence that they can¬ not bo later t but may bo much oldery than the time fixed above. IV. The bones found in tho tumuli prove beyond a doubt that the people buried in them were neither dwarfs nor giants, but men of ordinary stature. And the large stone slabs lining the interior and placed on the top of the tumuli, which in most cases must have been cut from the solid rock and carried from some distance, prove that the people physically were equal to the present race of men. The objects found in the tumuli represent the people in a comparatively advanced Btato of civilization. They required and made earthen vessels for culinary and domestic purposes. And those vessels show considerable ingenuity in the art of pottery. They are not only all tastefully designed and well baked in fire, but remarks, “ Tho Bhill, the Kol, the Gond, the Toda, and other tribes remain as they were, and practise their own some of them are ornamented with transverse lines and highly polished. The people were acquainted with the value and use of metals. The small swords are elegantly designed and well wrought. And so are the knives, razors, and gold and bronze ornaments found in tumuli on the Nilgiri Hills. They made and wore necklaces and bracelets of precious stones ornamented with what appears to be oxide of tin. The most recent tumuli contain rude sculptures and inscriptions, which show that the people were acquainted with reading and writing. Tho great care and trouble with which the tumuli were prepared as receptacles for the dead, manifest a tenderness of feeling and re¬ verence for the departed which can only be expected in an intelligent and civilized people. Reverence for the dead can only arise from a strong manly affection for the living, which reverence and affection diminish in intensity as people descend in the scale of civilization, till they become almost extinct in the savage. Whatever the religious tenets of the people were, it is pretty certain that they firmly believed that human existence is not bounded by the tomb; for no reasonable cause can be assigned for tho j :ce of depositing various objects with the dead but a firm belief in a future state, where they supposed that such objects would be required. Their conception of the future world was cast in the mould of the present; and hence they believed that whatever is necessary, useful, and ornamental in this world would be equally so in the next—the warrior would require his sword, the husband¬ man his agricultural implements, and the lady her ornaments. This conception of the future is neither the transmigration of the Brahmans nor the nirvuna of the Buddhists, and hence forms another link in the chain of evidence that the people who used the tumuli were neither the one nor the other, but anterior to both.* Salem, November 2Othy 1872. rites and follow tho customs of their forefathers as if the stranger had never como among them.” Rude Stone Monu¬ ments, p. 459. See also ante, p. 10.—Ed. $
 * 1) Possibly co-ordinate with both : for, as Mr. Fergusson