subject: The Silent Sentinels Of Chatra [print this page] Strangely though these megaliths have never got their share of publicity as the proud trumpeters of heritage in India. In the process they have been deprived of dignity that these ancient boulders demand as true relics of our country's prehistory!
Megaliths all over the world have their own story. They vary from one region to another and many are startlingly similar in meaning; and such similar rocks have been found in England, China and India.
Jharkhand has its own treasure troves of megaliths called the Pathalgadda of Chatra or more specifically speaking megaliths of Pathalgadda that stand as sentinels in this region. Pathalgadda the name of the village, to be succinct is a Hindi name for tribal megaliths. Needless to say when the Hindi speaking folks walked into the region after the tribals migrated to another region were surprised and stunned to find huge rocks and boulders of different shapes and sizes, perched on one another, at different varying angles and degrees, in and around the vicinity. Now these megaliths are in thousands...look any where...go anywhere you find them everywhere in Chatra.
For those of us who need to know what exactly construes a Megalith, a megalith as defined in Wikipedia, is a large stone that has been used to construct a structure or a monument, either alone or together with other stones. These structures made of such large stones, have been deftly placed in an interlocking style without the use of mortar or cement.
The word 'megalith' comes from the Ancient Greek ? megas meaning great, and ? lithos meaning stone. Megalith also denotes an item consisting of rock(s) hewn in definite shapes for special purposes. Many have been discovered lying around for centuries.
The sleepy hamlets around Pathalgadda such as Puraniya, Likhlahi, Dasi and Lamboiya are ringed with some spectacular hills and have in them megaliths that have been used solely for burial and memorial stones. Many of these can be found jumbled up in single places suggestive of the fact that they belonged to the clans of tribes called "Jangarhas", "Hargarhis", or "Sasandiris" of the erstwhile Adivasi villages for which these burials were once created in the deep past.
The distinctive feature of the megaliths in this place is that many of the sepulchral stones can be seen placed tilted to the west and to its opposite. While just a little to the left of the first stone would there be another stone tilted towards the west. Such stones are seen placed side by side creating a row with a North-South alignment a typical orientation indicating the dead.
These sites have also revealed iron and copper slags, Black pottery, Black and Red pottery, Red pottery, and ochre pottery. Several of the sites date back to the Chalcolithic period. Unfortunately most of these sites have been damaged by non tribal villagers villagers scrounging for treasure from below the stones slabs, or the stones were towed away by them to serve as washing stones!
It is time the Government took cognizance of the fact that history still revels in its rocks and ruins and it is only through their preservation that these ruins and rocks can sing paeans for centuries of generations to come.
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