

The Megaliths of Jewish Lost Tribes

A Historical and Archaeological Study

by

Abraham Benhur

Smashwords Edition

© Reserved

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be

reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or

transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical,

photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written

permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized

act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal

prosecution and civil claims for damages.

Cover Design: Satheesh Unnikrishnan

Contents

I. Megalithic Monuments of the Jewish Lost Tribes

The Jewish Diaspora

In the Assyrian Empire

In Afghanistan

The Pathans

The Nazranis

The Brahmagiri Jews

The Gowda Saraswathas

Megalithic monuments

Cave cemeteries

Cap stones and hood stones

Architects of the megaliths

II. The Path of the Lost Tribes

From Middle East

To Caucasus Mountains

To Europe

Architecture of dolmens

To Korea  
To Indian sub-continent  
In Afghanistan  
In Punjab

In Kashmir

Bible reference

III. The Path of the Dolmens

North India

Megaliths in Kashmir

Uttar Pradesh

Jharkhand

North Western India

Baluchistan

Sind

Rajasthan

Central India

Madhya Pradesh

Chattisghat

Maharashtra

South India

Andhra Pradesh

Karnataka

Tamil Nadu

Kerala

Iv.Megaliths of the Jewish Diaspora

Burial in Urns

Burial in Chambers

Jewish Burial Customs

Jewish Kokim Tomb In the Diaspora

The Kerala Trail

V. Comparison between dolmens in various Countries

Bibliography
Foreword

Abraham Benhur (my classmate and since then my colleague  
in socio-environment activity for about four decades), is a distinctively brilliant personality with original and path-breaking ideas and chains of thought.

While working on his Ph.D thesis in Economics at the University of Calicut, he published a number of articles on economics  
and sociology, in leading newspapers and magazines. He has been  
a prominent environmental activist, poet, filmmaker and ethnographer. He is now actively involved in Eco- Spiritual education and conservation of Nature. He and his friends have joined together to found Harithasena (National Green Corps) and Jeevanist International, aimed at promoting environmental awareness among students and youth. He is also an award-winning filmmaker. His educational documentry, Rabiya Moves won the National Award for the Best Educational film in 1997. He has published a collection of poems, namely, Benhur's Poems, The Location of Eden, The Jewish Christians of India (2009), The Jewish Background of Indian People(2011) and Megalithic Monuments of South India (2012).

In the present work entitled The Megaliths of Jewish Lost Tribes, Abraham Benhur focuses his research on the burial chambers in the Indian peninsula and assigns the authorship of the megalithic age monuments to the Israelites. He states that the megalithic burial monuments found in Egypt, Europe, Caucasus mountains, Korea, Afghanitan, Kashmir, Baluchistan and India are of Jewish authorship. A close scrutiny of the history and tradition of the Jewish Diaspora would make it abundantly clear that the megalithic monuments of unknown authorship found in Uttar Pradesh, Jharkand, Chattisghat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Andhra, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamilnadu, were actually of Jewish exiles who escaped from Assyrian and Babylonian captivities and took refuge in Afghanistan and later moved to India. He asserts that these burial chambers open up the great path way of the Lost Tribes through time and places up to Kerala. St. Thomas according to Benhur had travelled by sea to the trading port of Kodungallur, in search of these Jewish exiles with whom he could speak in Aramaic language and convey the messeage of Jesus. Thus the earliest converts to Christianity in Kerala were actually these Jewish People and the Nazranis of Kerala are their discendants.

Benhur's study of the megalithic burial chambers of Indian subcontinent and the ethnological and cultural features of certain communities, seeks to link the Pathans of Indian subcontinent, Bhatts of northern India, Bhatrais of Nepal, Bhattacharyas of Bengal, the Mizos in eastern India, the Patels of western India, the Chitpavan Brahmins of Maharashtra, the Gowda Saraswathas settled chiefly along the Konkan, the Reddies and Raos of Andhra, the Coorgies of Karnataka, the Iyers and Ayankars of southern India and St. Thomas Christians or Nazranis of Kerala to the Lost Tribes of Israel.

The present work is based on Benhur's path-breaking research study: The Jewish Background of Indian People - a historical, anthropological, archaeological and etymological study of the Lost Tribes of Israel

Prof. Sobhindran

Chairman,  
Green World Research Centre  
Calicut - 673611, Kerala, India.  
Mob: 919447885558  
E-mail: sobhigreen@gmail.com

The Megaliths of Jewish Lost Tribes

There are two unresolved mysteries in history. One is  
the disappearance of the ten Israelite tribes that the  
Assyrians had enslaved and transported to their lands and put them to slave for the empire. They eventually disappeared from history, and the Bible, the earliest recorded account of the history of the Hebrews, refers to them as the 'Lost People'.

The second unresolved mystery revolves around the megalithic dolmens and other burial sites discovered in different parts of Africa, Europe, Asia and the Indian sub continent. There are no clues to the original owners of these monuments which were obviously burial sites. Remains of bones, implements and utensils used by these people have been found from some of the sites. These magnificent relics of an unknown people from remote past have not been claimed by any surviving people as belonging to their ancestors.

Could they be the remains of a lost people? Are there sufficient leads to trace the authors of these unique monuments? What follows is an effort at solving these mysteries for good. And possibly discover their survivors, too!

The Jewish Diaspora

There are no other people in history who had been forced to live outside their homeland than the Jews. Diaspora is the word used to denote them. The word is not inclusive of those Jews who had chosen to live in alien lands for trade and other purposes and continued to maintain contact with the homeland. The word has a nationalistic connotation, too. It signified a belief that the people who had been scattered in alien lands would be reunited in the Promised Land [1].

But prolonged life in exile was apt to influence the life of any people, and the Jews who had to live for generations in alien land and without any signs of hope fared no better. They dispersed as refugees to wherever they could and spread throughout the old world. These people gradually merged themselves into the local milieu and disappeared as separate entities. Ten tribes of Israel are believed to have thus disappeared from history, and they are known as the Lost Tribes. But segments of them with strong spiritual leadership managed to cling to their traditions and ancestral identity. They followed the Law of Moses (Torah) and upheld Israelite traditions.

The Israelites' tribulations had their beginning in ancient Egypt. The Bible bears witness to their enslavement in Egypt and how they were eventually rescued and taken to the Promised Land (Canaan). Their next major enslavement was in Assyria.

In the Assyrian Empire

The Assyrian Empire dominated the West Asian and central Asian landscape for about eight centuries, beginning in the fifteenth century BC. Nineveh, on the Tigris, was its capital. After subduing the entire Mesopotamia, the Assyrians led expeditions to the Mediterranean coast between 900 BC and 700 BC. Emperors Asshur Banipal, Shalmanessar IV and Sargon II successively raided and overran the northern areas of Israel. The Bible states that Sargon II captured 27,290 Israelis and herded them off as slaves to Halah and Habor on the Gozan river banks and in the towns of Media (II Kings18:11) and there are corroborative Assyrian records, too [2]. The Bible also records the testimony of Prophet Ezra that tens of thousands of Israelis lived in the north-eastern parts of the Assyrian Empire for generations (centuries).

In Afghanistan

It is quite logical to assume that the Israeli tribes, proud of their heritage and yearning to return to their homeland, as evident in the Psalms, tried to escape from captivity to wherever they could. It is believed that a section of the Israelis held in Habor and Media in the north-eastern parts of Assyria escaped to the east along the ancient Northern Trade Route. The ancient caravan route ran between Midian in the Sinai Peninsula, passed through Nineveh, Hamdan, Media, Ekbatana, Herat, Balak (Mazar-e-Sharif), Kabul, Peshawar, Taxila, Sialkot, Pathankot, Delhi, Benares, Patna and Tamralipti (Calcutta).The early Israelite refugees must have joined the caravans and first settled near Herat in Afghanistan. These settlers, who came from the Gozan River area, occupied the banks of a tributary of the Amu Darya River, near Meymanh town, where the Aryan tribes of Scythians and Pahlagonians lived. The Israelis named the tributary as Gosan. The river and the nearby town are known as Gausan today. These Israelites engaged themselves in sheep farming, woolen manufacture and Blue sapphire mining in the Bamiyan hills. They traded their merchandize at Balak (modern Mazar-e-Sharif), and gradually extended their activity to Kabul, Peshawar, Taxila, Sialkot, Pathankot and Kashmir.

The Pathans

The Israelis who escaped to Afghanistan apparently belonged to all the ten tribes of Israel. The Indo-Aryan Scythians and Pahlagonians (the Saka-Pahlavas) of Afghanistan, called these newcomers 'Dhasans' to indicate their origins. 'Dhas' means ten in Sanskrit, the Indo-Aryan language. But the Israelites called themselves 'Paths' which meant the same, but in their own language. Path is ten in the Dravidian languages, and the Dravidian languages had eastern Mediterranean roots. Paths gradually became Pathans, which is the modern word for most Afghans.

The Pathans are also known as Afghans and the area they populate as Afghanistan. This name, too, had its origin in Israel. A Bible story mentions that a son named Afgana born to Jeremiah, son of King Saul. Afgana grew up in the palace of Saul's successor, David, and eventually became the commander of the Israeli army. Nebuchadnezzar's Babylonian forces attacked Judah some 400 years after the rule of David. He captured nearly 80,000 Jews, who included the descendants of Afgana, and transported them to Babylon. A large segment of the descendants of Afgana was apparently among those who escaped from Babylonian captivity and took refuge in the Hindukush Ranges. They settled in the central Afghanistan area of Ghore. Bukhtawar Khan, in his most valuable universal story, Mirat-ul-Alam (The Mirror of the World) gives a vivid account of the Afghans form Holyland to Ghore, Ghazani and Kabul. Eventually, the Afgana clan took over the leadership of the Israelis and the land came to be known after the clan. The ancient history of Afghanistan is described in Mehsan-i-Afgani, written in 1612 AD by the Muslim scholar Nematullah Harvi, in the court of Mogul Emperor Jehangir.

Heredotus gave witness to the presence of Israelites in Afghanistan four centuries before Christ. He described the Pathans as Pactyan and Aparytae, and the land as Pactyica(3)... The Aparytae are obviously the Afridis, descendants of Ephraim, and the Pactyans are the Pathans. They lived in the 20th satrapy of the Persian Empire, comprising modern Baluchistan, Kandahar and the Helmand river valley. When the Persian emperors, Cyrus and Darius, overpowered Afghanistan between 530 and 515 BCE, the Saka-Pahlavas fled to the Indo-Gangetic plains in the east. Some Pathans also went with them to settle in Southern India. The Indians mistook the Pathans who came with the Saka-Pahlavas also as Arya Brahmins. The Israelites, who were known as Pathans in Afghanistan, were later known as Bhattans in central India and Pattans in south India.

Like the Scythians, the Bhattans also performed homas and yagas, and were farmers, shepherds, traders and priests as per Israelite traditions. These Pathans, who moved into different parts of the country in the pursuit of their avocations, came to be known as Patels in Gujarat, Chitpavan Brahmins in Maharashtra, Gowd Saraswathas in Konkan, Bhatts in Uttar Pradesh, Bhattarais in Nepal and Bhattacharyas in Bengal. The segment which reached Tamil country in the south came to be called Pattars (now Aiyers and Aiyankars).

The Nazranis

A section of the Pattars who settled Kongunad and Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, reached Thrissur in Kerala during the Sangam era to pursue foreign trade. Kodungallur (Muziris) on the Kerala coast was the main port of call for the Greek, Roman and Arab traders who came to buy the spices and timber of India. It was these Pattars whom the Apostle Thomas had come across in Kodungallur and converted to Christianity. Their descendants are known as the Thomas Christians or Nazarani Mappilas.

Christian communities came up in Palayur, Kodungallur, Parur, Malayattoor, Niranam, Nilackal and Kollam after St Thomas sought out the Jewish settlements to spread the Gospel. The megalithic burial sites found scattered in certain pockets of Kerala are telltale evidence of ancient Jewish settlements. There are families in present-day Kerala who profess to be descendants of these early converts to Christianity. Shankarapuri Pakalomattam, Kalli and Kaliyankal are among them, and their descendants are found throughout Kerala and outside with different family names.

'The Acts of Thomas', an ancient Syriac text, states that St Thomas had reached Afghanistan (in AD 46) "in search of the Lost People". He found the descendants of the ten tribes (the Pathans) in Taxila, capital of the Parthean Kingdom of Gondaphorus. Apparently, St Thomas did not meet with much success in Parthea. The descendants of the Pathans in Afghanistan adopted Islam after its advent. A granite cross has been unearthed from Taxila, which is claimed to prove St Thomas' visit to Parthea, besides the Syriac text. However, the Pathans continued to retain the ancient tribal names. They have names like Afridi (derived from Ephraim), Rabbani from Reuban, Shinvari from Simon, Levani from Levi, Jaji from Gad, etc. There are over forty-five million Pathans in Afghanistan and Pakistan combined. There is no estimate of their population in India. The Afghan Muslims have a moral code known as 'Pashtoon Vali' or 'Shereef's law'. This closely resembles the Law of Moses. As distinct from Muslims elsewhere, the Pathans practice certain Jewish customs, such as circumcision within eight days of the boy's birth, prayer cloth (thalit), wedding ring (hupah), women's period observance, prohibition of certain foods, practice of Sabbath (the day of atonement – Yom Kippur), dabbing of door frames with blood at times of epidemics, affixing a Star of David (Magen David) in front of houses, etc. which all indicate Israelite (Lost Tribe) traditions.

Heredotus has recorded the presence of Israelites in the Afghan-Pakistan area 2600 years ago, and 'the Acts of Thomas' spoke about their presence 2000 years ago. The widespread presence of ancient megalithic monuments in Baluchistan, Kashmir and Taxila is yet another proof of Israeli presence in these areas. The fact that the Baluchistan hill tracts were known as Solomon (Suleiman) Ranges also points to the significant presence of the Israelites there. The megalithic burial chambers found in these areas bear close resemblance to the burial chambers found in the Caucasues Mountains, which were built by the Israelites who escaped from Assyrian captivity and proceeded north to find refuge in Europe. Therefore, it stands to reason to assume that the megalithic monuments in Baluchistan and the Caucasues belonged to a people who followed identical traditions and practices. And they closely resemble the burial practices followed by ancient Israelites in their homeland. Distinguished archaeologists like Christopher von Haimendorf and Dr Shevenikova have pointed out the identical characteristics of these burial chambers.[5]

The Brahmagiri Jews

The Persian invasion of Afghanistan in the sixth century BC forced the Saka-Pahlavas to flee to India. They were joined by the Israelites settled in Baluchistan. These refugees moved along the western board of India, i.e. Gujarat and Maharashtra, and went as far as Chitradurga in Karnataka. The Sakas (Scythians) [6] occupied the north-western reaches of Karnataka and the area where they settled came to be known as Scythia Putra and later as Satyaputra [7]. This was immediately before the advent of the Mauryan Empire in 320 BC. When the Mauryans came and annexed Chitradurga to the empire and made Brahmagiri the capital of their southern Isila Province, the Sakas moved into the Konkan area and the Pahlavas into Tamil country. The Nambudiri Brahmins [8] of Kerala are the descendants of the Sakas of Satyaputra. The Pahlavas took the Kodagu-Wayanad route to reach Sathyamangalam and later Kancheepuram. It is their descendants who came to be known as the Pallavas of Tamilnadu. [9]

Over three hundred burial chambers of the Israelites who reached Chitradurga were unearthed in 1948 in excavations conducted by the Archaeological Survey of India under Sir Mortimer Wheeler. The box-like granite chambers had east-west orientation, with a port-hole in the east, closed with a cap stone. The graves found in Baluchistan too had identical features, and Sir Mortimer opined that they must belong to the same tribe [10] though he did not identify the people.

The Gowda Saraswathas

There was a large migration of people into Karnataka from Bihar after Chandragupta Maurya abdicated his throne and came to settle in an ashram at Sravanabelgola, near Haassan, with his spiritual mentor Bhadrabahu. The immigrants included Jain and Hindu Brahmins. It is the descendants of Hindu Brahmins who are known as the Gowda Saraswat Brahmins. They are also known as Konkani Brahmins, because they chose to live in the Konkan area. These Brahmins are different and distinct from the Saka Brahmins and Vedic Aryans, and followed Kshatriya-Vaisya traditions.

The Gowda Saraswathas were actually Israelite traders who had come to Pataliputra, the capital of the Maurya Empire, from the Ghowr (Gaur) area of Afghanistan, in the Helmand river basin. The Helmand was known as the Saraswati in ancient days [11] and as Haraihwati to the Persians. The Persian word Ghowr is pronounced as Gowd in Sanskrit and Haraihwati as Saraswati. The Israelis of the Ten Tribes living in Ghowr (Gaur) came to Mathura and Benares, which were important trading centres on the Northern Trade Route (Uthara Mahapath) and further east to Pataliputra at the confluence of the Ganga and the Gandak river in Bihar in order to expand their business to Bengal and the Himalayan foothills. The native Hindus, who believed in the ten incarnations of God, addressed the Paths or Pathans as Path-els (the Hebrew word 'el' means God). The town they built at the confluence of the Ganga and the Gandak was then known as Pathelputra. It was this town which the Mauryans adopted as their capital of Pataliputra. It was the advice and guidance given by Kautilya, a Brahmin of Pataliputra, and the economic power of the Pathels which helped the Mauryan Empire to flourish. Chanakya (Kautilya) had called a conference of 70,000 village heads of the empire with a view to gain support for a legislation to facilitate trade and commerce in the empire in favor of the Gowda Saraswat (Israeli) Brahmins. The empire's limits stretched from Kabul in the west to Tamralipti (Calcutta) in the east and from Kashmir in the north to Karnataka in the south. The politico-economic treatise of Kautilya, named Arthasasthra, was a compilation of the ideas generated at the conference. Taking into account Kautilya's links to Tamil country, it is possible that this Brahmin administrator and economic theorist, whose name became synonymous with Machiavellian statecraft, was an Israelite.

Megalithic monuments

There were several Israelite traders among those who came down to Chandragiri in Karnataka with the abdicated emperor Chandragupta Maurya. Hundreds of megalithic monuments have been excavated from Brahmagiri where these Israelites had first settled on the southern trade route. The emperor had dispatched Jain monks to Tamil country to propagate Jainism. A detachment of these monks set up an ashram at the entrance of the Wayanad plateau at today's Sulthan's Battery, which lay enroute from Brahmagiri to Tamil country. The Israelite traders followed the monks to Wayanad in order to gather the hill produce, such as black pepper, ivory, sandalwood and spices. The megalithic monuments found near Sulthan's Battery are the burial chambers of these Jewish traders who camped near Sulthan's Battery. Numerous megalithic dolmens and burial urns have been unearthed from around the famed archaeological site of Edakkal Caves, near Sulthan's Battery. Prof. A. Sreedhara Menon has recorded finding over 200 such relics from an area of around 1200 acres between Edakkal Caves and Krishnagiri [12]. They are believed to belong to the third century BC.

Since the Jains had lived around Sulthan's Battery from early on and since the Edakkal Caves had been a centre of meditation for Jain monks, the popular perception was that these dolmens belonged to the Jain monks and hence known as 'muni aras' (monk's chambers). The British and other modern archaeologists who explored the Edakkal caves and other monuments recorded the burial chambers as 'muni aras'. These scholars were unaware of the presence of Jewish Diaspora in Wayanad and hence could not link the graves to them. As a matter of fact, the megalithic graves are the strongest evidence of the presence of the Lost Tribes in the southern Indian peninsula.

Megalithic graves have been unearthed at several places along the route the Israeli traders had taken. Taloor, Erumad and Cherambady in Gudalur tehsil of Tamilnadu, close to Wayanad; Nadukani, Nilambur, Kottathara, Mannarkkad, Kongad and Palakkad in Kerala are some such sites. From Palakkad, some veered east to Kongunad in Tamil country and some west to Kodungallur on the Arabian Sea. The Jewish foray into Tamil country received a fillip with the expedition of Mauryan emperor Samprathy in 215 BC. The Jewish traders fanned out to southern and interior Tamil country from Coimbatore. Several megalithic monuments have been found from Coimbatore, Thandikkudi, Palani Hills, Madurai Thiruvannamalai Chengalpet and Thirunalveli.

Some of those who moved towards Madurai built warehouses en route at Udumalpet for the goods gathered from Idukki district of Kerala in the west. The megalithic graves found in several parts of Idukki district testify to this. Megalithic graves (dolmens) have been discovered in Marayur, Kanthallur, Chinnakanal, Muttkad, Chakkimedu, Idamalayar, Vandiperiyar, Peermedu, Muniyara and Periyacanal. Urn burial sites have been found in Pampadumpara, Shantanpara and Pannivayakkara. Bison Valley, Elappara, Kakkappara and Vellappara have several menhirs.

The graves found in Nilakkal, Ranni, Poothankara and Konni testify to the presence of the Israelite traders south of Idukki in Kerala. It could even be possible that the place name of Pathanamthitta derived from the presence of Pathans. ('Thitta' means domain in Malayalam). And it must have been the large presence of the Lost People in these parts that brought Apostle Thomas to Niranam and Nilakkal in Pathanamthitta district, two of the seven places the Apostle is traditionally believed to have set up churches in Kerala.

Graves, menhirs and burial urns left behind by the Jews as they pushed south from Idukki and Pathanamthitta have been excavated in Kollam and Thiruvananthapuram districts, too. Menhirs have been excavated by the Kerala Archaeology Department from Mangad, while burial urns had been found from Perinad, Panayam, Kadavur and Anjuthengu in Kollam district. That St Thomas had founded a church in Kollam also goes to prove the presence of a significant Jewish community there. In Thiruvananthapuram district, Jewish graves have been unearthed at Pulimath and Pirappancode, while Venjaramood, Sreekaryam and Vallakkadave revealed urns. Thiruvancode was another significant Jewish settlement. And the large haul of burial urns at Adichanellur and Kodumanal is indicative of a Jewish push towards Thirunelveli from Travancore.

Cave cemeteries

The laterite-rich midland and coastal areas of Kerala reveal a burial method that was different from the megalithic graves and urn burials extant in the hill tracts. It was burial in underground chambers known as catacombs or loculi tombs similar to the underground burial sites found in ancient Palestine and Rome. Catacombs are underground burial places where a number of tombs are built like vaults. Catacombs will have a common access. Such caves have been found at several places in Thrissur, Malappuram, Kozhikode, Kannur and Kasargod districts of Kerala which have extensive laterite formations. Kattakambal, Iyyal, Chovvannur, Choondal, Mangad and Mullassery have several such cave burial sites. The place name Kattakambal strongly recalls the Latin/Anglo-Saxon word of catacomb and catacumbal. Laterite caves have been found at Anakkara, Vaniyampara, Vellinezhy and Elampulassery in Palakkad district; from Kootilangadi, Kalikkadave and Kallady in Malappuram district; from Feroke, Malaparamba, Chathanparamba, Kodassery, Kokkallur, Thondanur, Thruppancode, Meppayur, Nagaparamba and Neeliparamba in Kozhikode district; from Perungalam, Naduvil and Iritty in Kannur district, and from Peelicode and Chitrari in Kasargod district. Reckless laterite extraction in recent years has led to the destruction of several such known and undiscovered sites.

Cap stones and hood stones

Cap stones and hood stones found at several places in Palakkad and Thrissur districts are other mighty relics of megalithic burial. The cap stones found at Cheramangad, near Kunnamkulam, and at Ariyannur, near Guruvayur, Thrissur district, are of particular significance. Hood stones have been formed by placing long slabs of laterite in a conical pattern, with a large slab placed on top like a cap. The remains of the deceased are entombed in an urn within this structure along with ornaments, arms and insignia denoting the rank of the deceased. The Hood stone at Cheramangad has a circumference of 25 feet and weighs several tones. Cap stones and hood stones have been found at Ariyannur and Iyyal in Thrissur district and at Anakkara in Palakkad district.

The widespread presence of megalithic burial sites in the districts of Thrissur, Palakkad and Idukki, falling between the Nila River (Bharathapuzha) in the north and the Pampa in the south, testify to the presence of substantial population which followed megalithic burial practices. It indicates a population with a unique cultural identity. Who these people were is shrouded in mystery and the historians who wrote about the remote past of Kerala have failed to identify the authors of the megalithic monuments.

Architects of the megaliths

The earliest mention about the authors of these megaliths is found in the Sangam Era text of 'Manimekalai'. It described five distinct forms of disposing of the dead practiced in those days [13] thus:

1. Suduvor (those who cremate the dead)

2. Iduvor (those who leave the dead for preying birds and animals)

3. Thodukalippathavor (those who bury the dead)

4. Thalavayil adappor (those who keep the dead in chambers) and

5. Thazhiyl kavippor (those who keep the body in urns and bury them).

All the five means of disposing of the dead were obviously practiced in Tamizhakam. But it is believed that all except those who buried their dead in mud were non-natives who came from the north during the megalithic age (around 300 BC).

The 'Manimekalai' description helps us to infer that Tamizhakam had five distinct communities during the Sangam Era (200 BC to AD 300). Cremating the dead is an Aryan (Saka-Pahlava) practice, while the practice of leaving the body to the birds and animals to prey on is distinctly Zoroastrian (Parsi). Those who bury their dead are definitely the aboriginals and Dalits, who continue to follow the tradition in modern times.

It is, therefore, obvious that those who interred the dead in dolmens, urns or caves were a unique population. And since the dolmens and urns found in the Indian peninsula closely resemble those found in different and distant parts of the world, we may assume them to belong to a population which traveled widely. Similar graves and cemeteries have been found along the Mediterranean coast, northern Africa, Europe, the Caucuses Mountains, the Iran Plateau, Afghanistan, Baluchistan and southern India. The most ancient of these sites have been found along the eastern shores of the Mediterranean and the most recent in southern India. Therefore, it could be surmised that it was a people from the eastern Mediterranean area who had emigrated to northern Europe, Indian sub-continent and eastern Asia.

The most ancient record about burying their dead in graves and urns had been found in the Mediterranean area. Abraham, the grand patriarch of the Hebrew tribe, had bought a plot of land with a cave in it in Israel in order to bury the body of his wife, Sarah, says the Bible (Genesis 23: 17-19). The remains of Abraham himself, his son Isaac and grandson Jacob and daughter-in-laws Rebecca and Leah were entombed in the same cave. (The Macphelah Cave in which their remains have been buried is a pilgrim centre for the Jews, Christians and Muslims alike.) The Bible has also given evidence of the Hebrews burying their dead in graves since 2000 BC and up to the time of Jesus Christ. The grave of Lazar, whom Jesus brought back to life, is an example of the graves of the Hebrews. The body of Jesus, too, was interred in a fresh grave one Joseph of Arimatya had kept ready for his own use. All these Bible references go to prove burial was the customary mode of disposing of the dead for the Jews. So it is quite credible to assume that the Jews in exile had followed the practice wherever they went.

Burial in urns is a practice seen in the close proximity of burials in dolmens. Practices similar to the urn burials found in South India have been found prevalent among the ancient people in the Mediterranean region and the Arab peninsula. They either entombed the body in large urns or collected the bones after the flesh had rotted away in mud pits and then preserve them in urns. Such urns have been found not only from the Mediterranean coast but also from Mesopotamia, Babylon, Persia, Afghanistan, Baluchistan, the Sindh and southern India.

Evidence of ancient Jews gathering and preserving the bones of the dead is recorded in the Bible: the Jews held as slaves in Egypt kept the bones of their patriarch Joseph for 350 years and brought them back when Moses led the Exodus for burial in their homeland. The Jews must have followed the practice wherever they lived in exile. And since these urns have mostly been discovered close to the dolmens, the practice of urn burial should also be presumed to be of Jewish origin. It could be that the dolmens were of the upper echelon among them and the urns for the ordinary.

The dolmens, laterite cists and urns found in the hills, plains and coastal Kerala are distinctly different from the burial methods of the caste Hindus, the aboriginals and Dalits and the Parsis(Zoroastrians). They bear closer affinity with the Jewish tradition. The dolmenoid cists found in the hills districts of Wayanad, Idukki and Pathanamthitta as well as in the plains districts of Palakkad and Thrissur of Kerala and the Tamilnadu areas of Coimbatore, Kodaikanal, Thandikkudy, Palani hills, Madurai, Thiruvannamalai, Thirunnalveli and Chengalpet are almost identical with the monuments discovered from the Caucuses and Baluchistan. There are corroborative evidences of exiled Jews having lived in these places. The Asokan rock edicts in the north-west India included Aramaic inscriptions, which indicated a substantial population of Jews there. Historic circumstances point to the likelihood of a wing of the Jews in north-west India having reached Chitradurga in Karnataka and the hill areas of Kerala and Tamilnadu.

The dug-in caves found in the laterite-rich midland of Kerala closely resemble the limestone burial pits found in Jerusalem and Jericho in Israel in design and are, therefore, believed to belong to the Jews who had reached Kerala from the north. Similar burial sites have been discovered in Alexandria and Leontopolis in Egypt. Alexandria had over 800,000 Jews in the third century BC. [14]

The menhirs recovered from various parts of Kerala should also belong to the Jewish people. It was an ancient Jewish practice to place stone slabs to mark the graves of their dead. The Bible records that Jacob, the patriarch of Israelites, erected a stone pillar over the grave of his wife Rachel. Menhirs were found on a large scale wherever dolmens and laterite cave cemeteries had been located, and these should be presumed to have been relics of Jewish burials, the latter probably of the commoners among them and the former of ranking men. They did so energized by the lessons given by the prophets about their existence in transit on earth and the hope of returning to the Promised Land (Jeramia 31:21). The Bible passage of Ezekiel (37) goes to mark the real inspiration behind their preserving the bones of the dead.

After showing a valley full of dry bones to Ezekiel, the Jehovah told him: 'Prophesy to the bones. Tell these dry bones to listen to the word of the Lord. Tell them that I, the sovereign Lord, am saying to them: I am going to put breath into you and bring you back to life. I will give you sinews and muscles, and cover you with skin. I will put breath into you and bring you back to life...' The practice of Christians erecting crosses and the Muslims putting up memorial stones over the graves of the dead could be traced to this ancient Jewish belief.

To sum up, close scrutiny of the history and tradition of the Jewish Diaspora would make it abundantly clear that the megalithic monuments of unknown authorship found in Kerala, Tamilnadu, Karnataka, Andhra and Maharashtra were actually of Jewish exiles who escaped from Assyrian and Babylonians captivity and took refuge in Afghanistan and later moved to India. They had reached as far as the Kerala coast through the overland route and linked up with the merchant ships coming to the Malabar coast to buy India's spices, timber and sandalwood. St Thomas the Apostle learned about their existence in South India during his trip to Parthea earlier and sailed to Kodungallur (Muziris) seeking the Lost People that Jesus had commanded him to find and spread the Good News. The earliest converts to Christianity in Kerala were actually these Jewish people and the Nazranis of Kerala are their descendants.15

References:

1. Ricciotti, History of Israel, Vol. II, p. 180;

2. Ibid, Vol. I, p.458; (The Sargon Chronicles, in 'The Fall of Samaria', p.266, 284)

3. Herodotus, The Persian Wars, Vol. III, p. 91, 102;

4. Vadakkekkara, Dr Benedict, Mar Thoma Christianikalude Udbhavam, p.83;

5. Gopalakrishnan, P.K., Keralathinte Samskarika charithram, p.49, 50;

6. Herodotus, The Persian Wars, Vol. VII, p. 64

7. Raghavan, C., Tulu – Nadum, Bhashayum, Nattarivum, p.17;

8. Fawcett, Fred, The Nambudiris, p.77;

9. Thapar, Romila, A History of India, p. 168;

10. Wheeler, Sir Mortimer, Early India and Pakistan, p. 167;

11. Kosambi, D.D., The Culture and Civilization of Ancient India, p. 78;

12. Menon, A Sreedhara, Kerala Charithram, p. 71;

13. Gopalakrishnan, P.K., op cit, p. 49;

14. Aid to Bible Understanding, p. 50.

15. Abraham Benhur, The Jewish Background of Indian People. P. 203-207

The Path of THe lost Tribes

A Dolmen is an ancient megalithic monument at a burial  
site, of an ethnic group, to keep its identity from other  
people in a region. It is also known as a portal tomb or portal grave, usually consisting of four upright stones supporting a large flat horizontal capstone, covered with earth or small stones to form a barrow.

The term dolmen originated from the expression taol maen, which means stone table in Breton. Dolmens are known by a variety of names in other languages including dolmain (Irish), Cromlech (Welsh), Anta (Portuguese and Spanish), Hunen grab (German), Adamra (Abkhazian), Hunebed (Dutch), dysse (Danish and Norwegian), dos (Swedish) goindol (Korean). In South India dolmens are called by the names such as Kallara or Muniyara (Malayalam), Pandukuli (Tamil), Pandugallu (Kannada), Rakshasagallu (Telugu) and Assurakila (Hindi) in Jharkand.

From Middle East

Megalithic tombs are found from Middle East to Caucasus Mountains to Iberian peninsula and Ireland in the West, to Afghanistan and Indian peninsula in the South and to the Korean peninsula in the East. Dolmens are found in Israel, Jordan and Syria. Numerous large dolmens can be viewed in Israeli National Park at Gamla. There are many examples of flint dolmens in the historical villages of Johfiyeh and Natifah in Northern Jordan. The greatest number of dolmens are around Madaba, like the ones at Alfaiha village, 10 km to the west of Madaba city in Jordan.

To Caucasus Mountains

Concentrations of Megalithic dolmens approximately 3000 have been found through out Caucasus mountains including the Abkhazia. Most of them are represented by rectangular structures made of stone slabs or cutting rocks with holes in their facade. This dolmens cover the western caucasus on both sided of mountain ridge in an area of approximately 12,000 square kilometres of Russia and Abkhazia.

The Caucasian dolmens represent an unique type of pre-historic architecture built with precisely dressed large stone blocks. While generally unknown in the rest of of Europe, these magaliths are equal to the great megaliths of Europe in terms of age and quality of architecture, but are still of an unknown origin. Inspite of the variety of the Caucasian megalithic monuments they show strong similiarities with megaliths from different parts of Europe and Asia like the Iberian Peninsulla, France, Great Britain, Ireland, Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Sweden and India.

Over 3,000 dolmens and other structures can be seen in the North-Western Caucasus region of Russia, where more and more dolmens are discovered in the mountains each year. There are a number of dolmens in the regions related to the Sakar and Rhodope and Strandzha Mountains in Bulgaria.

In Turkey, there are some dolmens in the regions of Lalapasa and Suloglu in the province of Edirne, the regions Kofeas and Demirkoy in the province of Kirklareli and in the different regions of Anatolia.

To Europe

In Italy, dolmens can be seen in Apulia and Sardinia and in Sicily where they are located in Mura Pregne, Sciacca, Monte Bubbonia and Butera in Caltanissetta region and Cava Lazzaro and Avola in Siracusa region.

A large number of dolmens in Germany, Poland and Netherlands were disturbed when harbours, towns and cities were built. The boulders were used in construction and road building. There are still many thousands left today in Europe.

In France, important megalithic zones are situated in Brittany, Vendee, Qwercy and in the South of France. More than 10,000 dolmens and menhirs cover a large part of the country. Important menhirs, alignments in Brittany (Carnae's alignments) count more than 1,000 menhirs.

In the Iberian Peninsula, in spain, dolmens can be found in Galicia, Barsque country and Navaree. In Portugal dolmens are also seen from simple ones to more complex examples of megalithic architecture, such as the Almendris Cromlech or the Anta Grande do Zambujeiro.

Megalithic tombs are found from the Baltic Sea and North Sea, coasts South to Spain and Portugal. Dolmen sites fringe the Irish sea and are found in south-east Ireland, Wales, Devon and Cornwall. In Ireland, however, more dolmens are found on the West coast, particularly in the Burren and Conne mara, which includes some of the better-known examples, such as Poulnabrone dolmen. Examples have also been found in northern Ireland, where they may have co-existed with the court cairn tombs. The largest dolmen in Europe is the Brownshill dolmen in county Carlow, Ireland.

To Korea

The largest concentration of dolmen in the world is found on the Korean peninsula. In fact, with an estimated 35,000 dolmen, Korea counts for nearly 40% of the world's total. The largest distribution is on the west coast area of South Korea. The Korean word for dolmen is goindol. Korean dolmen have a different morphology than the more widely known Atlantic European dolmens. The Korean Archaelogists classify Korean dolmens in to two types, which they call northern and southern. They put the boundary between these at about the North Han river although both groups can be found on both sides. Northern style dolmens are above ground with a four sided chamber and a megalithic roof, while Southern style are made up of a stone chest or pit covered by a slab. The dolmen in Ganghwa is northern type, table shaped dolmen and is the biggest stone of this kind in South Korea. Northern style dolmens are found in Manchuria and the Shandong peninsula.

Due to the vast numbers and great variations in styles, it has not been possible yet to establish an absolute chronology of dolmens in Korea. It is estimated that the Korean dolmens were built in the first millennium B.C. It is generally accepted that the Korean megalithic culture brought agriculture to the peninsula in the area of North-Eastern Asia.

To Indian sub-continent

The Indus river was the eastern bounds of the Persian Empire. Gandhara, which encompassed the northern areas of the Indus River, was the twentieth 'satrapy' of the Persian Empire. "A little before 530 BC, Cyrus the Achaemenid emperor of Persia, crossed the Hindukush Mountains and received tribute from the tribes of Kamboja, Gandhara and the trans-Indus region. Herodotus mentions Gandhara as the twentieth satrapy or province counted amongst the most populous and wealthy in the Achaemenid Empire."1

Cyrus' forces reached Gandhara through the northern trade route. No one could reach Gandhara through the trunk route without subduing Herat and Balak. Balak was a famous trading centre from very ancient times. "Balak was the meeting place of four great peoples – the Indians, the Iranians, the Scythians and the Chinese." (Dr.Moti Chandra: The Caravans). The old Balak is the present Mazar-e-Sharif in Afghanistan. Traders from the four regions met here, exchanged wares and gathered provisions for themselves and their beasts of burden. Silk and woolen garments, spices and gems were among the items traded here.

There is a good chance that the Israelites living along the Caspian Sea coast in Media had migrated to the eastern lands through the northern trade route known as the Uthara Mahapath. The Israelites who reached Media as Assyrian captives must have joined the east-bound caravans, when the Assyrian hold began to slacken, for purposes of trade, to begin with, and then to settle down.

The Bamiyan ranges in Afghanistan yielded blue sapphire and other gems in ancient times. The Israelites, who had experience in working granite quarries, must have chosen gem mining as their occupation in Bamiyan. They must have traded these gems at Balak to traders from the west, and Cyrus must have learned about the sapphire mines of Bamiyan and the wealth of Gandhara from the traders, encouraging him to march to India. It is reasonable to assume that these Israelite settlers might have shown the way to the Persian Army, in which their own kin participated. The Aramaic inscriptions found from Afghanistan are proof of Israelite presence there as early as the fourth century BC2. Besides Aramaic, stone inscriptions in Kharoshthi and Greek have also been found from Afghanistan 3, belonging to the Maurya period, proving that people who spoke such different languages were prevalent there.

Rock inscriptions in Aramaic belonging to the Maurya era (320 BC onwards) have been in Gandhara, confirming Jewish presence. The Jews continued to flourish even after the decline of the Mauryan Empire. There were Jews in the Parthian Empire, which encompassed Baluch and Afghan areas. That the hill tract in Baluchistan was named after Solomon (Sulaiman Ranges) reinforces the Jewish presence and influence. Some Jews remained even during the days of Gondaphorus (45 AD). It was to look them up that St. Thomas the Apostle had arrived in the Indus basin. There is no dispute over the fact that the dolmens found in all the places from the Caucuses region to the Indus valley where Jews have been, either as slaves or as settlers, belong to the Jews. These ancient burial stones, found in the Caucuses Mountains, Baluchistan, and southern India, all have similar openings in front, indicating a common (Jewish) origin.

I. In Afghanistan

The ancient history of the Lost Tribes is that a section of them who were detained by the Assyrians in Media and Habor on the Gozan banks in the north-west of Iran made their getaway through the northern trade route and found refuge in the east. The northern trade route linked West Asia, Nineveh,Ekbatana, Hamdan, Herat, Balak (Mazar-e-Sharif), Kabul, Peshawar, Taxila, Sialkot, Pathankot, Indraprastha (Delhi), Kasi (Benares), Pataliputra and Tamralipti in Bengal. The Israelite refugees joined the caravans headed for the east and reached Herat and settled down there first. There was large-scale exodus of the Jews from Media after the collapse of the Assyrian empire. The Israelites who came away from the banks of Gozan settled down along a tributary of the Amu Darya River near Meymanh town. They named the tributary Gozan. The river and the town on its banks are known as Gousan now. Israelites had been visiting Balak for business because it was an important trading centre on the trade route. The Pahlagonians and the Scythians were also present at Balak.

The presence at Balak of the Scythians, who were a prominent force in Central Asia, proved a morale booster to the Israelites, as both were fraternal communities. The Lost Tribes received support and greater freedom of travel. A section of the Israelites is believed to have reached Central Asia through the Caucuses Mountains. There is a view that the Georgians and the Bukharians of southern Russia are descendants of the Lost Tribes. The Israelites who found safe havens in the valleys of the Hindukush Mountains engaged themselves in farming, sheep-rearing, woolen manufacture and mining for blue sapphire in the Bamiyan hills. There was, indeed, a largescale migration of Israelites detained in Media and Habor into Afghanistan. Members of the Lost Tribes engaged in trade in Balak gradually pushed eastward into Kabul and Peshawar and entered Kashmir through Taxila, Sialkot and Pathankot.

a) The Ten Tribes

The Indo-Aryan Scythians and Pahlagonians called these Israelites ''Dhaashans''. 'Dhas' is ten in Sanskrit, and the reference obviously was to the Ten Israeli Tribes. The Israelites called themselves "Paths", which meant ten in the Dravidian languages like Brahui, which reputedly originated in the eastern Mediterra-nean area, where the Israelis came from. It was these 'Paths' who later came to be known as the Pathans and Pashtus. Pathankot in north-west India gets its name from the Pathans. Herodotus in his book The Persian Wars (III - 91) composed circa 450 B.C. mentions, the Pathans as 'Pactyans' and a tribe as 'Aparytae' =Afridi and the place where they lived was known as 'Pactycia'.

The Pathans were the dominant population along the northern trade route (Uthara Mahapath) from Balak to Pathankot via Kabul, Peshawar, Taxila (the modern Rawalpindi) and Sialkot. Peshawar was built by the Pathans in order to preserve the memory of Habor in Assyria where their ancestors were held as slaves. "Havor is, they say, Pehs-havor (Pash-Havor) which means 'over Havor' in Afghanistan and today serves as the centre of the Pathans of Pakistan,... the whole area was populated by the ancient Assyrian exiles'' (The Lost Tribes from Assyria). The Pathans reared sheep on a large scale and made excellent woolen garments. Their woolen garments were known as 'Kodumburam'. Udhampur near Pathankot was a centre of woolen industry. "The Udhampureans who lived in Pathankot were a part of the Magadh-Kashmir trades". A 100 km west of Pathankot lies Sakal (today's Sialkot) which was the centre of Medes who came from Media and were known as "Madras", a group of lost tribes. The town was referred to as Putabhedan in 'Milinda questions'. Sealed bundles of goods from outside were brought here and the seal broken here for distribution to retailers.''4

The people were called "Madras" because they had come from Media. They were the descendants of the Lost Tribes detained in Media by the Assyrian captors. The Udhampureans of Pathankot were a branch of the "Madras" of Sialkot. Both the Madras and the Udhampureans belonged to the Lost Israeli Tribes. These Pathans had a dominant share in the trade along the northern trade route. The Uthara Mahapath passed from Pathankot to Ludhiana, Sirsa, Rohtak, Delhi, Mathura, Benares and Pataliputra (modern Patna), from where it split into two, with one road going to Bengal and the other heading for Assam. Since the Magadh empire in the Gangetic basin was a vast and prosperous market, the Pathans gave special attention to the trade with Kashmir and Magadh. Until Alexander's expedition to India (330 BC) the Lost Ten Israeli tribes dominated the trade along the northern traderoute.

b) The Afghans

The Pathans are also called the "Afghans". The reason for naming the area in which the Lost Ten Tribes had settled as Afghanistan is their link to Israel. This is borne out by the Bible. The Israelite King Saul, who belonged to the Benjamin Tribe, had a son named Jeremiah, who had a son named Afgana. Afgana grew up in the palace of Saul's successor David and eventually became the commander of the Israelite forces. Afgana's descendants held important administrative positions in Judah. Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon attacked Judah 400 years after David's death and captured over 80,000 Jews and marched them off to Babylon. A large segment of the descendants of Afgana escaped from Nebuchadnezzar's encampments and fled to the Hindukush Ranges (today's Afghanistan). They settled down in the central Afghanistan area of Ghore. The tribe, with large manpower and wealth, grew into a dominant community. This Afgani tribe, with their skills in farming, trade and organization, soon took over the leadership of the whole Israeli population. Over time, the name Afgani became synonymous with the Israelites, and the land came to be known by the dominant tribe.

'Makhsan-i-Afgani', published in 1612, describes the ancient history of Afghanistan. The book was written in Mogul emperor Jehangir's court by Muslim scholar Nematullah Harvi. Another famous historical work on the origin of Afghans is Tarikh-i-Hafiz Rahmatkhani by Hafiz Muhammed Zadeek, wrote in 1770. These books deal with the early history of the Afghans, their origin and wanderings in general. They particularly discuss the Yusufzai (Sons of Joseph) and their occupation of Kabul, Bajoor, Swat and Peshwar. Bukhtawar Khan in his most valuable universal history Mirat-ul-Alam \- The Mirror of the World - gives a vivid account of the journey of the Afghans from Israel to Ghor, Ghazni and Kabul. Similarly Hafiz Rahmat bin Shah Alam in his Khulasaat-ul-Ansab- and Fareed -ud-Din Ahamad in Risala-i-Ansab-i-Afghana provide the history of the Afghans and deal with their genealogies.

It was Ahmed Shah in 1747 who brought the different tribes of Pathans under a single power and made them into one nation. The dynasty established by Ahmed Shah, who belonged to the Afgan tribe, lasted until 1973.

Most of Afghanistan was under the Mogul Empire of India during the 16th and 17th centuries. The British who had gained control of India tried to bring Afghanistan under their control, which attempt caused three famous battles. It was not easy for Britain to overcome the combined resistance of the ferocious Pathan tribes. The Afghan borders were redrawn after the second war in 1880 jointly by Britain and Russia during the reign of Amir Abdurrahman (1880-1901). The various agreements between the Pathan tribes and Britain refer to the land as 'Afgan land'. This was later adapted by the Afghans by substituting the suffix 'land' with the equivalent 'stan' in the vernacular to make the country's name. There are 13 million Pathans in Afghanistan and 28 million in Pakistan. About 100,000 Pathans live in India, scattered in different towns and villages. Forty-two per cent of the 30 million population of Afganistan are Pathans. Of the twenty-one population groups in Pakistan, the Pathans and the Jews bear the most distinctive Semitic features. With their long noses, distinct facial hair and eyes, some of them bluish, the Jews and Pathans are almost indistinguishable from each other. These similarities point to the blood relationship of the two peoples.

A. Avihal and A. Brin, in their book, 'The Lost Tribes from Assyria', published in 1978, state as follows: "The Pathans are known for their physical strength. They are tall, light colored and handsome, good soldiers and for the most part bear arms from a young age. They are diligent and intelligent, faithful to an exemplary degree and are known in the world as outstanding hosts."

Deer skins inscribed in golden letters indicating tribal and family names strongly linking their origin to Israel have been recovered from Afghanistan. The language used is Pashtoon, the language of the Pathans. The Reuban tribe, for example, has been recorded as Rabbani, Shinvari is the name for the Simon tribe, Levani for Levi, Dafthani for the descendants of Naphali, Jaji for Gad, Ashuri for the Asher tribe, Yusafsu for the descendants of Joseph and Afridi for the descendants of Ephraim. The Afghans use their tribe's name appended to their given names, as, for example, Birhanuddin Rabbani, former President of Afghanistan, Mangal Baug Afridi, the leader of the fundamentalist Lazkar-e-Islam of Afghanistan and Javed Afridi, the ace cricketer of Pakistan. Dr. Sakkir Hussain, former President of India and Muhammed Yunus, former union minister of India were also Afridies.

Dr. Navras Aafreedi, an Indian historian who did a genetic study on the Afridi clan of Pathans in Malihabad said that 650 out of the 1500 members possess genetic materials similar to genetic materials found in Jews. He says that Pathans or Pashthuns, are the only people in the world whose probable descent from the lost tribes of Israel finds mention in a number of texts from the tenth century to the present day written by Jewish, Christian and Muslim scholars alike, both religious as well as secularists.

The Pathans are mostly Sunni Muslims. Muslim propagators had reached Afghanistan in AD 642, soon after the emergence of Islam, and several Afghans had converted to Islam. Though Muslims, the traditional life style and mores of the people of Afghanistan are Jewish. The moral code of the Pathans is known as 'Pashtoon Vali'. This code has a lot of resemblances to the Israeli Torah. The 'Pashtoon Vali', which is known as 'Shareef's law', has clauses that closely resemble Moses' Law laid down for the Israelites. (The first five books of the Bible are collectively known as the Torah. Of this, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy lay down the rules of daily life and ritual in greater detail.)

As distinct from the Muslims elsewhere, the Pathans practice certain Jewish customs, such as circumcision within eight days of the boy's birth, prayer cloths ('thalit'), wedding ring ('hupah'), women's period observance, prohibition of certain food (such as the ban on camel and horse meat, not cooking meat in milk, separation of 'clean' and 'unclean' birds for meat), practice of Sabbath, the lighting of candles on Sabbath (the day of atonement – Yom Kippur), turning towards Jerusalem for praying, dabbing of door frames with blood at times of epidemics, the rearing of goats for sacrifice, keeping the book of Psalms under the pillow for relief in sickness, etc. are but a few of the Jewish practices the Pathans still follow.

It is a Pathan practice to affix a Star of David sign (Magen David) in front of their houses. The sign is posted on all schools, equipments and tools and on ornaments. These are relics of Israelite traditions surviving among the Pathans. Several Afghan villages and dwellings bear names that are strikingly similar to Israeli place names. The Afghan language, Pashtoon, contains several Hebrew words, confirming age-old links between the Pathans and Israelites. The Dar-el-Amman Museum in Kabul has a granite slab recovered from Kandahar with inscriptions in Hebrew (Aramaic), which is pointed out as an evidence of the presence of Israelites in the remote past. The mountain range north of Peshawar was called the Afridi Ranges. This area was where the Ephraim tribe of Israel had taken refuge. The Kushan emperor Kanishka had built a palace in the Afridi Ranges in AD 80 with the support of the Afridi Tribe.

Historical circumstances indicate that members of the Lost Ten Tribes from Israel reached Afghanistan before 600 BC. The Israelites who fled from Assyrian captivity and the Benjamins and Jews who escaped from Babylon in 607 BC under the Afgana tribe found refuge in Afghanistan. The ancient occupants of the land were the Kutchi tribe known as Khazaris who lived in scattered pockets in the Hindukush Ranges and the Kashmir Valley, as well as the Aryan tribes of Scythians (Sakas) and Pahlavas. The Israelite newcomers found their livelihood in sheep farming, woolen manufacture and gem prospecting. As compared to the original occupants, the Israelites were highly skilled and culturally evolved. The descendants of David and Solomon possessed highly developed building techniques and business skills, which helped them to grow prosperous rapidly. Their trade trips to the vast Indian markets with woolen, animal hides, gems and gold gave them not only rich returns but also priceless exposure to a vast storehouse of knowledge. As foreign traders, the Israelites had good rapport with the wealthy class in the Indian principalities. They had reached all the markets along the northern trade route (Uthara Mahapath). They settled themselves in a vast stretch of land extending from Ghor to northern Punjab and opened up trade channels along the length and breadth of India.

II. In Punjab

The Persian Emperor Cyrus ended the Babylonian domination of West Asia by capturing Babylon in 537 BC. The Persian victory led to the release of the Israelites from Babylonian captivity. Cyrus allowed them to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple there. News of the Persian gesture must have reached the Israelites living in Afghanistan through the trade caravans plying the northern trade route. It must have evoked positive resonance in the minds of the Lost Tribes.

Cyrus, who overran Babylon, Assyria and Media, reached Balak and subdued Bactria (Kamboja). The old Bactria or Kamboja inclu  
ded the southern areas of today's Turkmenistan. A large segment of the Scythians and Pahlavas who lived here fled to India to escape from the forces of Cyrus. Darius, the third sovereign of the Achaeme-  
nian dynasty, later overpowered Gandhara and made it a province (satrapy) of the Persian Empire. Lower Punjab was the southern limits of Gandhara. Multan, which the Greeks called Caspatyrus, was part of the territory. Gandhara included all the lands from Kabul to Punjab, and Taxila was the seat of governance. He dispatched a Greek adventurer Scylax to reconnoitre the Sindh province with the aim of attacking and annexing it to the empire. Darius' flotilla reached Karachi through the Indus from Multan. "They started from the city of Caspatyrus in the region called Pactyica and sailed down the stream in an easterly direction to the sea." (Herodotus, The Persian Wars IV-44). Persian dominance was short-lived in Sindh. But Punjab and the Sulaiman (Solomon) Ranges remained under Persian power for two centuries (530-330 BC). Herodotus records that Punjab and the Sulaiman Ranges formed the 20th satrapy of the Persian Empire. (The Persian Wars, III-102, and IV- 144).

The Caspatyrus that Herodotus mentioned was Multan and the people there the Caspas. He described them as following a mode of life similar to the Bactrians: "There are Indians of another tribe, who border on the city of Caspatyrus and the country of Pactyica; these people dwell northward of all the rest of the Indians and follow nearly the same mode of life as the Bactrians. They are more warlike than any of the other tribes, and from there men are sent forth to procure gold." (The Persian Wars, III- 102).

Certain historical truths become evident from the eyewitness account of Herodotus: The Caspas were people who had come from the Caspian Sea area and Pactyica was the land of the Pathans and the Sulaiman (Solomon) Ranges got the name because the people who lived there were descendants of Solomon. Given these truths, it can be deduced that the Israelites were a powerful population in the area encompassing northern Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan during the time of the Persian Empire. Herodotus also tells us that these people were not Bactrians (Scythians and Pahlavas). He also testifies that the Pathans (Israelites) were a well knit community with an organized urbanized life in mid-5th century BC. The Pathans continue to live in the same way today, 2450 years after Heredotus identified their domain. Though they were successful farmers and traders and numerically sizable, the Israelites were always aliens in foreign lands, fated to lead the life of slaves or subjects.

The ensuing two centuries, marked by stable administration offered by the Achaemenian emperors in the vast Persian Empire, saw the Israelites in Afghanistan make rapid progress through trade and agriculture. The special privileges the Israelites enjoyed in the Persian capital of Susa and the official language status of Aramaic came to their help. The Afghan Pathans made capital out of their proximity to India. Taxila (Rawalpindi) was their trading centre on the India-Persia border. The Pathans had developed Multan into an important centre of business. This is Caspatyrus that the Greek traveler Herodotus found. Multan was a centre of Harappan civilization. The Multanese made beautiful fabrics from the cotton that grew abundantly in Punjab and Sindh. Herodotus has recorded that the Pathans employed donkeys to gather gold. We may infer from this that gold was in the form of sand from the desert south of the Sulaiman Ranges and they transported it on the back of donkeys to Multan for purifying and processing. The principal merchandize of the Pathans were gold, gems, and woolen and cotton textiles. The travels they had undertaken through the northern and southern trade routes to capture the Indian market and the exposure these expeditions gave them inevitably changed the lives of the Israelite Pathans too. Their interaction with the local people influenced their lifestyle, and a substantial segment who had lived close to the markets in India eventually became Indians (Hindus) for all purposes. But those who held on to their traditions and culture drifted apart to lead their separate lives and found new pastures. The graves found on the Western Ghats in south India and Assam and Mizoram in eastern India belonged to the Israelites of the Lost Tribes. They have been made with striking resemblance to the Israelites' graves found in the Sulaiman Ranges, in Persia, in Israel, and in the Caucuses region. This leads us to conclude that they belonged to people with a common ancestry.

iii. In Kashmir

German theologian and author of Jesus Lived in India Holger Kersten writes: "It was in the nineteenth century – as enthusiastic colonization spread apace – that the West began to take a more serious interest in the countries of the Far East and reports began to filter in from several Western explorers describing their astonishment at encountering tribes all over the north-west of India who were clearly of Jewish descent".5

The missionary doctor Joseph Wolff, for example, reported in his book Narrative of a Mission to Bokhara in the Years 1843 – 1845: "The Jews of Bokhara are 10,000 in number". The Chief Rabbi of Bokhara assured the other that the Jews of Bokhara belong to the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel but that during the reign of Jhenghiz Khan they lost all their written accounts.

"The tradition is an old one at Bokhara, that some of the Ten Tribes are in China.... Some Affghauns claim a descent from Israel. According to them, Affghaun was the nephew of Asaph the son of Berachia, who built the Temple of Solomon. The descendants of this Affghaun, being Jews, were carried into Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar, from where they were removed to the mountain of Ghoree, in Afghanistan, but in the time of Mohammed turned Mohammadans. They exhibit a book Majmooa Alansab or Collection of Genealogies written in Persian" – (J. Wolff , Mission to Bokhara Vol I. pp 13-20)

Dr: James Bryce and Dr Keith Johnson note in their Compre-hensive Description of Geography under the heading of Afghani-stan, that "the Afghanis trace their lineage back to King Saul of Israel and call themselves Ben – i- Israel".

According to Alexander Burnes (1835), the Afghan legend of Nebuchadnezzar confirms that the Israelites were transplanted from the Holy Land to Ghore in south - western Kabul province. They remained Jewish until AD 682, when the Arab Sheikh Khaled–ibn- Abdalla converted them to Islam.

To the works quoted above could be added a great deal more literary evidence that focuses on the settlement by the Israelites in the region of Afghanistan and surrounding territories. One of the most important contributions in the Lost Tribes research was made by Dr. George Moore, who found many Hebrew inscriptions on archaeological sites in India. Quite close to Taxila, now in Sirkap, Pakistan, a stone was dug up that bears an inscription in Aramaic, the language that Jesus spoke.

Holger Kersten continues: "Latest research in the Pakistani part of Kashmir has brought to light thousands of rock inscriptions and pictures dating from the prehistoric, early Buddhist and post - Christian periods. The discovery sites are in the valley of the upper Indus, where the famous caravan trail known as the Silk Route once passed. Among these inscriptions were some in Hebrew dated by the researchers to the ninth century AD – the time when Islam was just beginning to penetrate into India....

"Of more immediate interest is the fact that well over 300 of the names of geographical features of towns, regions and estates and of tribes, clans, families and individuals in the Old Testament can be matched with linguistically related or phonetically similar names in Kashmir and its environs.

"The inhabitants of Kashmir are different from the other peoples of India in every respect. Their way of life, their behavior, their morals, their character, their clothing, their language, customs and habits are all of a type that might be described as typically Israelite. Like present day Israelis, the Kashmiris do not use fat for frying and baking: they only use oil. Most Kashmiris like boiled fish called fari.

Name in Kashmiri Name in the Bible Bible reference

Amal Amal I Chronicles 7:35

Asheria Asher Genesis 30:13

Attai Attai I Chronicles 12:11

Bal Baal I Chronicles 5:5

Bera Beerah I Chronicles 5:6

Gabba Gaba Joshua 18:24

Gaddi Gaddi Numbers13:11

Gani Guni I Chronicles 7:13

Gomer Gomer Genesis 10:2

Places in Kashmir Province Biblical name Bible reference

Agurn Kulgam Agur Proverbs 30:1

Ajas Srinagar Ajah Genesis 36:24

Amariah Srinagar Amariah I Chronicles 23:19

Amonu Anantnag Amon I Kings 22:26

Aror Awantipur Aroer Joshua 12:2

Balpura Awantipur Baal–peor Numbers 25:3

Behatpoor Handwara Beth–peor Deuteronomy 34:6

Birsu Awantipur Brish Genesis 14:2

Harwan Srinagar Haran I Kings 19:12

"Butcher's knives in Kashmir are made in the half-moon shape typical of the Israelites and even the rudders of the boat people (Hanjis) are of similarly typical heart shape.

"The men wear distinctive caps on their heads. The clothing of the old women of Kashmir (Panditanis) is very similar to that of Jewish women, and like them they also wear headscarves and laces. Like young Jewish girls, the girls of Kashmir dance in two facing columns with linked arms, moving together forwards and backwards to the rhythm. They call their songs "rof".

"After bearing a child, a woman of Kashmir observes forty days seclusion for purification. This, too, is a Jewish custom. Many of the older graves in Kashmir are aligned in an east- west orientation, whereas Islamic graves normally point north-south. A great number of such graves are to be found in Haran, Rajpura, Syed Bladur Sahib, Kubar Nagh and Awantipura. In the cemetery at Bijbihara, the place where the bath and stone of Moses are located, there is also an old grave that has an inscription in Hebrew". ( Jesus Lived in India, p. 58)

INDIA

The Path of The Dolmens

I. North India

Megaliths in Kashmir

The earliest known megaliths in Kashmir are a group of eleven menhirs at Burzhom, 24 km from Srinagar. These were studied by Rybot in 1914. This site has been excavated in 1960-61 by the Archaeological Survey of India. Only six of these massive stones, which form a semi-circle, are in good condition. The pottery associated with these burials is red ware. Miniature vases are predominant. Megaliths have been found in several other places in Kashmir besides Burzhom. They are Shakipur, Begagund, Gopkral, Hariparigaom and Pampur –all in district Anantanag.

Ladakh: A few burial cists were reported from Leh in Ladakh by A.H. Frankie who excavated a few of them. The graves were rectangular in shape and made of rough unhewn stone slabs. The excavationist found earthenware pots of various sizes filled with human bones. Twenty skulls were found in one grave alone. Metal objects included that of bronze, iron and gold.

Uttar Pradesh

Megalithic sites have been reported from several places in Uttar Pradesh. Five megalithic burials were excavated at Kotia in District Allahabad, by G.R. Sharma in 1963, of which four were cists and the other a cairn circle. They consisted of east-west oriented rectangular chambers dug to an average depth of two feet. The walls of the chambers were made of small stone pieces. None of these megaliths had a capstone. The pit was finally filled with earth above the surface of the ground in the shape of a tumulus. In the graves were found pottery, an iron spear-head and skeletal remains, both human and animal. The skeletal remains of animals included that of the 'Bos indicus', sheep, pig, cattle, tortoise and rodents.

In 1873 A.C.L. Carlleyle discovered a number of cairns at Satmas, about 18 miles to the south of Fatehpur Sikri. He excavated a few of them and this yielded pieces of bones mixed with ashes.

Cairn circles and cist circles have been reported from several sites in district Varanasi. G.R. Sharma excavated twelve megalithic graves near the temple of Yogesvaranatha at Kakoria in 1963.

The cairn circles enclose a circular or oblong pit dug up to a depth of four feet, five inches below the cairn. The cist circles contain a chamber made of stone pieces. On the pit-floor sepulchral objects comprising pots, beads, skeletal remains and gold objects were discovered.

The district of Mirzapur is quite rich in megalithic graves. As far back as 1867 Lemesuriar discovered more than a 100 cairns near Chunar, and he excavated one of them. The three walls of the cairns were made of dry rubble and the western wall was made of a single stone slab. The cairn was covered with a single stone slab.

The best known site in Mirzapur is Banimilia Behera, where more than 400 megaliths are situated. This megalithic complex has been divided into four classes, namely 1) cairns, 2) cists enclosed by a cairn, 3) cairn circles and 4) tumuli containing rectangular or semi-circular chambers made of dressed stone. Five megaliths were opened at the site in which human remains were scanty. The ceramic industries associated with this complex are red ware, black and red ware and black-slipped ware or all-black ware.

Jharkhand

Megalithic graves in Ranchi, the capital district of Jharkhand State, have been surveyed and some of them were excavated by Sarat Chandra Roy as far back as 1915. He came across cinerary urns, huge stone slabs and columns of sepulchral stones which are locally attributed to an ancient people called the 'Asuras'.

S.C. Roy excavated more than a dozen graves at Khuntitola in Ranchi. The bones in the urns were broken deliberately into fragments. The mouths of the urns being only one foot in diameter, the corpse could not be entered in their entirety. In one of the pits small earthen jug and a lamp along with the cinerary urn were noticed. Personal ornaments of the dead included copper ear-rings, stone and copper beads and bracelets, anklets and rings of copper. Roy also excavated a few urns at Khunti in Ranchi district which yielded small bits of calcinated human bones and fragmentary copper objects. He dug eight cinerary urns at Elre in the same district and found decayed human bones and copper ornaments. The iron objects in the Asura sites included axes, arrow-heads, rings, knives, chisels, ploughshares etc.

In village Belwadag in the district of Ranchi was discovered a site of melting iron works of the megalithic builders. That this was once used for smelting iron could be easily ascertained from the numerous pieces of slag scattered all over the land. Huge stone slabs mark the burial sites and under each of these slabs were found one to four cinerary urns placed one above the other. The urns contained the mortal remains and personal belongings of the dead.

A gold coin of Huvishka of the Kushana dynasty was discovered at village Belwadag. On the basis of this, S.C. Roy put the Asura culture in the beginning of the Christian era.

A. Banerji Sastri observed that Mathura and Buxar are Asura sites, after excavating an ancient mound at Buxar in 1930.

II. North western India

Baluchistan

In Baluchistan, on the Makran coast hundreds of megaliths have been reported. They are at Zinwarni, Take-dap and Gatti. More than 200 cairns were noticed by Sir Aurel Stein in 1931 near the village of Zinwarni. Stein opened as many as 178 cairns at this site which consisted of an enclosure each made by erecting walls with untrimmed pieces of hard sandstone. The interior varied from three to five feet in diameter and the external diameter from 8 to 12 feet. Only small fragments of human bones and ceramic remains were found. There were spouted vessels of red ware and flat dishes of grey ware. Iron was very rare. Only a thick iron hook was found from one of the cairns. Major Crockler also opened eleven cairns at this site, where he found scraps of iron, copper bracelets, a copper ring and a carnelian bead.

At Take-dap, small fragments of human bones, fish bones, coarse undecorated pottery and a copper pin were found. The cairns at Take-dap were formed of roughly circular heaps of stone blocks and they rise to a height of 2-3 feet.

The cairns at Gatti, numbering 54, were examined by Stein. They were circular stone heaps, 5-7 feet in diameter and rose to a height of 1-2 feet. The cairns at Suntstar consist of rough circles of stone and are generally overlaid with a few large stones. Here also, he found small pieces of human bones and pottery and opened six cairns.

The site at Zangian consists of 490 cairns. The site was explored by Stein, who excavated 69 cairns. Here the walls of these cairns were made of roughly heaped stones and they enclosed an oblong area measuring 5-8 feet in length and 2-3 feet in breadth. These cairns contained fragmentary calcinated human bones, red ware, fragments of copper and iron and a large iron sword-blade. A few stone beads and horse's head made of unburnt clay were found in a cairn.

At Nasirabad, 72 cairns were located by Stein. Of these, five were opened by him, which yielded pieces of human bones, red ware pots and fragments of iron implements. Stein also excavated four cairns at the chaleolithic site of Kulli which contained small pieces of calcinated human bones and pieces of plain pottery mixed with ashes. Again, a few cairns were excavated by Stein at Gwarjak in the Mashkal valley. In two cairns, the calcinated fragmentary human bones were buried in earthen urns, of which one was hand made and measured fifteen inches in height and fourteen inches in maximum diameter.

The notable site in Baluchistan is Moghul-Gundai on the Zhob. Of numerous cairns noticed at the site, 60 were examined by Stein. The pottery found in the cairns was unpainted red ware, though the chalecolithic type of painted pottery is abundantly available in the vicinity. The cairns contained human bones, metal objects and personal ornaments of the dead. The metal objects included iron arrow heads, an iron spear-head, a silver bangle, a small bronze jar, three bronze bells and an engraved bronze ring. Besides the above mentioned sites, cairns have been noticed in many other places in Baluchistan.

N.R. Banerji,1 studied the iron objects obtained from the cairns of Baluchistan and ascribed them to a date between 850 BC and 450 BC. A similar date was proposed by D.H. Gordon for these cairn burials.

Sind

Megalithic graves in Sind near Karachi and Dunraj were reported by Capt. Pready. At Dunraj were four dolmens each composed of four upright stone slabs, covered with a large capstone on the top. These types of dolmens were also noticed near Waghodur, 20 miles east of Karachi. Besides, cairns and barrows also occur in this region. More than 25 sites of cairn burial have been reported from Baluchistan, especially on the Makran coast. Another type of dolmen at Dunraj was constructed of large unhewn stone, piled together without any binding material and was in the shape of parallelogram. One of these was divided into seven apartments.

Rajasthan

A.C.L. Carlleyle had made an extensive four through Rajasthan during 1871-73 and published an article namely 'A Tour in Eastern Rajputhana' in 1878. He excavated some of the cairns at Daosa in Rajasthan. He found fragments of calcinated human bones and charcoal as evidence of their sepulchral nature.

Another megalithic site that bore Asokan inscriptions was excavated by Carlleyle. They were urn burials dug to a depth of three feet from the present ground surface. The cinerary urns contained human bones.

III. Central India

Madhya Pradesh

The existence of a Dravidian language, the Brahui, and megaliths in Baluchistan, Sind and in the vicinity of Karachi indicates a migration of a Mediterranean tribe by land or by sea along the coast. Megaliths also appear in Rajasthan and Gujarat. It is possible that in the course of their migration, the megalith builders might have founded colonies on the west coast like Karachi, Sind, Gujarat and Rajasthan as the evidences show.

In Madhya Pradesh, a cluster of 500 megaliths at Dhanora in Durg district( now in Chattisghat) have been reported, of which four cairns were excavated by M.G. Dikshit in 1956. The pits yielded a few pieces of skeletal remains along with beads and glass bangles. The discovery of glass bangles must put these monuments at a considerably later date. Several megaliths have also been reported from Jabalpur, Narasingpur and Hoshangabad districts in Madhya Pradesh.

Chattisghat

The central Indian state, Chhattisghat is an important megalithic place with a number of menhirs , dolmens and cairns circles. The Sorar –Karkabhat site, an extensive megalihic site in Durg district,is located in an area of about 10 sq. km. encompassing the villages Kannawada, Sorar, Nahanda and Karkabhat. Karkabhat is located 16 km. from Balod-Damdari road. The megalithic monuments such as menhirs and cairn circles are spread on both sides of this road. According to Dr.Arunkumar Sharma, the famous archaeologist of Chhattisghat, nearly 3500-4000 megalithic burials must have been present in this complex. Mejority of them are, however, wiped out.

Two habitation areas were located here. Also there are a number of rock shelters on a slowly rising granitic out crops. There are evidences to suggest that the shelters were probably under constant use right from the Late Stone Age times since microlithic tools are found in abundance in this area. Apart from the rock shelters there is an open air habitational area located at Sorar. A ruined temple and a number of sculptures have been found here. Plenty of potsherds lie scattered all over the area, suggest that it was a megalithic habitation site. Three varieties of pottary, dagger blades, arrow heads, copper, gold and silver objects, beads etc. are found at Karkabhat and Sorar.

Other important megalithic sites in Durg district are Dhanora, Tengana, Mujgahan,Karhibhadar, Kulia, Chirchari and Lillar village. In Saraipali sub-division 700 megalithic ruins have been discovered by Dr.A.K.Sharma in 1992at Baratia Bhatta. Dugal and Godma are another megalihic sites. Sankalpali, Timmelwada and Nalakanker are important megalithic sites Southern Baster.

Maharashtra

There are quite a good number of megalithic monuments in Maharashtra, especially in the Vidarbha region when compared to Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. The best known megalithic types in Maharashtra have been reported from Nagpur, Wardha, Chadrapur, Bhandara, Gadchiroli, Amravati and Yeotmal (Yavatmal) districts. The megaliths (150 stone circles) of Junapani near Nagpur were discovered and excavated by Revett Carnac in 1870. B.K. Thapar in 1961 excavated some of the stone circles at Junapani.

Other important megalithic sites in Nagpur district are Takalghat, Khapa, Mahurjhari, Naikund and Gangapur. 51 megalithic sites have been reported from Nagpur district.

In Wardha district, at Khairwara, about 150 dressed stone circles were discovered and excavated by J.J. Cary as early as 1871. Paunar, situated on the right bank of the river Dham in Wardha district, is one of the habitational sites going back to the megalithic period.

There are 10 megalithic sites in Chandrapur district, including Chanda tehsil and Brahmapuri tehsil. They are mainly stone circles and dolmens. Archaeologists of the Decan College, Pune, under the leadership of Prof. Kanti Pawar, have found four dolmens of 3rd century B.C at the Shankarpur village near Chandrapur. Of the four excavated dolmens, one was in good condition. The other three have fallen to ruins due to natural and human disturbances. The intact one is being claimed by the team to be the largest in the State and India. The Deccan College team also found some utensils, four punch marked coins, remains of human bones, copper and glass bungles, iron objects and burnt bricks. Prof. Kanti Pawar said, 'Burnt bricks are a unique finding. So far not a single excavation of megalithic burials has had burnt bricks.' (Times of India – Pune, 10-04-2011).

Megalithic sites, stone circles and dolmens have been discovered by archaeologists from Bhandara, Amravati, Ghadchiroli, Poona and Yeotmal (Yavatmal) districts. Dolmens are very rare burial type in Maharashtra and the main burial type is stone circles.

IV. South India

Andhra Pradesh

In Andhra Pradesh, megalithic tombs have been reported from almost all the districts and they extend up to Chanda district in Maharashtra. These monuments run to several hundreds, of which many have been excavated. In Adilabad district, a megalithic site at Pochampad was excavated by the Department of Archaeology and Museums, Government of Andhra Pradesh, in 1963. Preliminary exploration revealed cairn circles, cists and a rectangular platform. All the excavated cairn circles proved to be pit burials and these burials have yielded typical megalithic pottery, iron objects like lances, javelins, copper-tipped daggers, sickles, axes and an ivory comb. Terracotta figurines were also found during the excavations.

A megalithic site at Kadambapur in Karimnagar district has five megaliths and some habitational deposit. It was excavated by the Archaeology Department in 1974. Peddabankur, a megalithic site in the district of Karimnagar, was excavated by Waheed Khan. This site reported three cultural sequences – megalithic pottery, iron objects and beads of carnelian, jasper, crystal and terracotta were discovered in the excavation.

There are ten megalithic sites in Khammam district. The most important site is Dongalogu, situated near Janampet in the disctrict. Nearly 1500 megalithic monuments have been noticed here and Khwaja Muhammad Ahammad excavated some of them. Dolmenoid cists, constructed of multiple orthostats numbering ten or more supporting a huge cap-stone is the main type occurring here. Inside these chambers are found coffins made of stone which are without parallel except those in the neighbouring sites in this district and the Warangal district. Polechetti Cherugudda, another important megalithic site, is about a mile to the east of Janampet. Nearly 1000 dolmenoid cists were noticed here, and these monuments resemble in all respects those from Dongatogu. Khwaja Muhammad Ahammad excavated three burials at this place. The dolmenoid cists are built of trimmed stone slabs numbering eight or more and these support a huge cap-stone. Trimmed stones are arranged to attain perfect circle around these monuments. Like Dongatogu burials these also have yielded stone coffins or sarcophagi, iron implements were found in good numbers. One burial yielded a goldring.

Dolmens, dolmenoid cists, trimmed stone circles, 'U' shaped port-hole, stone sarcophagus, male and female anthropomorphic figures were discovered by researchers at various places such as Barrelagudem, Domada, and Pandurangapuram in the Khammam district.

A megalithic site at Nagarjunakonda, situated opposite Yeleswaram on the right bank of the river Krishna in the Guntur district, has been excavated by the Archaeological Survey of India in 1956. Altogether 15 burials have been excavated, out of which 13 were pit burials and the remaining two oblong cists without port-hole. Both east-west as well as north-south orientation was noticed in these burials.

Secondary and multiple burial practice was the prominent one here. Skeletal remains and associated objects were placed, usually on ash or lime bed. Pottery and iron objects were found in abundance. Animal bones were also found frequently in these burials.

Amaravati, another megalithic site situated in the Guntur district, was excavated by Alexander Rea in 1908. The excavation revealed the presence of megalithic culture at this site, attested to by the discovery of seventeen huge urn burials.

In Guntur district, the Vinukonda, Narasaraopet and Palnad tehsils are main centres of megalithic burials. More than 35 megalithic sites have been reported from these tehsils. Most of the megalithic burials were dolmens and port-holed dolmenoid cists. A few stone circles and menhirs also have been reported from these sites.

In Hyderabad district, megalithic burials were located at Bowenpalli, Maula Ali, Secunderabad, and Hashmapet. These burials were excavated by many scholars, including Captain Makenzie, M. J. Walhouse, Capt. Robert Cole and Alexander Rea.

The Nandigama Taluk of Krishna district is one of the important megalithic burial places in Andhra Pradesh. Stone circles, dolmenoid cists with port-hole, menhirs and sarcophagi were discovered from Agiripalli, Karumpudi, Keserapalli and Jaggayyapeta.

Megalithic sites at Chagatur, Chinnamaru, Pagidijutta, Peddamarrur and Uppalapadu in Mahabubnagar district were excavated by the State Department of Archaeology and Museums. Dolmenoid cists with or without port-hole and stone were noticed. Port-holed cists with passage and transeption is the prominent type. The orthostats of the cists are arranged in the swastika pattern. Some cists contained terracotta sarcophagus filled with earth and burnt bones. One cist yielded as many as eight skulls. Other finds included iron objects beads of semi-precious stones, copper and shell bangles.

The department excavated the megalithic burials at Uppalapadu in Mahabubnagar and found that cists and pit burials were segregated from each other. Rectangular pits in east-west orientation were found to contain fragmentary skeletal remains, besides usual megalithic pottery and iron objects. Three coffin-shaped formations with skeletal remains and ash were identified as degenerated wooden coffins. The port-holed cists had the orthostats arranged in clock-wise pattern with or without passage. Some cists were divided into two chambers by a transecting slab which is also provided with a port hole. Cists contained fragmentary bones, pottery and iron objects.

In Nalgonda district, six megalithic sites have been noticed including Raigir and Yeleswaram sites. The open lands and surrounding hillocks strewn with large numbers of cairns, situated on the highway connecting Hyderabad and Warangal, in the Nalgonda district have attracted the attention of archaeologists to a great extent. Firstly, G.Yazdani excavated a few burials more than forty burials here. Oblong cists without port-hole were found under the cairn packing. The cists having multiple covering slabs are laid in north-south orientation. Lapis lazuli beads were found in abundance whereas gold and silver ornaments were rare. Pottery and iron implements were found in good quantity. Copper bells and grinding stones were also found occasionally.

A megalithic site at Yeleswaram, situated on the left bank of the river Krishna in the Devarkonda taluk, has been excavated by P.Sreenivasachar in the year 1955 and later by Abdul Waheed Khan in 1960. The beginning of the megalithic phase here is put in the later part of the second century or the beginning of the first century B.C. From the report one can derive the conclusion that there existed three modes of disposal, i.e., 1) cist burials, 2) urn burials and 3) pit burials. An important feature of the site is that both oblong and swastika-patterned cists existed together. Another interesting feature is that a swastika-patterned cist with port-hole contained inside it oblong cists of a smaller dimension. The cists were oriented in north-south direction.

In Chittoor district, 24 megalithic sites have been noticed and many of them were excavated by archaeologists. A megalithic site at Chittoor has been excavated by Captain Neobold in 1851. Dolmenoid cist with port-hole, surrounded by slab circle, is the type noticed here. The orthostats of the chamber were arranged in anti-clockwise pattern and contained legged terracotta sarcophagi in them. The sarcophagi were filled with earth and human bones. Other finds included spear-heads, swords and some pottery. Another important megalithic site at Iralabanda, situated in the Palmaner taluk of Chittoor district, is remarkable for having rounded-topped slabs in the circles. The orthostats of the cist are arranged in anti-clockwise pattern with port-hole and passage on the eastern side. Terracotta sarcophagi are found frequently in these burials.

There are 23 megalithic sites in Prakasam district, 24 sites in Kurnool district and 12 in Cuddappah district with dolmens, menhirs, cairn circles and dolmenoid cists with port-hole. All the excavated burial sites in the southern districts of Andhra Pradesh have yielded sarcophagus, thereby suggesting that burial in sarcophagus was a prominent practice in this area during the megalithic period.

Karnataka

Megalithic monuments are found in hundreds in many parts of Karnataka, especially in the Gulbarga, Bijapur, Raichur, Belgaum, Dharwar, Bellary, Koppal, Chitradurga, Hassan, Coorg(Kodagu), Bangaluru and Kolar districts. The megalithic complex of Karnataka represents various types of burials, of which cairns, dolmens and stone circles are more numerous. Menhirs and stone alignments are also found at some places in the State.2

In Gulbarga district, megaliths have been reported from Shahabad, Mandewal, Kondapur, Mamdapur and Vibhu  
thihalli. Meadows Taylor, a British archaeologist, explored a large number of megalithic burials on the rocky area at Jewargi near Ferozabad in 1840. He excavated five cairns at this site and found complete skeletons buried in north-south direction. Carnelian beads, black-and-red earthen pots and iron objects were found.

Vibhuthihalli, an important archaeological site in Gulbarga district, belongs to the megalithic period, first reported by Meadows Taylor in 1840. This site has around 500 big boulders kept in aligns. Similar stone alignments are found at Hanuman Sagar, Bhimarayanagudi, etc. in northern Karnataka.

Four megalithic burials were excavated by A.Sundara at Halingali and two at Terdal in Bijapur district.3 There were cairns without cists at the centre of the stone circles and there were stone circles with cists. The excavations yielded black-and-red earthenware, fragments of human bones and iron objects.

S.R. Rao excavated a megalithic tomb at Hunur in Belgaum district.4The largest cairn entombed three cists surrounded by stone circles. A copper ball along with megalithic pottery was found.

The megalithic site of Maski, which was explored by Bruce Foote as far back as 1870, is situated in Raichur district. In this site Asokan edict was discovered by Bruce Foote. The site was excavated in 1935-37. The site was again excavated by B.K. Thapar in 1954, where he dug four trenches. Two types of megalithic burials, namely pit burials and urn burials, were discovered in the site. Four pit burials were excavated. The skeleton was oriented in north-south direction, the head being towards the north. Large jars of red earthenware were noticed along with iron objects like axe, dagger, knife and sickles.

Hire benakal

Hire benakal, a village, in Gangavathi thaluk of Koppal district in Karanataka,is a large and diverse megalithic site. It is situated close to the left bank ofThungabadra river, 50 km away from Hampi. A short drive from Gangavathi, a taluk headquarters in Koppal district, takes one to the village of Hirebenakal, which has a population of around 2,000. The hill on which the archaeological site is located is part of a longer range and rises sharply a short distance from the village. Surrounded by long stretches of lush green paddy fields with smaller patches of mango and maize cultivations, the village is an essential transit point for visitors to the Megalithic site. Local people guide them through the mind-boggling array of goat-trails up the 'Moryar Gudda', as the hill is locally known. Ravaged anthills, the handiwork of sloth bears that relish ants, dot the trail and are a constant reminder of the reserve forest that surrounds the track.

This megalithic site, at Hire benakal, was discovered by Capt. Meadows Taylor in 1835 and wrote about Here benakal in the Journal of the royal Asiatic society, when he was in the service of the nizam of hydrabad states. The site of Here benagal was excavated by A Sundara an arachaeologist from Karanadaka university Dharward, who discus his findings in his 1975 work the Early Chamber Tombs of South India: A study of the Iron Age megalithic monuments of North Karnadaka. Sundara recorded around 300 hundred megaliths of a variety of shapes and sizes at Here benagal.

Diversity seems to be a common feature of all Megalithic sites as attested by the work of Mohanty and Selvakumar, who write: "A bewildering variety of burial types, with distinctive features, are encountered among the megaliths of India. Several sites have more than one type of burial, with a lot of variation in their external and internal architecture and content. Even broadly classified types, for example, stone circles or cairn circles of a particular site, vary considerably in their shape, size, nature of deposit and are rarely similar in all aspects, suggesting an ever-changing process governing the erection of the burials."

Brahmagiri

A large rock in Brahmagiri, which was the capital of the southern Isila province of the Mauryan Empire, has Asoka's edicts inscribed on it. The ruins of an ancient town are visible on the western side of Brahmagiri as evidence of a civilized people in ancient times. The remains include megalithic burial chambers, which indicate the presence of a technically developed people. Archaeologists believe that people who bury their dead in stone graves came to Brahmagiri after 400 B.C.

The graves were built in the shape of a box using large stone slabs. Over 300 such graves were found by Sir Mortimer Wheeler in Brahmagiri. All the dolmens face east. The stone slab on the eastern side had an opening of about one and a half foot, which had been closed with another stone slab. After closing the opening, the graves were either heaped over with mud or boulders, or marked off by a circular wall or a rocky barrier.

Besides the stony graves, excavations in Brahmagiri also exposed another burial pattern — pit-circles. Only 12 pit-circles have been excavated. Each pit had 20 to 30 feet circumference. The graves inside these circular pits were either round or oval in shape. Most pits contained only a few bones. Stone and golden beads and brass bangles were recovered from one pit. The iron objects found in the pits were knives, sickles, chisels, wedges, arrow-heads and spears. One of the spears was six and aq half feet long.

At Jadiganahalli in Bangaluru district, four cairn circles were excavated by M. Sheshadri. The cairn circles consist of deep pits dug to a depth of 12–13 feet. Two sarcophagi were found in the pits but they did not contain any skeletal remains. Black and red earthenware, red and black earthenware and iron objects, like daggers, frying pans and sickles were found in the pits proper. In 1881, Branfill located many stone circles at Savandurga in Bengaluru district. This cemetery consisted of circles of stones of varying size from 15-30 feet in diameter. The circles surrounded the cists. He examined a few of these cists, but did not excavate.

Fifty four cists were discovered by Captain Cole5 in the vicinity of Margahalli village in Kolar district. They were all cists of granite slabs. A few of them were excavated by him which yielded black-and-red pottery and iron objects.

Certain megalithic structures were discovered in Kodagu in the late 1860's. Capt. Robert. A Cole, who investigated a number of megalithic burial complexes, covered on top with stone slabs, in Virajpet district. They were earlier discovered by S.J.S. Mackenzie in and around Fraserpet (now Kushalnagar), Ramaswamy Kanive and Moorey Betta Hills. Capt. Cole undertook the typological analysis of these dolmens (cromlechs) by opening some of them. Antiques such as earth ware, pieces of bones, iorn, bangles and charcoal were found inside the dolmens. A pot from a dolmen in Kushalnagar had paddy husks while ragi was found in others. A variety of miniature vessels, identical to the larger ones noticed by Cole, was discovered in Moorey Betta as well. Some antique cairns were found at Doddamalte village, close to the picnic spot of Honnammanakare in Somavarpet taluk of Kodagu district by the British officials in the 1860's. These cairns remain at the ground a little bit. They resemble a stone chamber about six or seven foot long, granite pillars raised at four corners surmounted by a granite slab. Similar sites were found at Baveli village in Madikeri taluk and also in some places such as Kedamuller in Virajpet taluk.

Coorg

The megalithic site of Heggadahalli, in Somavarpet taluk of Coorg disctrict, is very extensive, where there are more than 200 megalithic graves including dolmenoid cists, stone circles and cairn circles. It is situated at Jenukallupetta, a granite hill covered with small bushes and bamboos. The megalithic graves are situated to the south of the hill. The site is about 3 km away from the little town of Kudige and can be approached from Ramaswamy Kanire through which runs the highway to Hassan from Mercara6 which stand aloft proclaiming the high degree of civilization attained some 2500 years ago.

On excavation at Heggadahalli site, it was found that the pit contained a dolmenoid cist made of four large orthostats, the east-west slabs, measuring 2.95m. in length and the north -south orthostats measuring 2.3 m. The maximum thickness of the slab was 22cm. The cist was formed in an anti-clockwise, swastika pattern so as to prevent the collapse of the side slabs. The eastern orthostat of the cist contained a circular port-hole measuring 52 cm in diameter. In front of the port-hole, was found a granite slab which might have been intended to close the port-hole. The stone chamber was comparatively large and was constructed beautifully with dressed stone slabs.

The next largest group of dolmens is at Moribetta near Somavarpet. They are situated on the top of a hillock and the total number is about 50. These are the best specimens of dolmens in Coorg. The dolmens at Moribetta were constructed of four upright granite orthostats, surmounted by cap stones. The bottom floor also consisted of a slab. These dolmens stand 4-5 feet above the ground level on the rocky area. All of them have port-holes generally facing the east, but there are some whose port-holes are either to the northern or to the southern side or even to the west. The diameter of the port-holes ranged from one and a half to two feet. Near one of the dolmens in Moribetta, there is a bird- or horse-shaped granite stone which is about eight feet high. The stone has been cut into shape of a mythological bird or horse. The solitary presence of this peculiarly shaped stone in the midst of about 50 dolmens is really bewildering.

A few of the dolmens were excavated by Capt. Cole. The pottery contained black-and-red ware, red ware and black ware. Three and four-legged vessels were found. Scores of miniature vessels were discovered. They included bowls, dishes, cups, vases, etc. In all six carnelian beads were discovered of which five were etched in white lines and the sixth was plain. The beads were elongated, barrel-shaped and bored through the centre to facilitate the stinging together of these beads, generally into necklaces. A few beads of agate were also noticed in the excavation. Besides, a solitary golden object was found. This was a disc of copper, covered with a thin plate of gold.7

Another important megalithic site Koppa, situated to the right to the high way between Mercara and Mysore, about half a mile from the bridge across the river Kaveri, near Kushal Nagar. In the site there are about five hundred stones circles occupying a distance of nearly a mile in length. These cist circles are situated on a small mound. Some of the slabs of capstones are visible, which a few of the capstones of the cists are about a two foot the surface. The diameter of the stone circles varied from 20-40 feet. 17 cist circles were opened at this site in 1869 by Capt: Cole.

Tamil Nadu

Megalithic burial monuments, such as dolmenoid cists, urn burials, stone circles and menhirs are found in many places in Tamil Nadu like the districts of Kanchipuram, N. Arcot and S. Arcot, Chenglepet, Vellore, Krishnagiri, Salem, Erode, Coimbatore, Dindikkal, Thiruvannamalai, Madurai, Ramana  
thapuram, Puthukottai and Tirunalvely. Megalithic burial was a typical mode of disposing the dead in the past. Some suggest the period is third century B.C. to the first century A.D. It may be remembered that this period is also the period of Sangam.

Locally known as Pandukuzhi (pits of Pandavas), Mandavar kuzhi (pits of the dead), Mudumakkal Thazhi (burial plots of the old people). The last name is widely used. There are mentions about various burial customs like urn burial in sangam literature. 'Manimekhalai', one of the twin epics of the post snagam period, enumerates classes practicing different modes of disposing of the dead, namely, those who cremate (suduvor) those who simply expose the body and leave it to decay (iduvor), those who bury the dead in deep graves (thodukuzhi paduppor), those who entomb the dead in strong low vaults (thazh vayil – adappor) and those inter them in urns and cover them (Thazhiyil – Kavippor) ('Manimekhalai' VI, 67-68)

Though the first mode of cremation came to be adopted under the influence of vedic culture, the other methods were also being practiced. Exposing the dead body to natural decay by the Parsis, was in vogue till recent times. Burial is common even today in Tamil Nadu.

Kancheepuram is an important megalithic site in Tamil Nadu. In Kanchi district, there are about 150 megalithic burial sites out of which 103 are identified, notified and protected by ASI. Among the areas identified as megalithic sites in Kanchi district are Thiruporur, Siruthavur, Thanur and Amirtha mangalam near Maduranthakam, Pallavaram, Vadamangalam, Vembakkam and Sembakkam.

Paiyampalli in North Arcot district, was excavated by S.R. Rao8 during more than one season and these excavations brought to light a cultural sequence comprising Neolithic and megalithic finds. One of the grave fits yielded a sarcophagus with 24 legs, containing human bones. The ornaments included beads of the semi-precious stones and terracotta. A huge quantity of iron slags was found in the habitational area, which is evidence of the fact that these people knew the art of melting iron and made varieties of tools like, spears, chisels and axes.

The Megalithic site Kunnattur in Chengalpet district was excavated by Krishna Swamy and B. Saran.9 These were cairn circles and cists. The dolmenoid cist represented sarcophagus laid into a pit, covered by a capstone and enclosed by a stone circle. Sometimes a pit is rectangular in shape, and one of them contained 27 pots and 7 iron objects. A huge terracotta sarcophagus placed in the oblong pit, cut into hard rock was discovered. It also yielded megalithic pottery and iron objects including an iron spike. Three smaller sarcophagi were noticed outside the pit, but within the limit of stone circle. In the Kunnathur excavation, iron swords, terracotta beads, a copper bell, coiled iron bracelets and human bones were found.

N.R. Banerjee excavated the urn burials at Amirtha mangalam in Chingelpet district. These are simple urn burials without any capstones or stone circles. The cemetery is situated in the proximity of structures that are possible irrigation tanks and of cultivable land. The urn are thick, coarse and pale red in colour and they are naturally hand made. The urn were buried in the pits cut in the lateritic graval. They contained human remains including bones, skulls, ribs and teeth. Pottery and iron objects were placed over the human bones.

The megalithic site of Sanur contained more than 300 monuments of which were excavated by Banerjee and Soundara Rajan in 1950-52.

The megalithic complex consists of cairn circles, dolmenoid cists and cists with cap stones. A terracotta sarcophagus was discovered in one of the pits. The Sanur burials yielded human and animal bones, iron objects and pottery. The human bones consisted of a set of skull and bones. Animal bones included that of wolf, the humped bull, the fowl, the sheep and goat. One of the pits had a passage, deliberately made to the eastern side of the cist chamber. The passage served the same purpose as the port-holes found at other palces. The chamber contained a terracotta sarcophagus, two rows of four legs on each side. There were 50 pots surrounding the sarcophagus and it yielded iron objects and carnelian beads. The iron objects included bars, tanged knives, hooks, spears, arrow heads and sickles.

More than 200 dolmens, dating back to the megalithic period, (300 BC) are found in Mallachandiram village, Krishnagiri district. These include Cairns circles and tombs. A majority of the dolmens were built of vertical stone slabs, with port holes on the eastern side. Rectangular slabs similar to railings encircle these structures which have passages made out of smaller rectangular slabs. Inside the dolmens are paintings portraying human figures, bows and arrows, animals and symbols.

The megalithic site of Kodumanal is located in the northern bank of the eastern flowing Noyal river, a tributory of Cauvery, about 40 km from Erode town. It was once a flourishing trading city known as Kodumanam, as inscribed in 'Pathittuppathu" of Sangam literature. In the period between third century BC to the first centry AD.; Kodumanal was an important industrial and trade centre with links, with the northern parts of India as is evident from the recent excavations, which confirmed the findings of the excavations done in the 1980s and the 1990s.

People who lived there, extracted iron from its ore and forged steel; spun cotton, using spindle whorls and made textiles; manufactured thousands of beads from semi-precious stones such as quartz, carnelian, agate, sapphire, beryl, onyx, black-cat eye and lapis lazuli; cut exquisite bangles from conch shells and used bronze to make arte facts.

Dr. Rajan, Professor of History, Pondicherry Unviersity says: "Kodumanal is unique because it was entirely an industrial site with minimum agricultural practice. It was the only site where multi-industrial activities were persued".

While the habitation mound of Kodumanal covers 20 hectares, the megalithic burial ground which has 180 graves, is spread over 24 hectares. The cists, each covered with a cap stone, comprise chambers made of granite slabs. The slabs have circular, trapezoide or key-hole-shaped port-holes. Some cists have passages in front of them. It is in these cists that skeletons were found. Around skeletons were found grave goods such as pottery arrow heads, daggers and carnelian beads specially made for the occasion. All the burials faced the east. While the bodies were kept in the east-west direction, the heads faced north.

Of the graves exposed so far in India the biggest, measuring three meters long, three metres broad and three metres deep, is in Kodumanal. This grave yielded 2,200 carnelian beads - the highest number of semi precious beads found in any grave in India.

The Pondicherry University team under the leadership of Prof. Rajan exposed a megalithic grave in May, 2012. The burial was primarily a Cairn circle eight metres in diameter enclosing a main cist and two subsidiary cists.

The main cist was one with transepts, but the two subsidiary cists were simple ones. Each cist had a separate capstone and there was a common passage in front. The cist yielded barrel and button shaped cornelian beads, smoky quartz beads and ritual pottery. There were disintegrated bones too. Around the double cist, some pots had been kept and broken with small rocks that had been thrown at them. This was obviously a ritual. The semi-precious stones collected the graves suggest the inhabitants were wealthy and the size of the graves indicates the social status of those burials.

An important feature of this grave was that the cist had three types of port-holes circular, trapezoid and keyhole-shaped whenever there is a main cist and subsidiary cists, the south facing cist will always have a keyhole shaped port hole. Inside the chamber of this key holed cist, there will always be a bunch of arrow heads. There were arrowheads in the key hold cist here too. Also, it had been seen that the northern chamber of the main cist had grave goods and the southern chamber the skeletal remains.

The 63 trenches and 18 megalithic graves that were excavated in the 1980s and 1990s yielded pot sherds with graffiti marks and Tamil Brahmi inscriptions, resset-coated ware, black and red ware, red polished ware, crucible furnaces, iron-ore smelting furnaces, spindle whorls made of terracotta and glass objects and storage pits. Many hundreds of beads made from smoky quartz, agate busy land amethyst in various stages of manufacture were unearthed. There were carnalion beads etched and plain. A remarkably well-preserved cotton piece with waiving patterns and several spindle whorls made of terracotta and pierced with iron rod at the centre indicated activities such as spinning and wearing. Storage bins indicated some agricultural activitiy.

The people of Kodumanal could engage in multi industrial activies because raw materials were available with a readius of 15 km the iron-ore came from Chinnamalai. Quarts came from Arasampalayam 5 km away. Even today there is an abandoned quarts mine belonging to Geological Survey of India at Ampalayam. A quartz outcrop called Vengamedu is situated about 2 km north of the site. Sivamalai, where supphire is available is also nearby. Padiyur has a beryel mine. While carnelian and agate came from Maharashtra, Kodumannal got its lapis lazuli from Afghanistan.

Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions have been found in every excavations since 1985 indicating the high literacy level here. Graffiti marks were found seperately below the shoulder poritons of pots or bowls. A few graffiti marks were also found at the end of Brahmi inscriptions : Sun, Swastika, Star, Ladder, Nandipada, Fish, Bow and Arrow and Wheel wore some of them.

In Nilgiris district, 20 dolmens near Vanchiyur and 100 dolmens near Beruthorapatti were found near Kallampalayam close to Moyar river. The dolmens were three varieties : normal rectangular ones with a capstone; circular ones made of slabstones meeting at the top to form a roof; and bigger circular dolmens with a diameter of about 6 mtrs. with unfinished roofs. One of the big dolmens had two petroglyphs.

In Coimbatore district, at Nattukalpalayam HOD Hardinge, excavated six dolmens in 1894. JR Sandford excavated more than a dozen megaliths in Mettupalayam taluk of Coimbatore district in 1894. There are 15 dolmens in a rocky slope of a hill called Aattumalai near Amaravathi Nagar in Coimbatore District. Around 40 dolmens near Mavadaippu village, 45 km from Aliyar, were discovered by Prof. G. Chandrasekharan and team. The groups primary interest was in documenting rock art.

The remains of megalithic graves, menhirs and urn burials have been found from several places in Coimbatore and Madurai. "Kaarsha coins" belonging to the Maurya period (300 BC) were recovered from graves in Coimbatore. One of the graves yielded a silver dinar of Roman emperor Augustus. A grave near Pothannur yielded a coin made in Eran in central India in AD 300, which confirmed that megalithic graves were built even after AD 300. Excavations in Perumalmalai in Madurai district conducted by Dr Ayyappan came up with brass and copper 'kindis' (pot with a chute), 'lotta" (sunken pot) and pot with leg-stands.8 Hundreds of burial urns were found in a graveyard at Adichanellur in Thirunelveli district. Therefore, it is obvious that the megalithic monuments found in the north-western parts of Tamil Nadu and central Kerala belonged to the same set of people.

a. Recent Excavations At Thandikudi

More than 1000 megalithic burials were found by Tamil University research scholars on the right bank of Marudanathi between Thandikudi and Bommakkadu in Kodaikanal area. Thandikudi is situated about 47 km north east of Battagundu in lower Palani hills, about 4,400 feet above the mean sea level. The serene location of Thandikudi had remained an important archaelogical site since magalithic times.

The region was associated with two Sangam age chieftains, Thondikon and KodaiPorunan. In Purananooru (399), Sangam poet Aiyyar Muduvanar spoke about one chieftain who ruled over the Thondri region which might be identified with Thandikudi. Another poet Perundalai Sattanar recorded ('Purananoore 205' and 'Akananooru 13') that KodaiPorunan performed a 'Velvi'. Kodai was identified with the present Kodaikanal.

Tamil University scholars opened some of the cist burials to understand the nature of the burial complex. The first cist, on the Coffee Board campus at Thandikudi in the northern part of the burial complex, yielded the earliest form of the burial. The simple cist with a passage in the east has a trapeze-shaped port hole. It is covered with a capstone weighing more than three tonnes. The important ritual for the departed soul was performed on the floor slab. Nearly 50 pots, such as ring stands, plates, bowls, four-legged jars and carinated pots, were placed either below or on the sides of the four urns kept in the four corners of the cist.Besides the pots, iron swords were placed adjacent to the urns. One of the swords rested on two ring stands and a bowl, suggesting the importance attached to the weapon.

In another cist excavated at Bommakkadu, there were more than 350 beads of carnelian and quartz. This cist is one of the finest pieces of architecture so far excavated in Tamil Nadu. This is a transept cist with multiple chambers all connected with a beautiful round port-hole. Though the quartz material is available in the nearby Vengakakalsaralai, there is no indication of its being locally manufactured. The semi-precious stone, carnelian is available only in western Maharashtra and the Cambay part of Gujarat. The information suggests that these beads would have been brought from the plains in trade contacts. The semi-precious stones and iron objects would have been obtained in exchange for pepper or cardamon. (The Hindu -28-6-2004)

b. At Thiruvannamalai

"A huge megalithic burial site, said to have belonged to third Century B.C., has been unearthed Sambadhanur, near Thiruvannamalai. Human skeletal remains, iron daggers and a sword, decorated red and black earthenware, a water jar with an exquisite stand, and number of other potteries have been excavated from the cist, a box like structure made of six undisturbed slab stones.

"Archaeologist and professor of history R. Sekar who visited the site said that the sophistication with which the burial had been made points to the importance of the person buried at the site. The daggers and sword found with the skeletal remains indicate that the person buried was possibly a male. 'He should be a small ruler or a head of clan, or a chief of army. If it was an ordinary person there would not be so many grave goods accompanying his body'.

"The thickness of the awesome cap stone is more than one and a half feet. In no other megalithic burial site in the state had such a huge cap stone been found. The stone is 15 feet long and 8 feet wide. There is a circular opening on one side of the wall stone... The style of the cist burial and material found inside indicate that the burial belongs to approximately third century B.C or earlier. This site is comparable only to such megalithic burials unearthed in places like Adityanallur and Kodumanal. However, the Sambandhanur -Thiruvannamalai site seems superior both in terms of size and quantity, Prof. Sekar said." (The Hindu \- 17-7-2009).

Puthukottai district, in southern Tamilnadu was a home of the pre-historic man. Once a princely state, the Puthukottai is absorbing interest to historians, anthropologists, archaeologists, and lovers of arts and architecture. The history of Puthukottai is an epitome of the history of south India. A large number of megalithic burial sites have been found in the district, generally near water cource. One can see a number of burials sites even today in several places like Amburpatti, Ammachatram, Annavassal Kizhaiyur, Melur, Mootamappatti, Narangianpatti, Perumglur, Peyal, Poyyamani, Puttambur, Sathyamangalam, Sengalur, Sittannavassal, Tayinippatti, Tekkattur, Tiruppur, Vadaguppatti, Vatanakurichi, and Vilapatti. The burial sites are easily identifiable by the appearnace of circle of a laterite or granite stones and small boulders on the surface of the spot. A few burial sites belonging to first century BC to first century AD have been excavated revealing pottery and ornaments, some of which are exhibited in the Government Museum at Puthukottai.

Sittannavassal is a small village in Puthukottai district and is world famous for its fresco paintings in the rock-cut Jaina cave temple. The megalithic monuments such as stone circles, urn burials and cists spread in the plains of this village, testify that this area was inhabited by megalithic man. Specimens of garnet, red jasper and rock crystal have been picked up near the foot of the sittannavassal hill. Pieces of pottery coated inside with molten and coloured glasses have been found in the fields opposite the hill. These indicate that in olden days glass making was probably a flourishing industry in these parts.

Adichanallur in Tirunalveli district is the most important and extensive burial site in Tamil Nadu. It was discovered by Alexander Rea, a British official, in 1900. Besides Adichanallur Rea discovered and excavated several megaliths in Pallam Kotta, Nattam, Tendiruppai and Periyur in Thirunalveli district.

Hundreds of burial urns were discovered at Adichanallur by Rea. In the ground, burial urns were found over the whole area at distances of six feet apart on the average, and depths of from 3-12 ft. below the surface ground. Some of the cinerary urns were found over each other. In an area of less than an acre excavated by Rea, as many as 1129 pottery vessels were found. Seven oval shaped ornaments and twelve other objects including deadems of gold and 188 bronze bangles, bracelets, and animals and birds like the dog, the antelop, the cock etc. were found. Iron objects included 37 lamps, 55 spears, 44 hoes, 27 swords, 20 daggers, 5 tridents, 3 tripods, 18 axes, 50 arrows, 2 spades, 13 chisels, 11 knives, 4 adzes, 4 pans and scores of other implements.10

The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) conducated an excavation at Adichanallur and unearthed 12 burial urns, containing human skulls and bones. Three of them, bear inscriptions that resemble the early Tamil Brahmi script. Bronze articles and iron implements are found in the urns. Several utensils made of bronze have been found. The hook or alagu which is till used in religious ceremonies haas been uielded here. Hence it may be said that the use hooks in religious ceremonies was prevelant right from the megalithic period.

Coldwell found many urn burial sites at Karkei and Kayal in Tirunalveli district and he excavaed some of them at Kayal.11 He found frgmentary bones in two urns. A huge urn measuring 11 ft. in cicumference, contained a complete set of entire human bones, including a perfect skull. The mouth of th eurn was quite narrow, through which a full body could not be inserted into it. It is believed that the bones must have been colelcted and put into the urn after the body had decayed.

Numa Lafitte dug out a few urn burials near Pondicherry in 1928-29. Urn burial sites of Gourimedu and Mangalam in Pondicherry were unearthed by Casal. None of the burial urns Casel had unearthed had any iron tools but they all had copper and brass artifacts.

Kerala

In Kerala, megalithic tombs, akin to those in Brahmagiri, have been found mostly in Wayanad, Palakkad, Thrissur, Idukki, Kottayam and Pathanamthitta districts. Cap stones (toppikal), hood stones (kudaikkal), laterite dug-in caves and menhirs (nadukkal) have also been found in various parts of the State. Brahmagiri type tombs with port-hole in the eastern side have been found in Wayanad district in the foothills of Edakkal hill, near Thomarimala, in Mangalam karp, at Cheengeri near Ambalavayal, at Pathirikkunnu in Krishnagiri and in the foothills of the Chembra Peak near Meppadi. There are about 200 megalithic monuments in an area of about 1500 acres near Edakkal hill. The inner dimensions of a cluster of graves ranged from 27 ft 3 in. to 18 ft in length.3 They have been built in the shape of 'swastikas', using slabs 7 ft. by 6 ft. in size. The tombs are all about 6 ft. in depth. The slabs on the eastern end have one and a half foot openings. The graves had foot-high stone benches. Underneath these benches were placed earthen pots in which were kept the bones of the dead along with other articles. Excavations jointly conducted by Dr Subbarayalu of Thanjavur University, Dr M.G.S. Narayanan and Dr M. R. Raghava Varier of Calicut University in 1987 at Kuppakkolli in the foothills of Edakkal came up with a variety of earthen pots and highly corroded iron rods. The decorations on the earthen pots indicated that they were made at a time when pottery-making technology had vastly advanced.

Megalithic burial sites are scattered throughout Kerala irrespective of the terrain – whether the hills, the laterite-rich midlands or the coastal areas. Such sites are marked by the use of huge stone chambers or pillars to bury or retain the memory of the dead. Dolmenoid cists, menhirs, hood stones, cap stones and rock-cut caves are the common megalithic monuments found scattered throughout the State.

It was an old practice in Kerala to let the body rot in the open and then gather the skull and bones for burial in suitable containers. This is known to archaeologists as 'part' burial. The skeletal remains are enclosed in large urns or clay pots and kept in dolmenoid cists or rock-cut caves. The tools and weapons used by the diseased, coins, ornaments and utensils are deposited along with the remains. Besides 'part' burial, burial of the full body --in specially made graves –was also prevalent.

Five distinctive megalithic monuments have been found in Kerala. They are: 1. the dolmenoid cists for interring the whole body; 2. the umbrella stone sites where the remains of the dead were interred in an urn, over which stone slabs are placed in domical angle, over which a huge umbrella-shaped stone is kept; 3. hood stone sites where round stones are heaped over the graves; 4. menhir sites, where a memorial slab is put up over the grave; and 5. urn burials (nannangadis) in which case the remains of the dead are enclosed in large, often multi-layered, earthen pots, which are buried in mud or kept in rock-cut caves.

Rock-cut caves have been found at several places in Kasargod, Kannur, Kozhikode and Malappuram districts in northern Kerala. Chattanparamba, Malaparamba, Feroke, Kodassery, Kokkallur, Mepayur, Nagaparamba, Neelaparamba, Panniya-nnur, Pazhukkaliparamba, Thondannur and Thiruppancode in Kozhikode district have laterite stone caves from which earthen pots, iron swords, daggers, spears and tridents have been recovered. Ooroth and Velur, near Kuttyadi, in the same district had dolmens too. Rock-cut caves have been found at Peringalam and Naduvil in Kannur district and dolmens at Panur, Punnol and Vettinellur. The laterite rock-cut caves found in Peelicode and Chitrari near Pattanur in Kasargod district have been subjected to detailed exploration by the State Archaeological Department.

Kalladi, Kalikkadave and Koottilangadi in Malappuram district had laterite caves. Kongad, Edapal, Elavancheri, Manjaloor and Pallassana in Palakkad had dolmens, and rock cut caves in Thiruvilwamala and Elampulasseri. Forty menhirs have been discovered in Kottathara, while Anakkatti had cap stones and a few menhirs. Alanallur had a few cap stones dotting the landscape, while Muppuzha in Kuthanoor had a battery of 103 dolmens. These dolmens, locally known as 'muniyara', also were built with 7 ft. by 5 or 6 ft. granite slabs on four sides and top, with the customary opening as seen in the graves found in Wayanad and elsewhere. The dolmens in Muppuzha had striking similarities with the dolmens found in Afghanistan and Baluchistan, according to Dr M.G.Sashibhushan.

Several megalithic monuments, including dolmens, catacombs, capstones, hood-stones, dolmenoid cists with port-hole and menhirs have been recovered from Porkalam, Kattakambal, Iyyal, Ariyannur, Cheramangad, Kandanassery and Thiruvilwamala in Thrissur district. Porkalam, with a large collection of dolmenoid cists with port-hole, is one of the most important megalithic sites in Kerala4. The dolmenoid cists with port-hole here are similar to the ones found in Thiruvilwamala. The Thiruvilwamala grave contained a red terracotta urn decorated with yellow lines. Hood-stones have been found in Porkalam also. Cap stones and hood-stones are more common in the laterite rich areas of the district than elsewhere. There are seven cap stones in Ariyannur, three kilometers away from Guruvayur, the temple town. There are several hood-stones and cap stones at Cheramangad. Hood stones are so called because the stone kept atop the domical base of the grave resembles a palm frond umbrella worn by peasants. Nearly all the hood stones are shaped identically, though they may vary in size. The largest hood stone has a circumference of about 25 feet. There are 25 cap stone sites in Iyyal. Menhirs of different sizes dot Komalaparathala and Anappara in the district. The menhir sites did not contain implements usually found in the graves. This indicates their extreme antiquity. Athirappilly, Vadakkethara, Varanthirapilli, Mulankunnathukave and Karunathara had several rock-cut graves, while Kuttanellur, Kuttoor, Puzhakkal and Kodaranthur have several menhirs. Laterite caves have been found in Iyyal, Kattakambal, Chovvannur, Choondal, Mangad and Mullassery. Burial urns were unearthed at Machad, Eranellur, Edakkalathur, Elanad, Kandanassery, Kakkad, Kanimangalam, Karalam, Nadathara, Nattika, Engandiyur, Panjappallyparamba, Pazhayannur, Parapookkara and Porattussery. Several urns were found in the heart of Thrissur town in 1966. The urns, round and red and black-colored, had narrow, decorated necks. It is believed that elderly people were buried in these urns in full. According to Prof. Sreedhara Menon (Kerala History),10 these are the largest burial urns of the elderly ('muthumakkathazhys') found in Kerala. Several burial urns have been found placed in a cluster at Panangad, near Kodungallur. Some of these urns are now on display at the Archaeological Museum in Thrissur.

Megalithic sites have been discovered in all the divisions of Idukki district. Marayur and Kanthallur have a host of dolmens. These are believed to belong to the Jews of Udumalpet in Tamil Nadu, who were engaged in gathering forest produce, including sandalwood and ivory, from Marayur. Dolmens have been found also in Chakkimedu, Idamalayar, Meppara, Upputhara, Peermade, Vandiperiyar, Cheriyacanal and Muttukad. Over 50 dolmens and 20-odd menhirs were discovered at Marayur and neighborhood in the Anchanat valley in 1939. There are several dolmens in Kanthallur. Bodimet, Chakkimede, Idamalayar, Koorakuzhi, Muttukad, Cheriyacanal, Thundathur, Vandiperiyar and Vellappara have dolmenoid cists, while menhirs abound in Bison Valley, Elappara, Poocharakkudi, Chinnacanal, Kakkappara, Koorakuzhy, Meppara, Mookenpara and Suryane-lloor. Santhanpara, Pampadumpara and Pannivayakkara have revealed several burial urns.

Excavations in Kottayam district during the 1960s revealed the presence of dolmens in Mannankandam. Kainakari and Kuravilangad had several dolmens, while Athirampuzha and Thirunakkara had menhirs. Burial urns have been found in Kaplar. The Malayattur hillside in Ernakulam district contains several dolmens, while rock-cut caves have been discovered in Thondannur. Tripunithura had menhirs as megalithic remnants.

Similar monuments have been found from the foothills of Ranni and Konni, Poothankara and Nilakkal in Pathanamthitta district. Nilakkal has a large concentration of megalithic monuments. Large burial urns were excavated at Kadukulanhi in Chengannur taluk in 1965. The mouths of these urns were closed with large stone slabs. Their insides revealed shards of red and black earthen pots.

A large cluster of burial urns and other valuable megalithic objects was unearthed by the State Archaeology Department from Mangad in Kollam district in 1991. Burial urns were found from Kottoor, Pirappancode, Srikaryam and Venjaramood, and seven graves from Pulimath in Thiruvananthapuram district.

References:

1. N.R.Banerji 'Iron Age in India' (Delhi 1965) P.48, D.H. Gordon 'Prehistoric Background of Indian Culture, Bombay. 1958

2. K.K. Subbayya. Archaeology of Coorg, (Geetha Books, Mysore) p.48

3. Sundara, A. Excavation at Halingali and Terdal, district Bijapur. LARO (1956) pp 64-65.

4. Rao, S.R, Excavation at Hunur, District Belgaum IAR (1968-69) p 20-21.

5. Cole, R.A, Cromlechs in Mysore. IA. Vol II (1873) pp 86-88

6. Dr. K.K. Subbayya, Archaeology of Coorg – p.98,99

7. Subbayya, ibid, p 66.

8. Rao S.R. Excavations at Paiyampalli, District North Arcot, IAR (1964-65) pp 22-23.

9. Krishna Swamy V.D and Saran B. Excavations at Kunnattur, District Chingelpet. IAR (1955-56) P 23; (1956-57), P 31-34 (1957-58) P 37-38.

10. Cold Well R., Sepulchral urns in Southern India IA Vol. VI (1877) P 279-80

Megaliths of The Jewish Diasporai

It is obvious that the different burial practices evident in the megalithic monuments found in different parts of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, especially those found in the hilly tracts and coastal areas of Kerala, are products of different cultures. 'Manimekhalai', the Sangham period classic, states that five different methods of disposing of the dead existed in Tamil country.

Historians like Haimendorf and Mortimer Wheeler believe that the practice of interring the dead in stone graves came from the Caucuses region. There are striking similarities between the megalithic graves found in the Caucuses and the graves found in South India, with their opening on the eastern side. People from the Caucuses region are, therefore, believed to have arrived in South India in the megalithic age.

Burial in Urn

Those who interred their dead in dolmens or in urns were a people with a distinctly different culture from the Hindus, Parsis and the aboriginals. Historians are of the opinion that those who practiced urn funeral had come from the West Asian region. Funeral urns fashioned like European bathtubs with eight to twelve foot rests in two rows and a slab on top have been found from Kilpauk in Chennai city, Chingelpet, South Arcot and North Arcot districts.1 These urns, measuring four or five feet in length and one and a half foot in width, contained utensils, metallic weapons, stone trinkets and bone pieces.

Decorated funeral urns containing bone remains belonging to pre-historic times have been excavated from Harappa in the Indus River basin. Excavations in the Indus Valley have revealed that a section of the people of Harappa used urns as coffins. The bodies of babies were interred in small urns. The urns were decorated with motifs. One urn had the image of a man with a bird's head holding two bulls on either side and the bulls being bitten by dogs. Other engravings included the image of tridents, goats strung on horns, peacocks with human figures in their bellies, etc. Whether the funeral urns found in the Indus basin have any links with the funeral urns found in South India have not been established for want of conclusive evidence.2

Urn burial practices similar to that found in South India have been followed by the ancient occupants of West Asia and the Mediterranean region. "They followed the practice of burying the dead instead of cremating them. They follow the practices observed by the ancient occupants of Crete and Rhode Islands and the cities of Troy and Babylon. They stuffed the bodies into strong earthen pots or kept the skeletal remains in urns. Such urns containing the remains of people have been unearthed from northern Mediterranean areas, Mesopotamia, Babylon, Persia, Baluchistan, the Sindh and southern India."3

The Bible contains references to the Jewish practice of burying the dead in graves and later collecting the bones and interring them in earthen pots at specific locations years later. The body of Joseph, who had died in Egypt during the exile of the Jews (1876-1446 BC), was kept embalmed in a coffin and the remains were brought back to Israel 350 years later in an urn and buried at Shechem. (Genesis 50: 25, 26; and Joshua 24: 32). Keeping the body of the dead in urns was a practice followed by ancient Israelites and it is reasonable to assume they followed the practice wherever they went.

Burial in Chambers

The people who interred their dead in burial chambers were obviously different from the aboriginals and depressed classes or Scheduled Castes and Tribes who buried their dead and put a memorial stone on top of the tomb, or the Hindus who cremated their dead or the Parsis who left the body to birds of prey to feed or the Arabs and the Mediterrean people who kept the remains of the dead in urns. The fact that burial chambers with identical features are found scattered in different parts of the globe indicate that these people were highly mobile. These graves vouch for their presence in the British Isles, Europe, North Africa, the Mediterranean areas of West Asia, the Iranian plateau, the Caucuses, Afghanistan, Baluchistan, Assam, and peninsular India. Since the burial chambers along the Mediterranean coast, Western Europe, the Caucuses and South India all have identical port-holes, these are all believed to belong to the same people. The most ancient of these graves were found in the Mediterranean area and the most recent in South India. It is, therefore, believed that a people from the Mediterranean had arrived in Europe and Central Asia and then in Afghanistan and South India. Christopher von Fuehrer Haimendorf opines that the people who built the burial chambers in South India had come from the Mediterranean shores.4 He based his opinion on the similarities in the construction of the graves and the beliefs that prompt the particular type of burial. Sir Mortimer Wheeler also point to the identical manner in which the burial chambers have been built in the Caucuses, Transcaucasia, the Jordan Valley, the Spanish peninsula, France, Central Germany and the British Isles.5

There are several ancient burial chambers in North Africa. Over 50,000 pre-historic burial chambers have been located in Western European countries. This indicates that a large Mediterranean population which buried their dead in chambers lived in the British Isles, Portugal, Spain, France, Germany, Belgium, the Scandinavian countries and the Crimea. Another area in which these people lived in large numbers was the northern Iranian plateau and the submontane areas of the Caucuses. To the east, they lived in Afghanistan, Assam and South India, leaving out central India.

Who were these people? We are aware that along the Mediterranean coast, it was the Hebrews who buried their dead in chambers. The ancestor of the tribe, Abraham, bought the Machpelah land and the cave within to bury the body of his wife Sarah. (Genesis 23: 15-20). It was in the same cave that the bodies of Abraham, Isaac, Rebecca, Lea and Jacob also were buried. The Bible also records that the Israelis wished to be buried alongside their ancestors (Jacob and Joseph) and that the Israelites viewed the dead with reverence. (I Samuel 31: 11-13).

The Bible records that the Jewish people, beginning with their ancestors Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (2000 BC) up to the time of Jesus Christ buried their dead in chambers. The body of Lazarus, whom Jesus raised from the dead, was kept in a chamber. Lazarus' grave was a cave and it was covered with a slab (John 11: 38-44). Lazarus' tomb was typically Jewish, being a cave with a stone cover and a port-hole. The port-hole may have been relatively small as has been true of similar tombs found in Palestine. The context would indicate that the tomb was built outside the village.

The body of Jesus Christ was also interred in a tomb, newly built by Joseph of Arimathea (John 19:38-42). These Bible references make it clear that chamber burial was an ancient Jewish custom. The Jews must have followed it wherever they went outside Israel.

Jewish Burial Customs

The places selected for burial purposes were varied. Burial in the soil, the common method in the Occident, though certainly practical, was not favoured in the Near East. Natural caves or artificial ones excavated in the soft limestone rock so common in Palestine seem to have been preferred as in Abraham's case. The burial place was often personally prepared well in advance (Genesis 50:5, II Chronicles 16: 14, Isaih 22:16).

Archaeological investigations give an idea of the type of burial places used in ancient times. Aside from simple earthen graves, in Palestine these were often vaults or chambers cut in the rock often on hillsides. Elevated places seem to have been preferred (Joshua. 24:33, II Kings 23:16, II Chronicles. 32, Isaih 22: 16). The chamber might be for a single burial, the body being laid in an excavated place on the floor. Or it might be arranged for multiple burials with long slots, large enough to accommodate one body each, cut into the sides of the chamber at right angles to the walls. The narrow opening through which the body was inserted was then covered with a stone to fit. In other cases, a benchlike niche or shelf was cut into the rear and side walls (Mark 16:5) or these might be a double row of such shelves, thus increasing the capacity for burial. The tomb might even consist of more than one chamber although the single chamber seems to have been the common type among the Jews. Where the body lay exposed on a shelf, it was, of course, necessary to seal off the entrance against the depredations of wild animals. Thus the main entrance to the chamber was closed off with a large stone, at times hinged as a door and occasionally with a circular one in a track and rolled in front of the entrance.

Following the death of an individual, the body was generally washed and anointed with aromatic oils and ointments... The body was then wrapped in cloth, generally linen. the body was likely carried to the burial site on a bier or funeral litter, perhaps made of wicker-work, and a considerable procession might accompany it, perhaps including musicians playing mournful music.

In course of time, cemeteries came into existence as the number of dead multiplied. These were customarily outside the city walls.... J.G. Duncan in the book 'Digging up Biblical History' (Vol II p. 186) writes: "As a rule Hebrews though they sometimes buried within the city walls, excavated their rock-tombs on a hill slope near to their city. The presence of rock-tombs on one hill-slope is often a sure indication that the hill opposite or near had a settlement on it. The cliffs surrounding Jerusalem abound with burial places." Also notable as burial places were the catacombs of Rome used for both Jewish and Christian burials. The catacombs consisted of a network of subterranean passage with burial niches excavated in the walls of the passage." (Aid to Bible understanding p.268, 269).

Jewish burial customs, in the Second Temple Period (fifth century BC), are known from the finds at the two main excavated cemeteries of Jerusalem and Jericho in the land of Israel. The cemeteries of Jerusalem and Jericho were located outside the city limits. They consist of rock hewn loculi tombs, whilst a number of monumental tombs were discovered in Jerusalem in Kidron valley. The loculi tombs, which are the most common form of tomb in the Second Temple Period, consist of a square burial chamber, often with a pit dug into its floor to enable a person to stand upright. One to three arched loculi are hewn into three walls, the entrance wall excepted, and the loculi are sealed with blocking stones. The tomb is closed by a blocking stone or by mud brick and small stones. In some Jerusalem tombs another type of burial is found: the Arcosolia, which is a bench like aperture with an arched ceiling hewn into the length of the wall, probably a later type of burial.

The Jericho cemetery evidence proves that the loculi tombs were designed first to accommodate primary burial in wooden coffins. The same tomb plan continued to be used for ossuary burials. The Jericho excavations indicate that these loculi tombs can be classified into primary burial in wooden coffins followed by secondary burials of collected bones, placed either in lime stone ossuaries or piled in heaps.

Another form of Jewish burial was found at the Qumran and Enel-Ghuwveir (in the Dead Sea area) cemeteries. All tombs (with few exceptions) are oriented in a north- south axis, seen on the surface at the Qumran cemetery, which was usually also the orientation of the body in the grave. The grave is hewn in the ground, with a pile of stones placed on top, as found at both Qumran and Enel-Ghewveir. A similar form of burial was discovered in a group of tombs at Beth Safafa in Jerusalem. The sole form of these burials is an individual interment in the shaft or in a wooden coffin.

Jewish Kokim Tomb

The correct design of a Jewish tomb structure is described in the Mishnah. Typically a Jewish tomb consisted of a cavern excavated in a rocky hillside, in which shelf- like chambers about 50 centimeters wide 80 centimeters high and 2 meters deep were cut. Corpses in their wrappings were deposited lengthwise, head first, in these chambers.

The interior of a Kokim tomb ('Kokim' the plural of 'Kok') was reached via an entrance below ground level, which was often closed with a movable stone. The tomb consisted of a large main cavern, in the sides of which a number of Kokim had usually been carved, each to take one body. At the centre of the cavern there was a square depression in the floor, which served as a drainage area. Each side of the depression and at the same level as the entrance from outside, there was a surface on which a corpse could be laid out for washing and oiling. Even in the day time it was dark enough in the tomb to require the use of lanterns set in niches: Jewish law did not permit burial after sunset or before dawn. ( Jesus Lived in India, p. 166, 167).

In the Diaspora

In the Diaspora, Jewish burials are identified either by those found in a recognised Jewish burial context, or that show Jewish symbols or inscriptions. The Jews were buried mainly in three types of graves: Loculi tombs, hypogeal and catacombs. Loculi tombs are rock cut tombs consisting of a shaft with steps leading down to a chamber with loculi hewn into each of the walls. The loculi are usually sealed by stone slabs or stalae, and they are sometimes decorated in relief and painted. Loculi tombs are typical of Egyptian burial customs and have been found in the Jewish cemetery at Leontopolis and Alexandria dating from the second century BC to the first century AD. These tombs are similar to contemporary tombs in Jerusalem and Jericho. Another type of loculi tomb was found at Gammarath Hill, Carthage (Tunis). These also have a stairway and chambers, but many more loculi - about 15 to 17- surround these chamber. They are dated to a later period, possibly to the second to third centuries AD.

The Jewish catacombs in Rome have a series of passageways and stairs flanked by several loculi or niche tiers. Burial cubicula, loculi, arcosolia, niches and apses were carved into the catacombs. Stone slabs or terracotta tiles seal the openings, and sometimes the deceased's name and age is painted or carved on them, in Greek or Latin. The loculi are rectangular, carved into the walls at different heights. Arcosolia are cut into the walls a few feet above floor level and contain one or two graves each. This form of burial is found in the cemeteries of Rome, Venosa (Sicily) and Malta. These catacombs may have begun originally as family tombs.

Jewish catacombs are found at several Roman cemeteries where they are set side by side with Christian and pagan burial sites. It is estimated that the known Jewish catacombs of Rome contained about 100,000 graves, but there is no indication of how long any of the cemeteries were in use. (Jews are believed to have numbered about 10 percent of the inhabitants of the Roman Empire).

The Kerala Trail

The dolmenoid cists, the laterite caves, hood stones, cap stones and the burial urns found in the hill tracts, the laterite-rich midland and the alluvial coastal belts (of Kerala) are more closely related to the burial custom of the Jews than to any other race. The dolmens with or without port-hole found in Israel and wherever the Israelites were held as hostages, have been found in large numbers in the hill districts of Kerala, viz. Wayanad, Idukki and Pathanamthitta. There are ample records of the Jews having lived as exiles in the Caucuses region and Baluchistan (the Solomon Hills). Historical circumstances point to the possibility of a section of these Jews reaching South India and the megalithic burial sites in Brahmagiri in Karnataka, the hill tracts of Kerala and Tamilnad belonging to them. The dolmens were actually the burial sites of the Jews. No historian or archaeologist has sought to ascribe these monuments to any set of people so far. And no one has come to claim that these tombs belonged to their ancestors. Since the Jews traditionally buried their dead in chambers and urns and since similar sites are extant in Israel, Caucuses and wherever Jewish exiles lived, and since it is known that Jewish merchants had arrived in South India during the time of the Mauryan Empire, it is reasonable to assume that the tombs found in Kerala belonged to the Jews. The similarities in the construction of the tombs found in South India with the tombs with port-holes found in the Caucuses, North Africa and Europe compel us to reach the same conclusion.

The rock-cut caves found in the laterite-rich midland of Kerala are akin to the Jewish burial system. These rock-cut caves are of the Jews who came down to the plains from the mountainous regions. The laterite caves of Kerala have striking similarities with the soft limestone caves found in Israel. The loculi tombs of Jerusalem and Jericho are similar to the laterite caves found in Thrissur, Kozhikode and Kannur districts, and should be deemed to belong to Jewish exiles. The rock-cut caves found in Kerala have been made in the same fashion as the loculi tombs dug into the limestone rocks of Israel. There are several chambers in the laterite cave found in Kattakambal in Thrissur district. The coffin is kept in a chamber dug into a wall of the cave. The opening is then closed with a slab. Similar burials in loculi caves have been excavated in the Jewish cemeteries in Alexandria and Leontopolis in Egypt. These are believed to belong to the third and second century before Christ. It is possible that the Kerala Jews, who had been engaged in gathering and processing the forest produce meant for the traders plying the Southern Trade Route, adopted the cave burial mode after they came in contact with the traders from Mizraim (Egypt) who had come by the sea to the port towns of Thondi (Calicut), Muziris (Kodungallur) and Naura (Kannur) and settled down in the coastal and midland areas.

The urn burial method (more commonly found in the coastal areas) is different from the dolmenoid tombs seen in the rocky hill areas and the laterite cave burial seen in the plains of Kerala. It must be the absence of granite and laterite deposits along the coast that prompted these people to resort to the urn burial system. The urn burial method had two variants—one, enclosing the body in full in large urns, and two, depositing the bones in an urn after the body had been allowed to decay and lose the tissues by first burying in a coffin. This is an Arabian-West Asian method. But the Israelis also preserved the bones of the dead in urns as evident from the story of Joseph's death in Egypt and his eventual burial in Shechem 350 years later. Since small urns containing bones and small iron weapons have been found near the dolmens in the hills, it is obvious that the people who followed the burial chamber culture also occasionally or even routinely practiced the urn burial system. Several of the urns found near the dolmens near Krishnagiri in Wayanad contained bones and corroded iron tools. Burial urns have been recovered from various locations in Wayanad. This makes it obvious that urn burial was practiced along with chamber burial even in the hills and the practice was not confined to the coastal areas. The burial urns have all been found to be closely placed, which indicates that it was a secondary step. But the urns found underneath hood stones were primary burials. This could be due to the higher status the subject enjoyed in society. The urns recovered from Thrissur, Palakkad, Kollam and Thiruvananthapuram districts contained more articles than the urns found elsewhere.

The menhirs represent another megalithic burial practice. Although menhirs are described as 'veerakkals' (monuments to heroes) in Tamil Nadu, the menhirs extant in some parts of Kerala are considered tomb stones. The indigenous people of Kerala ritually placed a stone over their graves. The Christian and Muslim populations also place a plaque at the head of the grave these days. This is considered the perpetuation of an ancient practice. However, since tomb stones (menhirs) have been recovered near burial chambers in some places, it should be presumed that those who practiced chamber burial also installed menhirs. Menhirs have been found at several places in Kollam, Kottayam, Idukki and Thrissur districts. Eighteen menhirs have been found at a single location in Idukki's Chinnacanal and forty menhirs in Kottathara ( Palghat) which were presumably graveyards. This confirms, as it were, that the stones were related to burial rather than hero worship. There are indications in the Bible also to the practice of Israelites planting memorial stones atop graves and tombs (Genesis 35: 20; I Samuel 10:2; II Kings 23: 17). The Bible also records that Jacob erected a stone pillar on the grave of Rachel. Therefore, menhirs may also be taken as a traditional burial custom followed by the Jews wherever they lived. The dolmenoid cists, catacombs (rock-cut caves), burial urns, menhirs, cap stones and hood stones, all were the remnants of the Israelites who reached South India before the advent of Christ.

The underlying inspiration for the Jews in exile to preserve the bones of their dead and build graves in granite, laterite or limestone must have been the ingrained belief in life after death, resurrection of the body and reward in after-life which their faith instilled in them. The Bible contains several passages about 'Promised Land' and 'eternal life' which must have stayed in their memory even in exile.

References:

1. Dr Ayyappan, Bharathappazhama, (Calicut) p.133

2. Dr Ayyappan, Bharathappazhama, (Calicut) p.87

3. R.D. Banarjee, Prehistoric, Ancient and Hindu India, p.13

4. Dr. P. K. Gopalakrishnan, Cultural History of Kerala, p.51

5. Mortimer Wheeler, Early India and Pakistan, p. 167.

Allchin, B. and Allchin, R. : The Rise of Civilization in India and Pakistan (1996) Cambridge University Press, New Delhi.

Ayyappan A. : Bharathappazhama, Mathrubhumi, Calicut – 1985

Ayyar, L.K Ananthakrishna : Anthropology of the Syrian Christians, Ernakulam -1926

Babu Paul, Dr. : Vedasabdharatnakaram (Bible Dictionary),  
State Institute of Languages, Thiruvanthapuram -1997

Benjamin J Israel : The Jews of India, Mosaic Books, New Delhi – 1998

Bosco Puthur (Ed) : St. Thomas Christians and Nambudiris, Jews and Sangam Literature, L.R.C. Publications Kochi- 2003

Fawcett, Fred : Nambutiris: Notes on some of the People of Malabar, Madras, 1900, AES Reprint: New Delhi – 2001

Gopala Krishnan P. K. : Keralathinte Samskarika Charitram,  
(A Cultural History of Kerala), State Institute of Languages. Thiruvananthapuram-1994

Gorden Childe : Megaliths \- in Ancient India. No. 4, New Delhi 1947.

Herodotus : The Persian Wars, The Modern Library, New York.

Iyer, Krishna. L. K : Kerala Megalithics and their Builders,  
Madras University - 1967.

Johny, O.K : Wayanad Rekhakal', Pappiyon , Calicut - 2001

Menachery, Prof. George : City of St. Thomas, Thrissur - 1987.

Menachery, Prof. George (Ed) : The Thomapedia, Ollur, Kerala -2000.

Menon, K. P. Padmanabha : History of Kerala 4 Vols., Ernakulam - 1924 - 37

Menon, A. Sreedhara : A Survey of Kerala History,  
D. C Books, Kottayam - 2007.

Menon, S. M. : Ancient Stone Riddles; megaliths of the Indian Subcontinent (2012) Manipal University Press, Manipal.

Mothichandra : The Caravans, New Delhi, 1980.

Mundadan, Mathias : History of Christianity in India, Bangalore, 1984

Raghava Varier &

Rajan Gurukkal : Kerala Charitram, Vallathol Vidya Peetham,  
Current Books, Kottayam -1991.

Raghavan. C : Tulu Nadum, Bhashayum,Nattarivum,  
State Institute of Languages, Thiruvananthapuram 2003.

Rao, K.P. : Deccan Megaliths, Delhi- 1988

Ricciotti. G : Israel Charitram(History of Israel),  
Carmel Publishing Centre, Thiruvananthapuram -2001.

Romila Thapar : A History of India, Penguin Books, 1966

Sankalia, H.D. : Pre History and Proto History of India.   
New Delhi 1977

Satyamurthy, T., : The Iron Age in Kerala: a report on Mangadu  
excavation (1992) Department of Archaeology, Kerala.

Sharma, Y. D : Rock-Cut Caves of Kerala, Ancient India, No.12 -1956.

Subbayya K.K. : Archaeology of Coorg with special reference to Megaliths, Geetha Book House Mysore - 1978

Sundara. A : Early Chamber Tombs of South India, New Delhi -1975.

Vadakkekkara, Dr. Banedict : Origin of Indias St. Thomas Christains, Media House, New Delhi-1998

About the Author

Abraham Benhur was born in the central Kerala village of Kadamattam, on the banks of the Moovattupuzha, as the second son of Maravettickal Mani Mappilai and Annamma. The family migrated to the wild and virgin fields of Wayanad in 1950.

Benhur took his Masters degree in Economics from the Zamorin's Guruvayurappan College, Calicut University. While working on his Ph.D thesis in Economics at the University, he published a number of articles on economics and sociology.

He has been a leading socialist activist, a campaigner for farmers' uplift, filmmaker, poet, environmental activist and ethnographer.

He is now actively involved in environmental education and conservation of nature. He and his friends have joined together to found Harita Sena (Green Army) and Jeevanist International, aimed at promoting environmental awareness among students and youth.

He is also an award-winning filmmaker. His educational documentary, Rabiya Moves, won the National Award for the best educational film in 1997. He has published a collection of his poems, namely Benhur's Poems, The Location of Eden, The Jewish Christians of India and The Jewish Background of Indian People - a historical, anthropological and archaeological study of the Lost Tribes of Israel.

He lives at Krishnagiri, Wayanad with his wife Annie and son Nithyan Abraham.

