The Archaeoastronomy of a Few Megalithic Sites of Jharkhand

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This authoritive book on astronomy in megalities of Jharkhand –replete with fine photographs –is a necessary and timely production that clarifies and improves the way to regard ancient Jharkhand and India and her compelling megalithic prehistory.

Subashis Das presents a valuable study of astronomy in the mealiths of his part of East India which is not only helpful to researchers conversant with the subject but of general interest for everyone who is concerned about the importance and safety of these megalith survivors from a far distant past.

A wonderful new window to a relatively unknown part of Indian history. This lovely with many beautiful photographs will transport the reader to the reader to the fascianting world of astronomy in Indian megalithis and open up a whole new way of looking at our past.

The Archaeoastronomy of a Few Megalithic Sites of Jharkhand discards the belief that megalithis are only sepulchral monuments and illustrates that they also served as temples of the ubiquitous Mother Goddesses of the fertility cult.

It reveals that a few of the megalithic sites in the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand stand in compliance with fundamental mathematics and observational astronomy. Apart from establishing elaborate burials inside these complexes and revering them as temples. The prehistoric astronomerpriests also intended these megaliths as calenders for the community. Used to determine the specific dates on which their family rites were to be conducted.

Lavishly illustrated and cogently written, the book elucidates megaliths and contends that their presence across the country, them their presence across the country, from Kashmir to Kerala and from Manipur to Gujrat, is a testimony to India's tribal prehistory. It showcases the archaeoastronomical megalithic temples of Jharkhand, indicating that the tribes were congnisant of mathematics and horizon astronomy.

This much –needed volume hopes to initate a lively debate as also persuade people to know more about megalisths and their makers, and makes essential reading for those seeking to explore aspects of prehistoric India.

Subhashis Das is an explorer and independent researcher dealing with megaliths and India's hiterto unknwon tribal past. Credited with the discovery of numerous megliths, he has previously authered three volumes on his research. Das is recognised for the discovery ofa pplied astronomy in several megaliths in Jharkhand.

The author's discoveries and research on the megaliths of Jharkhand feature in the state's hsitory books. His findings have also been showcased in several documentaries by National Geographic, Doordarshan, et al. He regularly gives lectures across the country, and abroad, onmegaliths and tribalism –a task he deems essential for understanding the ancient history of India.

Migration of the various Proto –Australoid Kolarian Mundari tribes into India commenced in the early part of the second millennium BC. They trekked to India from Sumer/Chaldea via the various mountain passes alond the North –West Frontier, bringing with them their culture, religion, and a technology of megalith –making applying astronomy and mathematics.

Numerious sources indicate the presence of various Kolarian and Dravidian Kurukh/Kidikh –speaking tribes in the Harappa region of what is now Pakistan and western India. Several Adivasis, such as the authors of the Indus Valley Civilisation. Their claim also finds resonance in their forltales and songs. The Santal still chant of the glory of 'Sinjho Nai', the name used by them to refer to the river Sindhu or Indus. Recorded in Santal traditions are distinct events believed to have taken place during the course of the tribe's prologed stay in the Indus region. If that were the case, a variety of Mundari languages, too, must have been ubiquitous in the region. Southworth staunchly believed in the prevalence of a para-Munda speech in ther area (Southworth 2005, 328 -329). Michael Witzel reckons that the Indus area may have been a multingual and multi –ethnic region with a prevalent para –Mundari language among others, Jaidev Baghel, a distinguished Dokra craftsman from Chattisgarh and a Kolarian tribal, also maintains that tribal Dokra craftsmanship had widely profilerated the Indus region.

These non-Aryan tribals subsequently moved from the Indus and other provinces in the west and gradually spread to regions of northern, central and eastern India. The proponderance of Mundari names for towers, villages, rivers, and hills across these regions alludes to a time in the country's past that once was predominally tribal, prior to her Aryanisation. Such names also validate the Mundari and Dravidian Kurukh/Kudukh –speaking people's tales of migration into India through these tracks, wherein they named villages, hills, rivers, etc. in their respective languages wherever they dwelled during prehistory, many of which still remain in use. The name Kurukshetra, for instance, implies that the place was the kshetra or region of Kurukh –speaking tribes.

The megaliths at Asota in Pakistan and Burzahom in Indian Kashmir are seemingly enduring testimonials of the eastward migration of megalithic tribes during prehistory. While a few ancient megaliths are extant in localities with tribal populations, others, such as the one at Deosa in Rajasthan, have been demolished and their stones appropriated for mundane domestic purpose.

That tribals are a cultured lot with their own societal constructs is not acknowledged by the populace at large. Aryan attitudes and texts, not having cared to delve deeper into tribal culture, consider tribalism barbaric and uncivilised. Regardless of such blatant misinformation, the tribals, who although do not boast of any script or written literature, preserve a fine history of their community in the form of folklore and tradition, and by way of archaelogical relics known as megaliths. Such folklore, spurned both by historians and scholars as inconsequential, yet deemed by many to be oral history, is indeed as noterworthy as any written text. The populave at large should at large should be apprised that Adivasi culture is indeed very rich and prosperous, with their own forms of democratic governance, social set –up, medicine, music, arts and crafts, religion, and mathematics and astronomy.

Although India is a treasure trove of megaliths, as is evident from the presence of these ancient monuments across the country, from Kashmir to Kerala and from Tripura to Gujrat, they have not been paid much heed by historians and archaeologies as being significant relics of our preshistory.

The surface positioning of prehistoric megalithic complexes reveal that many of them were consciously established employing mathematical priciples. These then serve as confirmation of the fact that these ancient unknown and unamed people were not a lesser set of beings. as is commonly assumed, but were persons adept in simple mathematics and astronomy, preceding Aryan mathematician –astronomers like Baudhayana, Aryabhata, Varahamihira. Etal. By thousands of years.