JULY, 1873.]

MONUMENTS IN KHANDESH.

They are of various shapes and sizes, the largest about 8 feet high above ground, square, finished with a round head, and ornamented

with figures in relief on all sides. Others are long slabs, and some mere flat stones erected much as they were found. A great many are of wood, invariably teak, which seems to last a wonderful time. It is difficult to get at the precise age of such remains; but I have seen many teak monuments of which the name had entirely passed away, yet which were still in fair preservation. They are always in the shape of a post about half as thick as it is wide, with a round head. The Thildrís, or shep herds, merely dab a little red paint on the spot where a man happened actually to die. The monuments are generally cenotaphs, and erect ed in groups in a favourite spot near the village, perhaps near a temple. I was fortunate lately in getting a pretty full explanation of such a group from a Pátil. No. 1 was a flat stone 7 ft. by 1 ft. 6 in. by 5 in. “This,” quoth my informant, “is Büla Patil, who died about 60 years ago.

Here he is on his horse, and here he

is driving in his cart. This was his stone (pointing to another of the same class but broader, and with only a mounted figure on it), but it was broken; so I made and set up the other some seven years since.” As far as the execution of the carving, or appearance, of the stone went, the one looked as old as the other.

“This,” said the Păţil, “is my ancestor Withobă, and this is fire over his head, because he was

burned in the rādd that you were looking at now.

The Band-wallas did that, two hundred

years ago, in the days of the Šāhu Rājās. This is Mahādev Păţil. He was going to Umbarpâte, and a tiger came out and pulled him off his horse and ate him.”

These two stones were

of the same class as the first—long rough slabs. The burnt pâtil was represented on foot, with flames over his head; the others on caparisoned horses.

It is to be remarked that a man who

never in his lifetime owned anything more warlike than a “bail' is often represented on his monument as a gallant cavalier. Another stone in the same place represented a Teli who had left no family; wherefore, as the pâtil ex plained, his mother spent his remaining estate on giving him a good stone. It was about seven years old, four or five feet above ground, square with a round head, of the class first

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mentioned. There is a remarkable group of stones, to the number of about a dozen, at a spot on the Dhulia and Surat Road about two miles west of the village of Dahiwel. It com memorates a fight that took place there in the “days of trouble" about 75 years ago, respect ing the cause and conclusion of which there are two sides, to the story. The Kunbis and Mu Salmāns say that the Bhills broke out and began plundering the country, and were met and de feated at this spot by a detachment of the Pesh wā’s troops from the post at Sarai, below the Kon dai Bâri Ghât. The Bhill version is that “certain Musalmāns came up out of the Gaikwādi to loot; and Sabhāji, Konkani Păţil of Malangaum, called together the Gâwids and the Konkanis and Naiks, and gave them battle and beat them. Sabhāji, in any case, was killed in the skir mish, and his is the largest of the group of monuments. It is about 8 feet above ground and 18 inches square, of a single stone. On each side of it in an even line, the smallest outside,

are the cenotaphs of the others slain on the Bhill side. All the Bhills and Konkanis make pilgrimage to this place in the middle of April, and build a múnded, or tabernacle of boughs, over the stones, and slay goats and fowls in honour of Sabhāji, winding up the proceedings by getting “most abnormal drunk.” There is a stone of the same class at the head of the

Kondai Bâri pass, said to have been erected in memory of a Rājput warrior slain the same day— on which side does not appear. Also there is one at the Băbul Dhara pass, about which I could get no information; but similar rites are observed at both by the village Bhills, although there is no pilgrimage to them. In explanation of the caste terms used above, it should be explained that, the Gâwids or Mā wachas, and Konkanis, are races inhabiting

Western Khāndesh, and very similar to Bhills with whom they are generally confounded

They however keep up a distinction; the Gåwids consider themselves superior to the

Konkanis, and the latter to the Bhill Naiks, or pure Bhills; and this relation is admitted by the last.

The Gâwids and Konkanis, moreover,

are more given to agriculture (such as it is) than the Bhill Naiks. They bury their dead; in some instances all the dead man's property is buried with him.

Various figures are carved besides that of the