Art. II.— Notes on the Megalithic Monuments of the Coimbatore

17 AKT. II.—Notes on the Megalithie Monuments of the Coimba- tore District, Madras. By M. J. WALHOUSE, late Madras 0. S. THE Coimbatore District, containing more than 8000 square miles, is almost centrally situated in the south of the Peninsula, within the region occupied by the Tamil-speaking race, being about 250 miles west of Madras, and 80 east of the Malabar coast. Mysore bounds it on the north, and the Madras and Tinnevelly districts lie between it and Cape Comorin. Megalithie monuments are found in all the Madras districts, but I am inclined to think are most numerous in Coimbatore, where singly, in twos or threes, or in assemblages of scores or hundreds, they occur in every variety of situation, high on the ghauts and wild mountain- sides, in remote jungles and malarious river-valleys, on wide open plains, on cultivated land, amid fertile gardens and rice tracts. Excluding the Nilgiri Hills, which, though belong- ing to Ooimbatore, are a separate region, with a group of remains peculiar to themselves, the Coimbatore monuments are all sepulchral, consisting of kistvaens or tumuli, containing cists or chambers, originally underground, but now often more or less exposed. Stone-circles and standing stones are almost always associated with the tumuli, but never, so far as I know, found independently, as in other parts of India and in Europe. Neither am I aware of any true cromlech in Coimbatore. It may be interesting to give some account of two' of the principal assemblages of these remains, one on the east, and another on the west side of the district. Seven miles north of Per&mdoory, the chief town of a talook of the same name, midway between the towns of Salem and Coimbatore, after passing along a tract of fertile bottom-land, luxuriant with topes and gardens, the ground, just beyond the village of Nallampatti, rises into Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. INSEAD, on 10 Jul 2018 at 22:43:29, subject to the Cambridge Core terms ofVOL use,. VII.—[NEavailable atW https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms SEMES.] . ' 2 https://doi.org/10.1017/S0035869X00016348 18 MEGALITHIC MONUMENTS one of the wide rolling barren maidans characteristic of Southern India, on which a great cairn-cemetery is situated. Many hundreds of cairns1 are spread over a considerable tract; in general appearance heaps of blackened stones, some very small, and thence of every size up to 30 feet and more in diameter, they vary in height from one to four feet, but have evidently been much worn down by lapse of time and weather. The larger cairns are generally surrounded with circles of upright stones, sometimes double, or even triple, and rarely fourfold. The stones vary much in size, some only just appearing above ground, others four or five feet high, and a few of the largest cairns are distinguished by a huge single upright stone, far larger than the others forming the circle, placed at their heads, like the headstones of graves in a churchyard. Five or six of these were on my visit conspicuous all around, and suggested the idea that they marked the resting-places of the most distinguished men.2 In the centre of the cemetery was placed, as if it were that of the chief, the hugest of all the tombs. A vast obelisk-like stone, 13 feet by 6J, towering above all the others, stood at its head; great shapeless masses formed the circle ; the heap of stones within had disappeared, and the chamber beneath was laid bare, on one side to the bottom, no doubt by some seeker after the treasure these tombs are popularly believed to contain. Indeed, the principal cairns had been all more or less dug out. The chamber, ten feet deep, as many wide, and somewhat more in length, was formed of four enormous slabs, placed two at the ends, and one at each side; and was divided lengthwise by a partition-slab, somewhat less in depth, into two main compartments, which were again longitudinally subdivided by still lower slabs, thus dividing the whole chamber into four compartments at the bottom, which was paved with great 1 By " cairns " is intended heaps of stones covering graves. 3 It will be observed that those varieties of stone monuments frequently found separate in Europe are here associated, namely the cairn, covering the kistvaen, surrounded by the stone circle, with the menhir at its head; but, as just remarked, they do not exist separately in Coimbatore. Of course the comparatively modern sculptured memorial stones are not regarded as menhirs. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. INSEAD, on 10 Jul 2018 at 22:43:29, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0035869X00016348 OF THE COIMBATORE DISTRICT. 19 slabs. A colossal capstone had been laid over the chamber, but was now overthrown and broken, and the fragments lying scattered round, the interior had been emptied of any- thing it may have contained. All the stone-heaps around, small and large, covered similar megalithic graves, of di- mensions varying from little more than 2 feet by 1, to 6, 8, or 10 feet in length, and of proportionate breadth. From numbers the heaps had disappeared, and the covering-stones and tops of the cists were exposed, some level with the ground, others raised above; and not unfrequently, the earth having sunk or been excavated away, the cist, still bearing the capstone, was laid bare for more than half its depth. One in particular, the side-slabs of which inclined slightly inwards, bore up an immensely broad and massive covering- stone, overlapping its supports all round, so as to appear like a monstrous mushroom. The chambers even of the smaller were seldom less than five feet deep, oblong, and the bottoms, always paved with great flagstones, were in the larger frequently divided lengthwise by a lesser partition-slab. Of the contents more will be said presently. A wilder and more impressive scene than the site of the cairns could be seldom met with. • The desolate rugged plain rolling as far as eye could reach in rocky ridges and barren expanses, whilst around lay the multitudes of blackened grave-mounds, many of the massive chambers half revealed, the immense capstones on some still in place, on others overthrown or fantastically tilted, whilst on all sides rose tall stones, some upright, some leaning,—the whole realizing the poet's vision of " dismal cirques Of Druid stones upon a forlorn moor." On the western side of the district, a few miles from the Malabar border, is the village of Natkalpalliam, evidently drawing its name (signifying country-stone-village), from the megaliths in its precincts. Here the tumuli are not scattered over a wild waste, but stand amid cultivated fields, the principal ones not dispersed, but gathered into a sort of nucleus. The striking feature here is an assemblage of some fifteen or Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. INSEAD, on 10 Jul 2018 at 22:43:29, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0035869X00016348 20 ' MEGALITHIC MONUMENTS twenty large cairns close to one another, each, surrounded by a circle of unusual height and uniformity, the stones tall and pointed, often exceeding six feet in height, many of them leaning, but none at the circle-heads pre-eminent over the others, as at Nallampatti. This company of huge grey ancient stones had a curious effect, rising over the tall green crops amid which they stood at the time of my visit; the chambers beneath were very large, formed with enormous slabs, and divided into two compartments by a slab rising to half their depth; here also one was divided into four compartments by three longitudinal slabs. All these conspicuous graves had been ransacked and emptied. Around this predominant group smaller cairns of all sizes extended for a considerable distance, as thickly as graves in an ancient churchyard; they were of the same description as those at Nallampatti, and numbers had, no doubt, been effaced by cultivation, the chambers still lying undisturbed under the surface. I remarked that the chambers were more generally square here than oblong, as at Nallampatti, widening down- wards to a great depth, often exceeding six feet even in the smaller. In connexion with the distribution of these remains, it may be noted that the three principal mountain ranges of Southern India are all visible from the Coimbatore plain, the Nilgiris bounding it on the north, the Arnemally and Palany Hills on the south, and the Shevaroy, in Salem district, on the east. On the last-named hills, the kistvaen- sepulchres occur frequently over the whole plateau, and their large flat slabs have been extensively utilized by the planters in forming drying-floors for coffee. They do not occur on the Nilgiris, where rude stone-remains are plentiful, but diverse; whilst on the Palany range no ancient remains, so far as I am aware of, exist at all. These mountains have extensive plateau regions, and are at this day pretty thickly inhabited. It remains to say something of the contents of these megalithic graves. Some, even of the larger and most laboriously constructed, with capstone and chamber complete, and evidently not previously disturbed, were nevertheless empty, whilst large quantities of pottery were found in .other, often Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. INSEAD, on 10 Jul 2018 at 22:43:29, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms.

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