230 MANUAL OF THE NILAQIRI DISTRICT. 



CHAP. X. Of the earliest forms of religion no traces exist, and if the 

 ANxiocTTiEs I^sisyus and Takshas, the worshippers of trees and sei-pents,^ 



ever inhabited these hills, they have left behind them no traces 



of their religion, 

 —by whom The Subject of the antiquities of this district was first syste- 



escn e . matically taken up about the year 1847, when Captain, afterwards 

 Colonel, Congreve published a valuable paper in the Madras 

 Journal of Literature and Science (Vol. 14, No. 32) pointing 

 out the similarity of the Nilagiri tumuli to Druidical remains 

 of the Cel to- Scythians in different parts of Europe, and arguing 

 from this the Celto- Scythian origin of the Todas, whose work he 

 believed them to be. Subsequent investigations and a broader and 

 more scientific acquaintance with the subject has confirmed this 

 view in so far as the Scythian or Turanian ^ origin of the cairn 

 builders is concerned, but whether the Todas of the present day 

 are the descendants of the people who built the cairns still 

 remains an open question. Various writers followed in Colonel 

 Congreve's steps, and finally the late Mr. Breeks, Commissioner 

 of the Nilagiris, by order of the Madras Government, drew up an 

 elaborate report, after having opened a large number of the 

 cairns and barrows and made a collection of their contents.^ 

 Caves. The following account of the caves of Belliki is from Colonel 



Congreve's paper : — 



" Although possessing none of the features of interest belonging 

 to the cave temples of the west of India, they are nevertheless worthy 

 of observation. 



" Formed by rocks projecting from the mountain side, the two caves 

 are the work of nature, though the hand of man has incT*eased their 

 dimensions. The first * * * [f^ about 30 paces broad, 

 12 deep, and 20 feet high at the entrance, the roof sloping downwards 

 inside until it reaches the floor- Several smaller caverns branch 

 from the outer caves, most of which are now filled up by loose 

 stones and tninks of trees — the performance, I conjecture, of the Ko rum- 

 bas, who use this as a place of sacrifice and poojah. * * * 

 The roof and facade of the caves present the remains of old paintings 

 of armed men, men on horseback, animals, and demons so inidely 

 executed as to render it as likely they are the work of the Korumbas 

 as of a raoi^e accomplished people. 



***** 



" To I'each the second cave it is necessary to proceed in the first 

 instance to Arrawaddy, two miles below Conagherry, and procure the 



^ No ancient serpent stones, though common in Mysore, have, as far as 1 know^ 

 been found in the Nilagiris. 



- "No Semite and no Aryan ever built a tomb that could last a century or was 

 worthy to remain so long. " — Fergusson's History of Architecture, Vol. I, page 51, 

 1865. 



3 This collection is still in the Commissioner's Office. Ootacamaud., bui is about 

 to be distributed between the Calcutta and Madras Museums. 



