242 MANUAL OF THE NtLAGIRI DISTRICT, 



CHAP. X. Kotas alone possess the necessary tools, and they never use them 

 AntiqtTties. ^°^' ^^^^^ purpose but employ sculptors from the lower countr}'- to 



decorate their houses. The present customs of the Kurumbas and 



Irulas seem to point to the use of such structures as depositories 

 of either smooth water- worn stones, to which they attach a super- 

 stitious reverence, or for stones which are placed in sacred spots in 

 memory of the dead. No distinct traces of Buddhism are apparent 

 in the meagre religion of either race, but if, as seems probable, 

 they occupied the low country for centuries before they sought 

 shelter in the Hills, they must, whether their status was as impor- 

 tant as has been thought or not, have been more or less affected 

 by that which was the paramount religion of the peninsula from 

 B.C. 500 to A.D. 1000. Colonel Congreve thought that he saw 

 in the monuments of the Nilagiris very clear traces of the Jain 

 religion, but he was evidently led away by the word Pandya, 

 whichhe tookto refer to the Pandy an kings of theSouth,and whose 

 dominion he thought was at one time established over the Hills. 

 Be this as it may, it is now generally admitted that the word 

 is used in a general sense, and has no especial reference either to 

 the kings of Pandya or to the Pandava brothers, except in so 

 far as the latter take the place of the giants and fairies of other 

 countries, for " to them all over India ancient mysterious struc- 

 tures are ascribed.^^^ However, it is possible that in the burial 

 customs alone of the Kurumbas and Irulas some traces remain 

 of a religion which has all but died out among them. In 

 Travancore a tribe still exists who make miniature cromlechs 

 and place a stone in them in memory of each person who 

 dies. This is held sacred and offerings made to it. That the wild 

 and illiterate people of the Hills can tell nothing of the history 

 of these monuments is not to be wondered at when the vague 

 and unsatisfactory replies that are often elicited from compara- 

 tively learned Brahmins are remembered. It is no uncommon 

 thing to be told by such that temples which cannot have been 

 erected before our era are many thousands of years old, and such 

 lapses of time as ten or twenty centuries are counted but as a spau 

 in their loose way of computing time. The Badaga name for the 

 Kistvaens, Mdunjaru Mane or Mauryars' houses, may give some 

 clue to their origin. It looks at least as if they connected them 

 with the dynasty of Magada, though it does not follow 

 that they were erected by the subjects of that kingdom or 

 even by their descendants, though both are possible. It is well 



^ See Caldwell's Comparative Grammar of the Dravi^ian Languages, p. 59-1-, 

 Appendix. " To call anything " a work of the Pandava" is equivalent to term- 

 ing it " Cyclopiaii" in Greece, " a work of the Picts " in Scotland, or " a work of 

 Ninirod " in Asiatic Turkey ; and it means only that the structure to which the 

 name is applied was erected in some remote age, by a people of whom nothing 

 is now known." 



