116 



The Antiquities of the 



[No. Sg, 



gion by certain but gradual strides has superceded in so many ancient 

 countries the Pagan superstitions that once prevailed, it finds further 

 subject for gratitude, and cherishes the hope that at no distant 

 period, not only will an architectural resemblance subsist between 

 the reHgious edifices of the Christian world and those of heathen 

 countries, but that the same religion — the revealed religion of the 

 Saviour — will be as permanently established and its doctrines as fer- 

 vently preached in one as in the other. 



Returning to my immediate subject, the consecrated stones of the 

 ancients — I may remind the reader that not only was the worship of 

 the sun or of fire in its various forms a deviation from the earliest 

 form of sacrifice, but that the consecration of upright stones had its 

 origin in, and was a perversion from a custom amongst the earliest 

 descendants of Noah, thus spoken of by the inspired writer in the 

 28th chapter of Genesis : 



" 18. And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the 

 " stone that he had put for his pillows, and set it up for a pillar, and 

 " poured oil upon the top of it." 



" 19. And he called the name of that place Bethel: but the name 

 " of that city ivas called Luz at the first.'' 



" 22. And this stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be God's 

 " house : and of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the 



tenth unto thee." 



I believe this chapter will be the concluding one. 



From what I have collected it may be determined whether 



The Thautawars are the descendants of a Celto Scythic ancestry 

 who were either the aborigines of the plains of India, or a tribe of in- 

 vaders from Central Asia : or 



Are the Thautawars the posterity of a Buddh or Jain people. 



Are the cairns the burial places of the ancestors of the Thauta- 

 wars : or 



Are they the cemeteries of a Buddhist or Jain people once estab- 

 lished on the Neilgherries. 



My view of the case stands thus, the Thautawars are the descend- 

 ants of the aborigines of the plains who were Celto Scythians, and 

 the tinge of Buddhism manifest in their religion and usages, as well 

 as in the cairns and urns which I refer to the Thautawars, is to be 

 ascribed to their contemporaneous existence with a race of Buddhists 

 or Jains on these hills. 



