18 
C. J. Rodgers— Couplets Or 1 Baits'* on the coins of [No. 1, 
Sarhul festivals which, is kept in February. Some advanced Kha- 
riyns wear the Janao or sacred thread at this festival. The Bisu 
festival kept in March is peculiar to the Khariyas. The names of their 
dances are Kharia , Gena, Lahasud and Thdriyd; and they are more 
energetic in their execution than the Mundas and other Kolarian tribes. 
Their usual stimulant is the rice beer of the country which they prepare 
for themselves. 
Ceremonies for the dead. —The Khariyas of the Lohardaga district 
are a well-to-do and advancing people, and the result is that they have 
acquired a number of customs which did not belong to them originally. 
Thus I believe that formerly they used only to bury their dead, but 
now they have learnt to burn them. The most approved ceremony now 
is as follows :—The body is buried with a vow that it will be burnt 
within a certain time (sometimes as much as two or three years). At 
the time appointed, the body is exhumed and burnt, and the bones 
and ashes are put into an earthen pot and thrown into the chasm 
of any rock in the vicinity of the village or near a river. In such 
cases they believe that the body waits intact for the burning cere¬ 
mony, even though it be for years. These customs refer entirely to 
the Khariyas of the Lohardaga district, little or nothing being known 
about the small and degenerate branches inhabiting the most jungly 
parts of Man’bhum and Sing’bhum, and who are said to be in habits 
and appearance more like the Birhors and Juangs. 
Couplets or ‘ Baits ’ on the coins of Shah Nuru-d-din Jahangir, the son 
of Akbar, collected by Chas. J. Rodgers, M. R. A. S., Associate Mem¬ 
ber, Asiatic Society of Bengal.* 
So far as I can ascertain there are no coins before the time of Akbar 
which bear couplets or baits of Persian poetry. I know only of two 
coins of Akbar which have couplets on them. One of these is a rupee 
struck at Allahabad in the 44th and 45th years of his reign. I have 
seen this rupee also without a year or month. It is said to have been 
struck by Jahangir when in rebellion against his father. The couplet 
runs thus :— 
Obv. al/o j 
Rev. <xlf J 
i. e. ‘ May the coin of Allahabad be always current like the golden 
disk of the sun and the moon in the East and in the West of the world.’ 
* [The translations of the couplets have been supplied by Maulawi Mirza Ashraf 
Ali of the Calcutta Madrasah. Ed.] 
