14 
H. Bivett-Carnac —Bough Notes on some 
[No. 1, 
“ The village of Jala is about fourteen miles from Bangalor situated 
at the base of a large isolated rocky hill; upon the summit of which is a 
little grassy dell, stretching out in front of a cave, that has been converted 
into a small picturesque temple. It is but a small village, the temple is 
curiously built against the side of a low rocky hill, a cave forming the sanc¬ 
tum. It possesses no architectural beauty, and is interesting only from the 
fact that the priest in charge, a wild looking fanatic, apparently about 
sixty years of age, has never left its precincts, for more than forty years, 
nor has he allowed the lights in the holy place to go out for that period ! 
The whole neighbourhood is thickly covered with cromlechs ; near the vil¬ 
lage there are at least one hundred plainly to be seen, These cromlechs 
are surrounded by circles of stones, some of them with concentric circles 
three and four deep. One very remarkable in appearance has four circles 
of large stones round it, and is called by the natives “ Pandavara Gudi” or 
the temple of the Pandus, who are popularly supposed to have been the 
descendants of the Pandavas, the five sons of the Baja Pandu.The 
smaller cromlechs are designated “ Pandasiara Mane” or the houses of the 
Pandus. This is supposed to be the first instance, where the natives popu¬ 
larly imagine a structure of this kind to have been the tenqfie of a by-gone 
if not of a mythical race.Many of these curious structures have a 
triple circle, some a double, and a few single circles of stones round them, 
but in diameter they are nearly equal, the outer circle varying from thirty- 
seven to forty feet.” 
37. I extract also from page 185, 5th Series YI, September 2nd, 1876, 
of “ Notes and Queries ”, a note shewing that the custom of hanging 
shreds of rags on trees as votive offerings, still exists in Ireland, that 
country of stone circles. The sacred tree at the Pandukoli temple or 
stone circle was, as noticed at paragraph 14, similarly decked at the time of 
our visit, and the custom is, as is well known, common throughout India. 
“ Anatolian Folk-lore .—The custom of hanging shreds of rags on trees 
as votive offerings still obtains in Ireland. I remember as a child to have 
been surreptitiously taken by an Irish nurse to St. John’s Well, Aghada, 
County Cork, on the vigil of the Saint’s day, to be cured of whooping 
cough by drinking three times of the water of the holy well. I shall never 
forget the strange spectacle of men and women “ paying rounds”, creeping 
on their knees in voluntary devotion or in obedience to enjoined penance so 
many times round the well, which was protected by a grey stone hood, and 
had a few white-thorn trees growing near it, on the spines of which flutter¬ 
ed innumerable shreds of frieze and vary-coloured rags, the votive offerings 
of devotees and patients.” 
The proceedings at the Pandukoli Fair might be described in almost 
similar words. 
