112 E. T. Dalton— Rude Stone Monuments. [No. 2, 
would not apply, unless, indeed, it might perhaps similarly indicate the com¬ 
mencement of office under that asterism. 
Any way, the coins are both very suggestive contributions to the little- 
known early history of India, and Babu Sivaprasad deserves the thanks of 
the Society for bringing them to light. 
Rude Stone Monuments in Chutid Nagpur and other places .— 
By Col. E. T. Dalton, C. S.'I., Commissioner of Chutid Nagpur. 
(With three plates.) 
A passage in the address of our President published in the Proceedings 
for February last, reminds me that I should no longer delay in laying before 
the Society some extracts from my journal describing rude stone mo¬ 
numents in Chutia Nagpur. We have here the advantage of possessing 
both ancient and modern monuments of this type, we may find them 
crusted with lichens of time and belonging to a generation of whom no 
tradition even remains, or we may find them still moist with the tears of the 
mourner ! 
In my work on Descriptive Ethnology, I have given all the inform¬ 
ation which I possessed regarding the ceremonies and solemnities adopted 
by the Kolarian tribes in the disposal of their dead, but in regard to their 
monuments, their dolmens and monoliths, there is much more to say, es¬ 
pecially since, after reading Fergusson’s deeply interesting work on the sub¬ 
ject, I find that so little is apparently on record regarding the rude stone 
monuments of Bengal. 
In the cold weather of 1871, my work took me through some of the 
wildest parts of the Singbhum District, and I saw many good specimens of 
the sepulchral and monumental stones of the Larka Kols or Hos. The for¬ 
mer are in the village sometimes in one place or burial ground under the 
finest and oldest of the village trees, hut sometimes the principal families have 
each their own collection near their houses. 
The sepulchral stones consist of huge slabs covering the spot or spots 
where the ashes repose in earthen urns, raised a few inches from the 
ground by smaller stones used as pillars. In the village of Borkela, eight miles 
south of Chaibasa, I noticed a burial slab placed over the ashes of the grand¬ 
father of Sikur, the present deputy Manki of the Pir. Its dimensions were 
as follows : length, 16 feet; breadth 7 feet ; and 1 foot 3 inches thick. 
Another over Turam, the grandfather of the Manki, length, 16 feet; breadth 
7\ feet; thickness, 1 foot. This stone, an enormous slate, was carried from its 
site three quarters of a mile from the village, and the people devoted two 
months to the work, moving it inch by inch on rollers, when men could be 
collected for the purpose. 
