Jharkhand's Megalith Culture and Pakri Barwadih

Megalith (Mahapashan) have played a major role in the development of the first stage of Human civilization. Humans have cut down mountains(Mother Hills) into various shapes of Stones for different purposes (Worshipping, Astronomy  & Cosmology and Funeral Rituals).Though, this culture is extinct in many parts of the world but it is still alive in Jharkhand and North-Eastern States.

            

The history of prehistoric India is one of epic migrations. We know there were waves of migration from 70000 BC to 40000 BC. Also, there are four linguistic groups in India: Austro-Asiatic (the oldest), Tibeto-Burman, Dravidian and Indo-Aryan (the most recent).

The living megalithic culture in India provides strong hints regarding the belief systems of prehistoric megalithic people. The Gond(tribal people who live all over deccan peninsula, India) people believe in life after death, they believe that every human being has two souls: the life spirit and the shadow. The life spirit goes to bada devta (Higher God) but the shadow still stays in the village after the erection of stone memorial. Gond people believe that the first and foremost duty of the shadow spirit is to watch over the moral behavior of the people and punish those who go against the tribal law.

Megaliths were constructed either as burial sites or commemorative (non-sepulchral) memorials. The former are sites with actual burial remains, such as dolmenoid cists (box-shaped stone burial chambers), cairn circles (stone circles with defined peripheries) and capstones (distinctive mushroom-shaped burial chambers found mainly in Kerala).

The urn or the sarcophagus containing the mortal remains was usually made of terracotta. Non-sepulchral megaliths include memorial sites such as Menhirs . (The line separating the two is a bit blurry, since remains have been discovered underneath otherwise non-sepulchral sites, and vice versa.)

Interestingly, the popular Indian belief in the evil eye—buri nazar in Hindi—may be a legacy of the megalithic age. Banded agate beads with eye patterns have been recovered from megalithic sites. These were generally used by them as protection against evil spirits, a belief that survives to this day in India in the form of nazar battus such as amulets or strings of limes and chillies

 

Pakri Barwadih which is situated in the Chattra District, Jharkhand has kept the essence of Megalith culture alive. The Pakri Barwadih is a rare megalithic site having no known parallels in the state and is unlike other tribal megalithic burials.

It is a megalithic complex built with precise astronomical calculations. It was an observatory serving as a calendar to the ancient people of the region. Noted megalithic explorer and author  Subhashis Das, who had discovered the astronomy of the megaliths had begun the equinox sunrise viewing festival some 17-18 years ago. He stated that each stone at the megaliths has been positioned with accurate astronomical calculation. On the equinox morning, the sun can be seen ascending through the V cleft aligned to the east between two adjacently positioned menhirs.

 Thousands of people from all over the world come here on the day of ‘Eq

​u​inox’(when the day and night are same).This Equinox happens twice a year around on 20th March  and 23rdSeptember. It is said that the ancestors used to come up to this place where two rocks are placed in such a manner, which forms a hole in the centre  and the Sun is rising seen rising.