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just as the term Mahtō is used indiscriminately by Kurmis, Ahirs, Koiris and Bedeas in Chota Nagpur and by Babhans in Behar. Mr. Streatfe ild held the opinion that Mahlis were a degraded offshoot of the Mundās but were now a caste by themselves, divided into the two subcastes, Patars and ōrs; he also held that Goraits were Dosádhs who had merely taken a new name with their new occupation in Chota Nagpur and had taken to beef and pork (vide his letter No. 265-C, dated the 1st October 1901, reporting on certain castes in Ranchi, printed as Appendix VIII to the 1901 Census Report for Bengal). Apparently he did not know that Goraits also very often call themselves Mählis, for he would have found it very difficult to reconcile his theory of Goraits being Dosadhs with the other theory that all the various groups known by the name Mahli were allied to each other and were all of Munda stock. Mr. Streatfeild knew of Mahli-Mundas and Khanghar Mundas, and had been told that these were identical with each other, but he does not appear to have been aware of the identity of either with the Patar Mahlis. That Mahli-Munḍās alias Khanghar Mundās alias Pātar Mahlis alias Tamārias are degraded offshoot of the Munḍas there can be little doubt; but in all probability the ōr Mahlis have not with the Mundās a greater degree of kinship than have Santals, Hos, Tūris, Asurs or other main sections of the Kharwar group. As for Gorait Mählis, it has still to be acertained whether they are of the Kharwar group at all.

At the census of 1901, the total number of persons returned as Goraits in the area now forming Bihar and Orissa was 7,629, of whom as many as 6,277 were from the district of Ranchi. It is not possible to say what was the total number of Goraits in the district or in the province in 1911, as the census tables for that year show only castes of which the provincial aggregate in 1901 had been 50,000 or over, or which had numbered over 25,000 in any single district. A request was made by the Deputy Commissioner of Ranchi to have a special exception made in favour of Goraits, but this did not meet with success.

The Superintendent of Census Operations had also been requested to have a separate column in the caste table for Pātar Mählis and Khanghar Mundas, and also to include in the same column figures for Tāmāṛiās as well, if further investigation in the Singhhbum district established the alleged identity between Pātars and Tāmāṛiās. It is not known whether any further enquiries were undertaken to test the allegation about identity of Tāmārias with Patars; but the Tables show only 8,952 Tamaṛiās in the whole Province, of whom all but 118 were returned in Singhbhum and the Orissa and Chota Nagpur States. The number of Mahlis in Ranchi shown in the 1911 Table is 22,011 and apparently includes as in 1901 (when only 13,549 Mahlis were returned) Patars as well as ōrs and Bans Mählis. Khanghar Mundas were apparently again included, as in 1901, under Mundas, so that members of admittedly the same caste were shown, some as Mundās and others as Mählis; while, on the other hand, Pātar Māhlis and ōr Mahlis, who regard each other as untouchables almost, were mixed up under one common heading "Mahli ”.

MISCELLANEOUS CONTRIBUTIONS.

I.-Ruins at Gholamara.

By Anantaprasad Sastri, M. A.

About four miles to the south of Purulia in the district of Manbhum is the village of Charra. 1 Even at present it is a large village containing many well-to-do families-a few belonging to the higher classes, the majority being cultivator. It contains a girls' school and a boys' school. It bears traces of a flourishing past, and many of the relics that are still extant appear to be of some interest to students of Indian antiquities.

The most notable are two stone temples, about 50 feet high. The stone is of a dull white colour, rather rough and unpolished. The stone pieces are of a rectangular shape, about 2 feet long and 1 foot broad, and are laid upon one another with a very thin layer of cement between them. They show clear signs of decay. A rectangular opening in the front of the stone wall leads into the sacrarium or garbhagṛha which, now full of rubbish, at one time contained the image. The top of the temple is adorned with a stone wheel or chakra, and evidently at first there were two of them. The shorter one, which we found lying at a distance, was at one time upon the larger one which is even now in its original position. For the general design of the top or sikhara, I would refer the reader to the Kandarya Mahadeva temple at Khajuraho, Plate XCII, Indian Architecture by E. B. Havell. The similarity extends, to some extent, to the sloping shape of the body. In fact, the complete absence of figure sculpture in the decorative treatment of the building is

The trip to Charra and Gholamara was led by Rai Sahib Chuni Lal Ray, Superintendent of Excise and Salt, Marbhum.

one of its striking features. The two temples at Charra are of type though one of them has suffered more from the effects of time than the other. From a similarity of the peculiarities noted by Mr. Havell1 we might regard them as instances of Hindu architecture of the fifteenth or sixteenth century.

Just at the entrance to the village, on the bank of a pond, there is standing an image of a female deity surrounded by smaller ones. It is about 5 feet high, of a blackish stone and very smooth. I was informed by a local man that it was found imbedded in the mud under water and taken out and kept in its present position by people who were clearing the pond. The image is evidently the representation of the Hindu Goddess Sasabhuja with weapons in her several hands and accompanied by her retinue. The fine contour of the central figure and the bold lines of the minor ones are unmistakeably the handiwork of a master craftsman. Other images, including those of Jaina Tirthankaras which we found scattered through the village, are also noticeable.

About a mile from Charra we found an image which was called Baneswar by the villagers. Baneswar is a well-known name of Siva, but this name was possibly attributed long after the image. The image is still worshipped by the neighbouring village-people and the spot is held sacred. If really a representation of Śiva, it furnishes us with a different conception of the god than what is in vogue. It has ten hands, one holding something like an armour or chakra and presumably the other hands also had different sorts of weapons in them. From the large number of stones lying about the image we think that there must have been a small temple there which had fallen down. The image is in a bad condition and extremely crude and primitive in its workmanship. Being of grey block stone, the different limbs lacking the sense of proportion, it betrays an inferior stone-carver's attempts at creating an object of art. Its author cannot have been very ancient, he may have flourished much

E. B. Havell, Indian Architecture, p. 195.

later than the artists who built the stone temples and the image at Charra.

Two miles to the north-west is Gholamara. Here, on a somewhat elevated piece of land, surrounded by open tracts and inside a grove we found ruins. The site is picturesque, shady and retired.

The central image there is of black stone, very smooth and dark, about 3 feet high. It is sadly mutilated, its two hands being broken off, but the remains suffice to impress upon one its majestic beauty. It gives us a really noble conception carried out with magnificent strength and breadth of modelling. All the different parts evince perfect proportion, the whole figure proves in the sculptor that intuition which, to quote Dr. Coomaraswamy, is "the vision of the artist and the imagination of the natural philosopher". 1 Calm, impassive, infinite pity in every lineament, the inner-informing spirit pervading the whole physique, the sculptor who hewed out of a mass of insensible rock his vision of the god certainly knew that "beauty is inherent in spirit not in matter ". The physique and motif of this figure remind us of the splendid statue of Avalokitesvara from Borobudur in Java, about tenth century A.D. 2 The similarity is quite evident though there is a difference in posture.

The two small figures at the two sides of the central image are very neat. Only the heads are visible, the rest lying buried underground. The clean force of the chisel is visible in every feature however tiny. Both of them represent the god rapt in contemplation-the clear, serene face of the sage, freed from all wordly passions and desires, in perfect communion with the Universal Soul. They corroborate Mr. L. Binyon when he says that "the Indian ideal is the beauty of contemplation not of action ".3 The head-formation of all the three is the same, matted hair in the shape of a heap on the top; the smaller two are clothed with an ascetic robe of which the wavy lines are depicted with vigour.

Dr. A. K. Coomaraswamy, Aims of Indian Art, p. 2. * E. B. Havell, The Ideals of Indian Art, p. 34, Pl. II. Lawrence Binyon, Painting in the Far East, p. 22.

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