to carry back the history of this form of architecture for a hundred years from this time. It may be older, but there is nothing to show that it is so.
So far as the monuments above mentioned are concerned, there seems nothing in them that affords a real analogy or establishes any direct connexion between the European and Indian examples. The sacrifice of a cock to Vetal, when in sickness, looks like a similar sacrifice to Esculapius, and the human sacrifices and sacred groves of the Khonds are very Druidical in appearance; but no one probably will be found to contend that Vetal and Esculapius are the same god, or that the Khonds are Celts; and without this being established, the argument halts. The case, however, seems different when we turn to the sepulchral arrangements of the aboriginal tribes of India. Here the analogies are so striking that it is hard to believe that they are accidental, though equally hard to understand how and when the intercourse could have taken place which led to their similarity.
As in Europe, the sepulchral monuments of India may be divided into two great classes—the dolmens and the tumuli. In the present state of our knowledge it is difficult to say which are the more numerous. According to Colonel Meadows Taylor,[1] who is our best
- ↑ I quote from a paper by him, published in the 'Trans. R. Irish Academy,' xxiv. pp. 329 et seqq. There is an earlier paper by him in the 'J. B. B. R. A. S.' vol. iii. 179, but it is superseded by the later publication.
