name of Khassias, rude-stone monuments exist in greater numbers than perhaps in any other portion of the globe of the same extent (woodcut No. 200). All travellers who have visited the country have been struck with the fact and with the curious similarity of their forms to those existing in Europe.[1] So like, indeed, are they that it has long been the fashion to assume their identity, and it has consequently been often hoped that, if we could only find out why the Indian examples were erected, we might discover the
motive which guided those in Europe who constructed similar monuments, while at the same time there seemed every reason for believing that it would not be difficult to discover the motives which led to the erection of the Indian examples. The natives make no mystery about them, and many were erected within the last few years, or are being erected now, and they are identical in form with those which are grey with years, and must have been set up in the long forgotten past. Here, therefore, there seemed a chance of at last solving the mystery of the great stones. Greater
- ↑ H. Walters, 1828, 'Asiatic Researches,' xvii. pp. 499 et seqq. Colonel Yule, 'Proceedings, Soc. of Antiq. Scot.' i. p. 92. Hooker's 'Himalayan Journals,' ii. p. 276. Major Godwin Austen, 'Journal Anthropological Institute,' vol. i. Part II.
