Subhashis Das
Setagarha pahadi, perhaps the largest hill in Hazaribagh district is located about 12 kms SE of Hazaribagh town.
When I was a child and residing at Hazaribagh in Jharkhand the large hill in the neighbourhood of the town which is presently labelled as Sitagarh pahad was called Setagarha pahadi (a female hill; hence pahadi) and it still is amongst several old timers of the town and villages.
The Setagarha Pahadi
Setagarha pahadi sketched as Mount Gloomy by the British in 1813
The term Setagarha has stemmed from two austric words of "Seta" which in Santali means a "wild dog" and "garha" is suggestive of a "burial" (of the dog somewhere in or in the foot of the large hill sometime in antiquity). Meaning some dog, dear to a tribal in the deep past must have been buried here. Dogs were and still are the closest friends of the tribals. The custom of burying both dogs and horses after their death was a common custom among the tribals the world over.
The megalithic folks in antiquity revered the hill as their pregnant Recumbent Mother Goddess form (pertaining to the once prevalent fertility cult) and they aligned several of their ancient megalithic structures towards the notches and peaks of this hill. An example of such an orientation can be viewed in the image above
A large Buddhist monastery has been unearthed at the foot of the Setagarha pahadi near Burhanpur towards the South-Eastern side of the hill by Archaeological Survey of India revealing idols of Goddess Tara, Avaloketiswara and several Bhumi Sparsha Mudra idols of the Buddha etc.
One of the homes of Burhanpur possessed a votive stupa and a fragment of a dancing girl collected from the site prior to the excavation. Several other Buddhists idols that were housed in the homes of the villagers had their faces defaced hinting towards a foul play in the past. Scholars rummaging the hill in hope of archaeological relics are reported to have found coins belonging to the Shah Alam period.
This votive stupa was inside the home of a villager collected in-situ from the site prior to the excavationArchaeological Survey of India plans to set up a site museum near the excavated monastery.
A rock shelter can be viewed at the South-East facade of the hill albeit no rock painting has been reported from here.