An enigmatic boulder in the Mahudi Hills of Hazaribag

Krishna and I were heading towards the rock cut caves of the Mahudi Hills near the Barkagaon village (http://subashisdas.blogspot.in/2014/10/the-stunning-rock-cut-temple-known-as.html ). 

Trekking was quite enjoyable. We may have had walked quite a few miles up the road on the hill when we stumbled on to an enormous boulder to the right of the road and I saw steps carved on the large rock that led up to the top.

Fig 1. The gigantic boulder on the right of the road to the Dwarpal rock cut temple in the Mahudi Hill.

Krishna, my local guide related to me that the king and the queen had once held a yagna on top of this stone and for this the stairs were therefore sculpted on the stones. 

Fig 2.The steps are visible to the right of the rock below the tree

Fig 3. The steps

Fig 4.The steps

Fig 5 . The steps

We climbed the stairs to reach to the top to find quite a wavy and an inclined top; a very wrong place for the King and the Queen to conduct a yagna.

I spotted few cupule like holes on the surface, which to me were not cupules but natural holes. Krishna however asserted these were holes to put in bamboo poles on which were fixed the king's shamiana for the yagna.

Fig 6. At the top of the boulder there are these natural holes.

Fig 7. Krishna points to a few natural holes at the top of the rock which he and the villagers believe were drilled by the king's men to set up a shamiana for the king and the queen to perform a yagna.

Inspecting the holes I did not find them to be man made but natural. Besides, the holes were only on one side so the theory of fixing posts for a shamiana did not hold.

To my understanding as the area was interspersed with rock cut temples and a chaitya, the top of the boulder must have been used by the Jaina, Ajivika, Buddhist or Shaivite ascetics for their meditation purposes...the holes to my opinion were natural and did not concern the stone in any way.

The steps were perhaps used by monks to ascend the sacred top for them to do their meditation The boulder may be was used for some other purpose we know nothing of.