Subhashis Das
Setagarha pahadi
The etymology of the term "Setagarha" suggests that it is not Sanskrit or Hindi but austric Mundari in origin stemmed from the confluence of two Mundari words "Seta" meaning a dog and "garha" suggesting a burial. "Setagarha" therefore means "a burial of a dog".
Dogs in the ancient times all across the world being the closest to humans have been found to receive burials as horses and humans. The burial of the dog has yet not been located here.
Sadly PWD or the one concerned for erecting signboards for villages is/are oblivious of this understanding as it/they has/have erected a signboard with a wrong name of "SITAGARH" for the village and in the process wrongly associating the village and the hill with Sita of the Ramayana has/have transformed their entire meaning and history.
The signboard provides a wrong name "SITAGARH" for the village in place of its original name "SETAGARHA" converting the meaning and history of both the village and the hill.
The Setagarha pahadi perhaps the largest hill in Hazaribagh district is located about 12 kms SE of Hazaribagh town. The Hill has received its name from the adjacent village of the same name is also known with varied names as Chandwar, Zulzul as per the villages in the vicinity.
At the South Eastern side of the hill is a village called Burhanpur which has now been featured in the archaeological map of the country as excavation by Archaeological Survey of India (Patna Circle) here has revealed a large Buddhist monastery and numerous sculptures of stone featuring the Buddha, several Buddhist Goddesses as Tara etc, many votive stupas and other artifacts.
Top: The mound prior to the excavation. The bottom image: On-going excavation by ASI Patna.
Earlier the villagers had collected many Buddhist statues and other relics in-situ from the site (image below). Most of the statues were found to be beheaded suggesting destruction some time in the past .
The hill resembling a recumbent pregnant woman from the North Eastern facet was sacred even to the tribals during its pre-Buddhist era. Evident from several prehistoric tribal megalithic sites as those of the ones in Jabra Road, Rola/Chano (now destroyed), Birbir, Odarna and Gurua (now destroyed) etc have been found to be aligned to this Hill.
I stand within the Birbir megalithic site discovered by me some two decades ago with the Setagraha/Zulzul pahadi at the background.
The sacred grove or the "mandar" of the village and a sacred stone beside a sacred tree lies towards the east of the hill at the side of Burhanpur (Image below).
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