Saturday, March 21, 2009

Rupkund: The deadly lake (Part VII) - The Historical Background

Though Dr. T.S. Longstaff discovered Rupkund incidentally in 1905, he didn't mention Rupkund in any of his books. A forest dept. employee(name not available), in 1925 came here with Nandajat and brought it into light. In 1942 another forest dept staff, Madhoal Singh, discussed about Rupkund in details.On the basis of his report, the then deputy commissioner of Kumayun , Mr. Vernid, invited famous rock climber Mr. Hamilton from Scotland. This gentleman first brought Rupkund to the lime light. In 1955 Madhoal Singh came here with Govt. patronage, collected several anthropological specimens and handed over to the head of the dept. of anthropology of Lucknow University , Dr. D. N. Majumder.In 1956, under the supervision of Dr. Nagendra Dutta Majumder, an excavation was conducted and again some specimen were collected and researches were carried on. The outcome of these researches was, the fossils were 800 to 500 years old. The structure of the skull being very similar to that of the local people, the dead bodies were declared as of the soldiers of Md. Bin Tughlak But according to Swami Pranabananda, , as several materials like Rudraksh, bell etc were found with those bodies, the bodies can not be of Muslim soldiers, they must be Hindu pilgrims.

A very recent study, conducted by National Geographic Society and a German organisation revealed that the dead bodies are surely of some Hindu Pilgrims, who probably were taking part in Nandajat. According to their research, they died due to severe hail storm.

3 comments:

  1. Very nice indeed. I live in Delhi.. but at the moment my husband is posted in Nagaland and to meet him i hv to pass thru kolkatta. I make it a pt to se sum part of West Bengal during each of my visits. SO far I hv bin to SHnatiniketna.SUndarbans ( WOW)and Bishnupur. The place u describe hs caught my attention . need to find out mor e hw to reach etc..

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  2. Thanx Jayshri.
    U can mail me if u have any query.

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  3. With all due respect to NG and others- we still do not know where were 8-9 feet tall Indians in that era.
    Now this is not debatable as size of femur and shoes shows clearly this fact.

    Hope we will be able to see besides commercialization of TV prgms ?

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