People of Bantoli

Crushing rocks to make gravel on which to dry grain

Bantoli is "tribal area." What does this mean?

The tribal people, the Adivasis, are the original inhabitants of India. They preceded the Vedic Aryans and even the Dravidians of the South. For thousands of years, they lived undisturbed in these hills and densely wooded regions regarded by others as unattractive for habitation.

India has about 530 tribes, numbering 68 million people and speaking over 100 languages, each having its own ethnic and cultural identity. Jharkand is home to many tribes. The main tribes in this area are large tribes: the Hos, Mundas, Besras, and Horos. The Mundas number more than 845,000, the Hos 535,000.

Drying grains on hand-crushed gravel

What about the history of this land and of its people?

The area, which includes Bihar and Jharkand, has been traditionally autonomous because it was easy to defend. Here lived mythological kings and many saints. It is a land where India’s first empires rose and fell. Gandhi launched his civil disobedience movement from here. The area has been a cradle of the Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, Muslim, and Sikh faiths. Buddha is said to have lived and taught here. The area is an ancient seat of learning and was famous for a monastic university that operated from the fifth to the eleventh centuries, supposedly with 2,000 teachers, 10,000 students, and a library of nine million books.