Peter Francis

Baba Ghor and the Ratanpur Rakshisha

As the patron saint of the Indian agate bead industry, Baba Ghor is very important in any reconstruction of its history. The facts about him are quite scanty; we can only hypothetically reassemble them and understand his myth. Abbas, or Habash, a scion of the Malwa Ghors, died in a skirmish near Ratanpur in the early 15th century, probably fighting Ahmed Shah of Gujarat. He was buried on the hill which had long been sacred and was once graced with a fine temple of Makkhan Devi, the Mother Goddess. Her temple was likely destroyed by Ahmeds troops, not those of the Malwa Ghors. Ghors grave became a place of pilgrimage, first serving the waxing Muslim strength in the area by providing an approved focus of worship. In time it became even more important to the Siddis, who appropriated Ghor as one of their own. He gave the Ratanpur Siddis respectability: in turn they serve his memory. The legends of Baba Ghor and the Ratanpur Rakshisha are not mere fantasy, for they serve the truth as symbols. Ghor represents the coming of Islam, the loss of the old gods, the destruction of the temples, and the forgetting of the old ways. A new dispensation came to Ratanpur and the agate bead industry, and as a result the age-old commerce changed its focus as Cambay replaced Limodra as the lapidary center. Ghor is alive for the Siddis and other Muslims in whose hands the industry is still concentrated. In a very real sense Ghor did encounter the Ratanpur Rakshisha. The Indian agate bead industry has never been the same since, nor can it be understood without taking their battle into account.

Plants as human adornment in India

Plants have served for human adornment in India for millennia. Their use as ornaments and cosmetics is not only ancient but survives to the present time. In addition to decoration, adornment is often regarded as having amuletic powers or is used as social diacritical marks. Over 165 plant species used for human adornment in India have been identified from the literature and by personal observations. This study points out the importance of plants as human adornment both to aboriginal groups and modern urban and rural Indians. The widespread employment of vegetal materials for adornment indicates that in India they have traditionally been more important for this use than have mineral or animal substances.

Indian Beads: A Cultural and Technological Study, and: Distinctive Beads in Ancient India, and: Amulets and Pendants in Ancient Maharashtra (review)

India is one of the world’s largest countries with one of its most ancient civilizations. Blessed with immense natural and human resources. It is no surprise that it is a leading source of beads in both ancient and modern times. Only China is larger and as ancient, but the Chinese have never been as interested in beads as have the Indians. The Indian subcontinent has been unparalleled in terms of bead making, bead trading, and the use of beads since early in the third millennium b.c. Thus, it is something of an event that in the same year three books were published on Indian beads. The first was released posthumously. S. B. Deo, professor and director of Deccan College, Pune, had written many ‘‘bead chapters’’ in the excavation reports of the Deccan College archaeological teams. He was introduced to the subject by M. G. Dikshit (1949, 1952a, 1952b, 1969), then regarded as India’s leading bead authority, and was to collaborate with him on a book. That project never happened, as Dikshit passed away in 1969, just before his own History of Indian Glass was published. Deo received a fellowship from the Indian Council of Historical Research to study and prepare a manuscript on Indian beads during the years 1985 to 1988. He worked on the project for many years, long after the period of the fellowship. Deo passed away in 1999, and as a tribute to his many years devoted to the subject, a team of Deccan College a‰liates, led by V. N. Misra, edited and published the volume. M. Jyotsna, the author of the other two books reviewed here, was privileged that Deo came out of retirement to act as her guide for her M. Phil. at Deccan College. Deo might be said to represent the ‘‘old school’’ of Indian bead research. Jyotsna is in the generation producing a ‘‘new school,’’ involving several young archaeologists and doctoral candidates, notably