[INDOLOGY] mallakhamb and agricultural pole climbing rituals

[patrick mccartney]

Dear Friends,

Earlier today, I stumbled across this website for the Diu Beach Games and
its curious HISTORY OF MALLAKHAMB section.

>>Mallakhamb, often lauded as the mother of ancient Indian sports, boasts
elusive origins, with references found in the Ramayana, Chandraketugarh
pottery (2nd-1st century BCE), and accounts of Chinese pilgrims. The
12th-century text Manasollasa marks its earliest literary mention, penned
by Chalukya king Someshvara III.<<
https://diubeachgames.com/Mallakhamb.html

*My first query is about the Ramayana mentioned above. Might anyone know of
the particular section that this could be referring to?*

*My second query relates to the Chandraketugarh pottery. Might anyone have
more resources regarding this image? Focused or tangential?*

This image is the Chandraketugarh pottery mentioned above, which clearly
has two wrestlers acting as 'grammatical pillars' while the focus of the
scene are the 'acrobats' who are hanging off of the pole that is being held
up by another 'acrobat.' I don't know if this pot counts as either a
'ritual pot' or simply a decorative pot that a wealthy city dweller might
have had. My suspicion is that this scene depicts the merry-making
kṛīḍa (Panini
VI, 2. 74; IV, 2. 57 and Vatsyayana I, 4.42) from seasonal agricultural /
fertility festivals. Perhaps it is in some way linked to the Śabarotsava?
To give more context my basic query relates to agricultural festivals and
pole climbing rituals.

[image: Screen Shot 2024-09-06 at 12.33.15.png]

Thank you,


Patrick McCartney
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