page_title: Ratha
section_title: Remains
hierarchical_section_title: Ratha / History / Remains
caption_attribution_description: Crowd during Rath Yatra in Puri, Orissa, India, whil the idol is being carried up the ramp into his cart.
context_page_description: Ratha is the Indo-Iranian term for a spoked-wheel chariot or a cart of antiquity.
context_section_description: There are a few depictions of chariots among the petroglyphs in the sandstone of the Vindhya range. Two depictions of chariots are found in Morhana Pahar, Mirzapur district. One shows a team of two horses, with the head of a single driver visible. The other one is drawn by four horses, has six-spoked wheels, and shows a driver standing up in a large chariot-box. This chariot is being attacked, with a figure wielding a shield and a mace standing at its path, and another figure armed with bow and arrow threatening its right flank. It has been suggested (Sparreboom 1985:87) that the drawings record a story, most probably dating to the early centuries BC, from some center in the area of the Ganges–Yamuna plain into the territory of still neolithic hunting tribes. The drawings would then be a representation of foreign technology, comparable to the Arnhem Land Aboriginal rock paintings depicting Westerners. The very realistic chariots carved into the Sanchi stupas are dated to roughly the 1st century.
  The earliest Copper-bronze age chariot remains that have been found in India (at Sinauli) have been dated to 1900BCE.There is evidence of wheeled vehicles (especially miniature models) in the Indus Valley Civilization, but not of chariots.
  Indus valley sites have offered several instances of evidence of spoked wheels. Archaeologist B. B. Lal argues that finds of terracotta wheels painted lines (or low relief lines) and similar seals indicate the existence and use of spoked wheel chariots in Harappan Civilization, as showed in the Bhirrana excavations in 2005–06. Bhagwan Singh had made a similar assertion and S.R. Rao had presented evidence of chariots in bronze models from Daimabad (Late Harappan). The archaeologists at Daimabad are not unanimous about the date of the bronzes discovered there. On the basis of the circumstantial evidence, M. N. Deshpande, S. R. Rao and S. A. Sali are of view that these objects belong to the Late Harappan period. Looking at the analysis of the elemental composition of these artifacts, D. P. Agarwal concluded that these objects may belong to the historical period. His conclusion is based on these objects containing more than 1% arsenic, while no arsenical alloying has been found in any other Chalcolithic artifacts.
caption: The Rath Jatra in the Grand Avenue at the Jagannath Temple, Puri, 2007.
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