Early India and Pakistan to Ashoka c9.2

c9.2

B Y WAY OF PREFACE to this chapter, it may be recalled that the term 'megalith' is derived from the Greek words *megas*=large and *lithos*=stone. It is applied primarily to structures of a rudimentary character built wholly or partly of large rough stones, but includes comparable structures of a more sophisticated kind in which the stones may be crudely or even, as at Stonehenge, elaborately dressed. A secondary condition is that the monument fulfilled a funerary or commemorative or religious function.