An Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology v2.c38.165

v2.c38.165

the people who erected them, and he found an explanation of the phenomena encountered by him in the rites of cremation and post-cremation prescribed in the Vedas. On the basis of this hypothesis he identified the gold female figure as Pṛthvī, the earth-goddess, and ascribed the mounds to a pre-Mauryan age. After him the mounds came to be known rather loosely as Vedic burials mounds.