Barselas of Mandi

Below the main Indra market area of Mandi, lies a courtyard filled with old stone memorial markers. It can be hard to find between the mazelike paths close to the river.

In the old state of Mandi (now in modern day Himachal Pradesh), the death of rajas (kings) was commemorated with tall, narrow, flat stone markers called Barselas. The stones vary in height but share a common format: The area at the top represents either the raja’s palace or an iconic image of a Mandir or religious building. Directly underneath is an image of the monarch himself. The area underneath the raja marked his wives, concubines and female slaves who performed sati or ritual self-immolation at the raja’s cremation[1]. This area is so significant that the markers are sometimes called Sati stones. The area at the very bottom carries an image of the raja’s horse.

You can also find a few monuments to ranis (queens) and some modern structures as well. A sign near the structures briefly describes their history and importance. Other signs warn onlookers not to deface the barselas, but paint from recent religious ceremonies are clearly visible on some of the stones. Residents routinely use the area to hang laundry and children play in the yard, climbing over the barselas to amuse themselves. Many stones are partially buried under pavement.

Three of the barselas bear inscriptions in an interesting proto-Gurmukhi script. In general, these barselas began during the time of Hari Sen in 1662 AD. We know that Takri was used in this area at that time (and only stopped after the area became part of India). But these inscriptions are different from other Takri samples of that time. Although they contain some elements of Takri, some of the character resemble Sharda or maybe even other branches of the Brahmi family of written scripts. Gurmukhi (modern Punjabi) characters are most prevalent in these examples and only a few letters clearly come from the Devnagri (modern Hindi) branch. Notably different from all common scripts of its time, the letters are written separately — not joined by a top line. A literature search uncovered very few academic works on the written scripts of the Mandi (or the neighboring Kangra) region and nothing on this particular style of writing.

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[1] The Sati tradition existed before the time of the Barselas. Historical accounts demonstrate that the women did not always comply and were physically restrained or drugged before being put on the cremation fire. Several older works describe how women tried to escape their fate but would be repeatedly thrown back into the flames. The British ended these customs which violated human rights standards, such as thugi ritual murders.