The Hazaribagh District originally covered the entire North Chotanagpur
Division, or the entire plateau of Hazaribagh, which is the northern tract
of the massif divided by the Damodar river from east to west, with the
Ranchi plateau lying to the south. Today the region is part of the new
tribal state of Jharkhand (meaning Forest Land).
This is an area rich in Palaeolithic deposits. Acheulian type stone tools such as hand axes and blades, habitation sites, Mesolithic rock art, Neolithic sites, Megaliths and Dolmens, Copper and Iron sites, rivers that are considered sacred such as the Damodar, and hundreds of sacred groves (sarna). The entire region is wrapped in saal (Shorea robusta) forests, throughout the cold months blanketed in mist and ground frost , in the Indian spring festooned with a burst of forest blossom the likes of which is seen nowhere in India.
