GONDWANA  , the

historical name for a large tract of hilly country in India which roughly corresponds with the greater part of the present Central Provinces . It is derived from the aboriginal tribe of Gonds, who still form the largest element in the population and who were at one time the ruling power . From the 12th to as late as the 18th century three or four Gond dynasties reigned over this region with a degree of civilization that seems surprising when compared with the existing condition of the people . They built large walled cities, and accumulated immense treasures of gold and silver and jewels . On the whole, they maintained their independence fairly well against the Mahommedans, being subject only to a nominal submission and occasional payment of tribute . But when the Mahratta invaders appeared, soon after the beginning of the 18th century, the Gond kingdoms offered but a feeble resistance and the aboriginal population fled for safety to the hills . Gondwana was thus included in the dominions of the Bhonsla raja of Nagpur, from whom it finally passed to the British in 1853 . The Gonds, who call themselves Koitur or " highlanders," are the most numerous tribe of Dravidian race in India . Their total number in 1901 was 2,286,913, of whom nearly two millions were enumerated in the Central Provinces, where they form 20% of the population . They have a language of their own, with many dialects, which is intermediate between the two great Dravidian languages, Tamil and Telugu . It is unwritten and has no literature, except a little provided by the missionaries . More than half the Gonds in the Central Provinces have now abandoned their own dialects, and have adopted Aryan forms of speech .

This indicates the extent to which they have become Hinduized . The higher class among them, called Raj Gonds, have been definitely admitted into

Hinduism as a pure cultivating caste; but the great majority still retain the animistic beliefs, ceremonial observances and impure customs of food which are common to most of the aboriginal tribes of India .