An Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology v1.c18.s10.2

v1.c18.s10.2

There is no ethnographic record of any tribal group in India producing cave paintings. The tribal people do not accept any direct or indirect relationship with these paintings. When questioned about the authorship of these paintings they invariably answer that the paintings are created by female ghosts on dark nights. Some of them are even afraid of going alone in the painted shelters. We do not find any modern object, such as bicycle, bus, aeroplane and rifle, depicted in the cave paintings though such objects can be seen in the paintings made by tribal people on their houses. It can therefore safely be said that rock paintings are not the creation of present-day tribal people or their immediate ancestors. The inscriptions overlying the figures of the historical period are in Aśokan and Gupta Brāhmī and in *śaṅkha* scripts. Thus the youngest paintings are at least 1500 years old. Many of the historical drawings depict royal processions and battle scenes. Historical data from sites like Vidiśā (BESNAGAR) show that urban life and kingdoms in this area cannot be much earlier than 600 B.C. Thus the earliest limit of the historical paintings can be put around 600 B.C