A History of Agriculture in India v1.c13.s2: Cave Paintings

A History of Agriculture in India v1.c13.s2

Language: English

Cave Paintings

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The best evidence of the life and activities of the Mesolithic man lies in the paintings in cave-shelters. Numerous painted cave-shelters have been located in India. Haematite paintings on rock-shelters situated near Singanpur, in the Raigarh District, Orissa, represent hunting-scenes and dances with masked figures, resembling those at Cogul in Spain. One of them depicts kangaroos, animals now restricted to Australia. Representations of horse and deer in Singanpur cave-shelters are very much like the Spanish drawings of the same age. Rock engravings at Ghatsila, in the Singhbhum District, Bihar, are remarkable for their Australian character. According to Mitra, these facts point to the existence of an ancient Indo-Australian culture extending from the upper Palaeolithic to the Neolithic.

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Cockburn discovered numerous painted cave-shelters in the Kaimur ranges in the Mirzapur District in Uttar Pradesh. Here, hunting scenes show men, armed with harpoons having stone shaftheads, attacking rhinoceroses. These paintings may be attributed to the end of the Palaeolithic period. In the Bellary District, more than 20 groups of animal drawings and hunting-scenes with men armed with javelins and shields are painted in cave-shelters.

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The most exciting discoveries of the Stone Age paintings are from Madhya Pradesh, and the scholar who discovered them is V. S. Wakankar. A group of fantastic rocks on the northern fringe of the Vindhyas facing the plains of Malwa could be seen from Obaidullaganj, about 42 kilometres from Bhopal, in the Raisen District of Madhya Pradesh. They are called Bhimbetaka, or the seat of Bhima (Fig. 37). Wakankar first saw them in 1957, but started the study of their paitings and stone tools in 1972. There are 754 rock-shelters, out of which more than 500 have paintings. Apart from Bhimbetaka, there are cave paintings at Bhopal, Jaora, Raisen, Kharwai, Narwar, Chhoti-Badi Dant, Pachmarhi, and Modi in the Mandsaur District, in Madhya Pradesh.

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The floor of one of the caves at Bhimbetaka was dug (Fig. 38). At the lowest level, pebble tools of the Soān type were found, followed by Acheulian hand-axes. Above them were middle Palaeolithic (30,000 to 100,000 B.P.) cherts and jaspers, followed by the upper Palaeolithic non-geometrical microliths, in which blades and burins were prominent. The next layer relates to the Mesolithic Period (10,000 to 7,000 B.P.) in which geometrical microliths and bone tools were found.

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Wakankar has classified the drawings and paintings into seven different periods. Out of them, the first three are tentatively dated as follows: Period I — Terminal upper Palaeolithic 20,000 to 10,000 years B.P. Period II — Mesolithic 10,000 to 4,000 years B.P. Period III — Chalcolithic 4,000 to 2,500 years B.P.

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Period I. The earliest paintings at Bhimbetaka are green and dark red. The green ones are fine outline drawings of dancers and hunters. The paintings fall into two groups. One group, possibly earlier, consists of drawings of elephants, wild cattle, boars, tigers, rhinoceroses, etc.

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Period II. The subject-matter of the second, and possibly of the later group, is more varied, and the drawings are small. Some of them portray hunting-scenes. Animals shown are wild cattle, elephant, tiger, wild boar, deer, antelope and birds. The hunting-weapons include barbed spears, pointed sticks, bows and arrows. It is rarely that the drawings are truly realistic, but sometimes the artists succeeded remarkably in capturing the natural grace of the animals.

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What is the purpose of this art in which animals figure so prominently? It seems it was magico-religious to ensure good hunting. Representations of large animals in strategically situated rock-shelters, such as the horned bull of Kanwala, boar, tiger, rhinoceros, fish, tortoise and mythical bull from Bhimbetaka, buffalo and elephant of Adamgarh, bull from Ramgudiwar

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| 1500 B. C. | | | | Neolithic Polished stone implements from Burzahom, Kashmir Valley |
| 2000 B. C. | | | | |
| 3000 B. C. | | | | Microlithic tools from Birbhanpur |
| 5000 B. C. | | | | |
| 10,000 B. C. | | | | Mesolithic Middle Stone Age Tools from Tapti Valley |
| 20,000 B. C. | | | | |
| 300,000 B. C. | | | | Palaeolithic Chopping tools from Bilaspur, Himachal Pradesh |
| 500,000 B. C. | | | | |

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Fig. 39. Stone-tool types from the Palaeolithic to the Neolithic age

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Talkoli of Badami, and elephant of Edakal caves, do indicate that these animals were deified and were painted oversize to create a feeling of awe in the spectators.

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The Mesolithic paintings are red. They depict hunting-scenes and are marked by vigour. The human figures are elongated and are shown holding bows, arrows and barbed harpoons, surrounding their quarry, deer in this case. In a corner, a group of men are shown fleeing from an attacking rhinoceros, while one of them is climbing a tree. Men are naked or wear a skirt of leaves or bark (Fig. 45). Resemblance with the Spanish cave paintings from Cueva de Val del Charco del Agua Amarga is obvious.

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A cave painting from Bhimbetaka shows a device which the cave-dwellers adopted for hunting. They used to scare herds of deer standing on rocks, with a steep fall below. In a painting deer are shown falling into a chasm from a ledge. The carcasses of dead or wounded deer were collected and eaten after roasting on fire.

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Wakankar published a group of paintings from Bhimbetaka which depict the activities and the social life of these hunters and food-gatherers. Two paintings depict love-making. Another shows a pregnant woman, and yet another the birth of a child, who is depicted between the legs of the mother. There is a charming group of children frolicking. There are Fig. 41. Mesolithic painting from a cave-shelter at Bhimbetaka. Herds of *cheetal*, wild buffaloes and cattle are shown Fig. 47. African birds and animals in Mesolithic cave-paintings from Madhya Pradesh: top, a giraffe Bhimbetaka; middle, ostriches, Bazar Cave, Pachmarhi; bottom, giraffes, Adamgarh cave-shelter, near Hoshangabad

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Fig. 33a. Adamgarh rock-shelters near Hoshangabad, Madhya Pradesh. These cave-shelters were occupied by Palaeolithic and Mesolithic hunters. The lower levels yielded palaeoliths, and the upper microliths

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Fig. 33b. Detail of a cave-shelter at Adamgarh. The overhanging rock provided shelter to hunters against inclement weather. The roof is painted with hunting-scenes

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Fig. 34. Microliths from Birbhanpur, District Burdwan, near the Damodar Valley, West Bengal, 4000 B.C. They include blades, lunates, points and borers and burins (Courtesy: Archaeological Survey of India)

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Fig. 35. A mesolithic scene. A man is shooting an arrow tipped with a sharp microlith at an antelope. The other is throwing on a deer a spear tipped with a sharpened stone (Reconstruction from the Museum of Evolution of Life, Chandigarh)

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Fig. 36. Toys from Mohen-jo-daro, depicting a variety of dogs (After Mackay)

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Fig. 37. Cave-shelters at Bhimbetaka, near Bhopal, Raisen District, Madhya Pradesh. The walls and roofs of cave-shelters have paintings dating from the Mesolithic to the early historic period

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Fig. 38. Interior of the cave at Bhimbetaka. This cave has been in occupation since Palaeolithic times, as is evidenced by the discovery of Acheulian tools from the lowermost layer

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Fig. 40. A rock-shelter at Bhimbetaka. The roof is painted with figures of gaur, deer, sambhar, etc. (Courtesy: A.P. Khatri)

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Fig. 42a. A gaur from a cave painting at Bhimbetaka

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Fig. 42b. A buffalo-bull—a Mesolithic painting from a cave-shelter at Bhimbetaka

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Fig. 43. Chronological and stylistic development of rock-painting in India (After V.S. Wakankar)

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Fig. 44. Life in the Mesolithic age at Bhimbetaka : 1, amorous couples; 2, pregnant women; 3, the birth of a child; 4, child-rearing; 5, children playing; 6, initiation of a child; 7, cure by magic; 8, ceremony for the dead; 9, the burial of a child, and a family in mourning (After V.S. Wakankar)

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paintings showing the agony of the family members for the dead. The last one depicts the burial ceremony of a dead child and the grief of the parents (Fig. 44). The brevity of expression is truly modern in spirit. With a few lines, so much is conveyed.

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Most interesting are the paintings of wild animals. It is the roofs of rock-shelters which have such paintings in white paint (Fig. 40). The animals depicted are herds of deer, *neelgai*, *sambhar*, *gaur*, buffalo, wild boar, rhinoceros, tiger and elephant (Fig. 41). The gaur-bull with its enormous horns is shown charging (Fig. 42a) and the buffalo-bull with its uplifted tail seems to be in a fighting mood (Fig. 42 b). These paintings show many features in common with rock paintings in the Tassili-n' Ajjer mountains in the Sahara. Not that there is any genetic relationship between the painters. The paintings show how the human mind works in parallel lines in a particular period of human development.

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Now I mention some extraordinary paintings from the cave-shelters of Madhya Pradesh. In the Bazar Cave at Pachmarhi, ostriches are depicted. I have already referred to the discovery of decorated ostrich egg-shells from Maharashtra. It is interesting to see these birds, now restricted to [Figure: EARLY MESOLITHIC PAINTING पुराणमध्याश्म युगीन चित्र . BHIM III-F-35/B]

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[Figure: Fig. 45. A Mesolithic painting from Bhimbetaka. Hunters armed with bows, arrows and spears are chasing game. Human figures are elongated to show rhythmic action (After V.S. Wakankar)]

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Africa, depicted in a cave-shelter in India (Fig. 47, middle). Giraffes, whose fossils have been recovered from the Pleistocene deposits in the Siwalik Hills, are also depicted in cave-shelters at Bhimbetaka and Adamgarh. A man with a bow is shooting an arrow at a giraffe (Fig. 47, bottom).

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A word about the age of the rock paintings. Potteries can be dated by 14carbon method. In some cases, the designs on Chalcolithic-Neolithic pots closely resemble those in some cave paintings. From Modi in the Mandsaur District, a site which had 60 painted rock-shelters, the majority of which have been submerged under the waters of the Gandhi Sagar Dam, Wakankar discovered a painted stone piece and a heap of haematite granules from Mesolithic levels. Thus the date of the painting was established to be that of the Mesolithic period.

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There is another significant discovery from Patne in the Ajanta Hill range of Maharashtra. There, S. L. Sali found decorated ostrich egg-shells. The shells were decorated with parallel cross-hatching and concentric circle engravings. At Bhimbetaka, bone engravings of similar designs as well as of bone tools have been obtained from the upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic levels.

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The rock-paintings at Bhimbetaka, which are green, are earliest on the basis of superimposition and can be attributed to the upper Palaeolithic period. After this period, the green colour has never been used, though there are a few exceptions, such as a group of flower-vase paintings in one cave, which belong to the Gupta period. The green in these later-period drawings is quite different from the earliest group in which it is much darker and tallies with the green nodules found in the upper Palaeolithic levels at Bhimbetaka.

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Apart from the colour of the paints, it is the style which is the surest guide to the age of paintings. In the case of cave paintings, some difficulty arises, as the paintings of the living tribals also resemble them. However, this resemblance is only superficial. An expert eye can easily distinguish the recent from the ancient. The Palaeolithic and the Mesolithic paintings have a vigour and verve which is not matched by the present-day tribal painting.

A History of Agriculture in India v1.c13.s2: Cave Paintings

Cave Paintings

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