(Daily News Scan - DNS English) Bhimbetka Rock Shellters
In the ancient times, people had no books, no paper neither did they have any such media to pass on their culture, knowledge or history to others. The only source to preserve their history and existence was paintings. These paintings described a lot about their lifestyle, rituals, and stories of their existence. All these information are collected through excavation which reveal a lot about those times. India has some amazingly rich history in terms of cave paintings and drawings. One such among many of the cave paintings is from the state of Madhya Pradesh. It is the Bhimbetka caves located in the Raisen district near Bhopal.
Bhimbetka caves are located in the foothills of the Vindhya hill range. Most of the speculation about these caves are that right from the late Acheulean period — around 10,000 BCE right up to the late Neolithic period — around 1000 BCE, humans from hominids to homo sapiens, have been present in Bhimbetka.
While the Bhimbetka rock art has not been dated formally, experts have asserted, with some certainty that human settlements have existed in the region uninterrupted since at least 10,000 BCE. The credit to the discovery of these caves goes to Dr V. S. Wakankar in the years 1957-1958. The paintings found inside the caves are one of the oldest around the world. The paintings inside these caves are from the Palaeolithic period to medieval period. The Palaeolithic period or age was the era when humans learnt to make tools and weapons from stones.
These caves are also a part of the UNESCO WORLD HERITAGE SITES.
The Bhimbetka cave derives its name from the epic Mahabharata. It is believed that the Pandavas came to these caves after they were banished from their kingdom. The caves are named after Bhīma one of the 5 Pandavas. Bhimbetka simply means the sitting place of Bhīma.
The Bhimbetka cave illustrates the stories and life of the people belonging to those times. The rock paintings in the cave have numerous layers. Even the high ceilings are covered with paintings. The inside of these caves depict a range of human activities of those times. Hunting inscriptions and paintings depict how the activity itself evolved over time and the weapons used in the process. There are also depictions of dances, burials, social activities like drinking and transportation of dead animals and personalised activities of birth and childcare. Religious symbols like flying chariots, trees as gods and a Nataraja figure holding a Trishul. Worshipping nature could be seen in the Bhimbetka paintings. Many animals like elephant, bison, tiger, and deer and snake paintings can also be seen in the artwork. The paintings also show hunting scenes and war scenes with men carrying weapons like bows, arrows, spears, shields and swords. Some paintings also have simple geometric designs and symbols. The paintings reveal people collecting honey, dancing, decoration of bodies, disguise and animal fights. Most of the social life is depicted in these paintings. The colour scheme of these paintings was mostly dominated by red and white. Various other colours were also used like yellow and green. The colours were prepared by combining manganese, hematite, soft red stone and wooden charcoal. Extracts from the leaves and fat of the animals were also use to make the mixture of the colours.
The paintings found in the rock shelters here have a striking resemblance to the ones discovered in Kakadu National Park in Australia; to the cave paintings of Bushmen in Kalahari Desert and Upper Palaeolithic Lascaux cave paintings in France. Out of the 760 rock shelters, around 500 are decorated with paintings.
