India’s oldest World Heritage site
Vinaya Kumar

Of the 24 World Heritage sites declared by the Unesco in India, the rock paintings of Bhimbetka are the oldest, having been dated from anything to 10,000 years and upwards… It is a veritable museum of the evolution of civilisation in India. To quote the Unesco report, “As you walk from cave to cave, and down the ages from when Meso went Neo and historic man appeared, you see the art alter from naturalistic-abstract-royal-and… finally… to religious. Man initially passive, turns dancer, hunter, warrior and homemaker. All that was missing were the gods, until Shiva was drawn onto the rock with his trademark trident. And that the cavemen continued to draweth past evolution, right to the birth of the homo sapiens and history is easy to see. The drawing stopped only when writing evolved. The Golden Age of the Guptas is writ upon these cave walls in the Ashokan and Gupta Brahmi script.

Bhimbetka is a group of hills in the foothills of the Vindhyan plateau of Madhya Pradesh. Tradition avers, that it got its name from Bhima, one of the five heroes in The Maharbharata and as he had sat down on these hills, they were named as Bhim-ka-Bait (where Bhim sat down), which became in the course of centuries Bhimbetka. The first mention of Bhimbetka in the reports of the Archaeological Survey of India comes in 1888, when it is mentioned as a Buddhist site. Then 70 years later came the dawn for Bhimbetka, when the renowned archaeologist R.S.Wakankar travelled through the area. Wakankar had researched in the famous Altamira caves of Spain and France with their heritage of cave paintings by European tribals thousands of years ago. As the train sped through the hilly terrrain of Madhya Pradesh, it struck Wakankar that this location was very similar to the areas he had seen in Europe. Intrigued, he returned with a group of trained assistants and what he found in the caves of Bhimkpetka was astounding. The rock shelters and caves had several interesting paintings and depicted in a very vivid way, the life of the people living in those caves and the natural environment around them. According to a guidebook, “A rock, popularly called as “Zoo Rock” depicts pictures of elephants, bisons and deer. Paintings on another rock show a peacock, a snake, a deer and the sun. On another rock, two elephants with tusks are painted. Hunting scenes with hunters carrying bows, arrows, swords and shield also find their place in the comity of these pre-historic paintings. In one of the caves, a bison has been shown in pursuit of a hunter while his two companions stand helplessly nearby! In another some horsemen are seen along with some archers”.

Since 1958, more than 700 such shelters have been identified, of which 243 are in the Bhimbetka group and 178 in the nearby Lakha Juar group. According to the archaelolgists, the caves must have been inhabited for over 1,00,000 years. The paintings are largely found on the ceilings and walls of the caves and on the rock face. The oldest of them are said to be about 12,000 years old, while others are as recent as 1,000 years old.

As by carbon dating, the animal drawings are all in white, which suggests they are 5,000 years old. Those in red are dated at 8000 BC. And the striped outlines are just 2,000 years old.

Each scene of stick figures is about a foot high. According to the information available at the site, the cavemen probably used brushes made from twigs to execute their work. The colours available were extremely limited. Red and white was the norm. Yellow and green colours are apparent in a few caves. But these colours were probably not as durable as the standard red or white because the flowers and other subjects etched in yellow and green are hardly visible. The colours that have stained these walls were derived from magnesium, red stone, charcoal, plant extracts and haematite.

The cultural traditions of the inhabitants of the 21 villages adjacent to the site bear a strong resemblance to those represented in the rock paintings. In 2003, Unesco declared the rock paintings of Bhimpetka as one of the World Heritage sites. As it is, only 12 of the caves are open to the tourists and as there is no accommodation for visitors in Bhimbetka (45 km from Bhopal), as of now the tourist groups have to depend on a day visit based from Bhopal.

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