The Rock Shelters and Paintings of Bhimbetka

The rock shelters of Bhimbetka lies 9 km from Obedullaganj city in the Raisen District of Madya Pradesh and 45 km south of Bhopal at the southern edge of the Vindhya hills. The entire area is covered by thick vegetation, natural flora and fauna. It falls inside the Ratapani Wild Life Sanctuary. These rock shelters bears striking resemblance to similar rock art sites such as Kakadu National Park in Australia, the cave paintings of the Bushmen in Kalahari Desert and the Lascaux cave paintings in France.

These rock shelters exhibits the traces of human life on the Indian subcontinent in the beginning of the Stone Age. At least some of the shelters were inhabited by Homo erectus more than 100,000 years age. Some of the Stone Age rock paintings found among the Bhimbetka rock shelters are approximately 30,000 years old. The caves also deliver early evidence of dance. These shelters were declared as UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2003. The name Bhimbetka is associated with Bhima, a hero of the epic Mahabharata. The word Bhimbetka is said to derive from Bhimbaithaka, meaning “Sitting Place of Bhima”.

The rock shelters and caves of Bhimbetka have a large number of paintings. The oldest painings are considered to be 30,000 years old but some of the geometric figures date to as recent as the medieval period. The colors used are vegetable colors which have endured through time because the drawings were generally made deep inside a niche or on inner walls. The drawings and paintings can be classified under seven different periods.

Period I – (Upper Paleolithic): These are linear representations, in green and dark red, of huge figures of animals such as bison, tigers and rhinoceroses.

Period II – (Mesolithic): Comparatively small in size, the stylized figures in this group saw linear decorations on the body. In addition to animals there are human figures and hunting scenes, giving a clear picture of the weapons they used, like barbed spears, pointed sticks, bows and arrows. The depiction of communal dances, birds, musical instruments, mothers and children, pregnant women, men carrying dead animals, drinking and burials appear in rhythmic movement.

Period III – (Chalcolithic): Similar to the paintings of the Chalcolithic, these drawings reveal that during this period the cave dwellers of this area were in contact with the agricultural communities of the Malwa plains, exchanging goods with them.

Period IV & V – (Early historic): The figures of this group have schematic and decorative style and are painted mainly in red, white and yellow. The association is of riders, depiction of religious symbols, tunic like dresses and the existence of scripts of different periods. The religious beliefs are represented by figures of yakshas (a broad class of nature spirits), tree gods and magical sky chariots.

Period VI & VII – (Medieval): These paintings are geometric linear and more schematic, but they show degeneration and crudeness in their artistic style. The colors used by the cave dwellers were prepared by combining manganese, hematite and wooden coal.

One rock, popularly referred to as “Zoo Rock”, depicts elephants, sambar, bison 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 shields also find their place in the community of these pre-historic paintings. In one of the caves, a bison is shown in pursuit of a hunter while his two companions appear to stand helplessly nearby; in another some horsemen are seen along with archers.

In one painting, a large wild boar is seen. It is not known whether such large boars existed that time or humans drew it with enlarged scale.