Chhabeela Chhattisgarh IX: Pre-historic Cave Paintings

Few years back I had been to Bhimbekta near Bhopal and found these oldest surviving paintings in caves there. Being a world heritage site, the premises at Bhimbetka is well preserved and paintings well documented. Earlier this year I discovered similar paintings in Chhattisgarh but in a dilapidated state, most of them covered with modern graffiti with young couples trying to immortalize their love on stone. Presence of pre-historic caves with paintings indicates that this area has been inhabited for a very long time, and has a continued cultural tradition. Like most other archeological heritage in the country, British discovered these caves in the early 20th century and started documenting them. 

Tourism department’s literature lists about 22 sites in Chhattisgarh with pre-historic cave paintings. We visited only two of them – Ongna and Kabra Pahad. Kabra Pahad is very close to Raigarh city while Ongna is about 70 odd kms from here. There is no proper access way to both these caves. You have to negotiate your way through the vegetation and stones. In fact we visited Ongna after it was dark. Thankfully we had some locals helping us reach the caves, otherwise it would have been difficult to locate the cave. Ongna’s paintings were better preserved than Kabra Pahad that actually is a tall, wall like stone and you wonder how the painters painted in the first place and then how the graffiti makers rose to those heights.

Some of the motif that I could make out in both the caves were:

Ongna:

Humped Bull, groups of humped bulls

Geometrical Human Figures – some of them with tall headgear

Dancing groups

Kabra Pahad:

Bisons

Tortoise

Other animals – probably Deer & Pig

A lizard

A chakra

Geometric Human Figures

At Ongna, paintings have been done over paintings that mean the same surface has been used by many generations to express their creativity. I could not see it on site, but a close examination of some of the photograph shows a lower layer painted in white and an upper layer painted in red. You see the same very clearly at Bhimbetka, where the first painting is subdued and the colored used on the next layer of painting are darker. The colors used in paintings are primarily deep red or Gerua both at Ongna and Kabra Pahad.

If you look at the drawings closely, you would see that the way we draw has not changed, and may be till about a 100 years ago the subjects of drawings had also not changed much, at least for the rural folks. Even the modern wall murals in the state seem to be inspired from these figures. 

Are we at the verge of disconnecting with our past suddenly? Are we about to loose our identity in a bid to be global citizens?