Rock Art

Rock art - cave paintings, petroglyphs, cupules, and engravings - is a significant topic in the IJA corpus, with studies covering sites across Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, the Tirumala hills, Iran, and Mizoram. The journal has published one major encyclopaedic survey (rock paintings of Chitrakoot, Vol 2, No. 2) along with a series of site-specific reports.

Key Sites

• Chitrakoot, Uttar Pradesh - the largest rock art survey in the corpus; Vijay Kumar’s encyclopaedic study demonstrates that nearly every prominent hill with a spring has painted rock shelters nearby; Chitrakoot literally means “painted hills”
• Likhichhaj - rock shelters with paintings; analysed for style, subject-matter, and cultural period
• Honnenahalli, South Karnataka - newly discovered cupule site; cupules (cup-shaped depressions) are among the earliest known forms of human rock modification
• Rithi Ranjana (Soaner Taluk, Nagpur, Maharashtra) - cupules found at an excavated site, linking the rock art tradition to the Iron Age settlement (Nihildas N’s larger study of the site)
• Bargarh, Odisha - five rock shelters with engravings discovered in Bindhyabasini and Barapahad hills; some have cultural debris
• Tiran, Isfahan Province, Iran - petroglyphs at Barzgaleh, Ahmad Reza spring, and Qomishloo; comparative material outside the Indian subcontinent
• Tirumala Hills (near Chandragiri Fort) - red and white painted ceiling of a cap-stone megalith; connects rock art and megalithic traditions
• Vangchhia, Mizoram - menhirs with associated petroglyphs; living tradition
• Kamrup District, Assam - rock-cut Ganesha images; post-prehistoric tradition
• Kargil District, Jammu - rock-cut sculptures at Kartse Chamba, Byama Khumbu, Mulbek Chamba, Apati, Drass, Sani and Muni & Sumda
• Gurh Tehsil, Rewa District, Madhya Pradesh - 10 rock art sites discovered; two historical cave sites; cave temple at Khaira village
• Tapka (Sonbhadra, U.P.) - newly discovered painted rock shelter 20 km southeast of Robertsganj, reported in Vol 11, No. 1

Key Findings

1. Chitrakoot as a rock art landscape (Vol 2, No. 2): Vijay Kumar’s comprehensive survey establishes that rock art at Chitrakoot is not isolated but is systematically distributed in relation to water sources, suggesting that springs and rock-paintings together constituted sacred landscape nodes in prehistoric cosmology.
2. Cupules as earliest art (Vols. 3 and 4): The Honnenahalli and Rithi Ranjana cupule studies contribute to the increasingly recognised importance of cupules as the oldest class of deliberate rock modification in India.
3. Megalithic painters at Tirumala (Vol 4, No. 4): The painted cap-stone megalith in the Tirumala hills connects the southern megalithic cultural complex to a pictorial tradition, suggesting that megalithic communities used red and white pigment art in funerary contexts.
4. Mandana art and rock art continuity (Vol 9, No. 3): The ethno-archaeological study of Mandana floor and wall art among Meena communities in the Chambal basin demonstrates stylistic and conceptual continuities between living folk art traditions and prehistoric rock paintings.
5. Rock-cut Ganesha in Assam (Vol 7, No. 4): The rock-cut Ganesha images in Kamrup district extend the pan-Indian tradition of rock-cut religious imagery into the Brahmaputra valley.
6. Iranian comparative material (Vol 4, No. 4): The Tiran petroglyphs are included as comparative material for understanding the wider western Asian rock art traditions that may have connections with northwestern Indian prehistoric imagery.

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