Cave art , Rock Art , Rock Painting or Frescoes in whatever name we may call it, undoubtedly it is  the earliest form of humanity’s artistic, cognitive, symbolic and aesthetic behavior. And Odisha is fortunate enough to have the greatest repository of this ancient, rightfully pre-historic form of art and sculpture.

‘Rock art’ or Rock Painting refers to paintings and engraving done on walls of caves,  rock shelters, isolated rock boulders and bare formation. These are the earliest written and visual document of the mankind and a very powerful means of expressing ancient artistic sophistication. These oldest form of art are found abundantly across the World except Antarctica. Thousands of rock shelters with murals and engraving have been found in South Africa, Australia, North America, South America, Europe and Asia. In India itself thousands of sites have been discovered with the first of its kind’s discovery in 1856 by Henwood. India is one among the three countries with largest concentration of rock art and spearheading the research on frescoes as well. The artistic description of Altamira ‘s spear- stabbed wild boar, picture of mighty ox and arrow hurt deer of  Yogi Math are notably the best.

Odisha has a rich repository of rock and cave art in the form of pictographs, inscription and petroglyphs (engravings). In Odisha the cave arts are called Lekhamoda. The literal meaning of Lekha is Drawing or Writing and Moda means Shelter. The frescos of Odisha dates back to as early as the Paleolithic to Historic times. Some of them are as old as millennium years when some are as new as of 8th/9th century AD although not easier to determine their age. The first ever cave art discovery in Odisha was made by K P Jaiswal in 1933 at Vikramkhol, Jharsuguda district. Since then many expedition have been conducted and many sites have been discovered. So far 106 fresco locality have been discovered and most sites come from Sundargarh district alone. And half of the total sites discovered  are located in the rugged hills of Western highland of the state. It might be due to  the geographical and atmospheric suitability.  As most of the sites are far from coastal belt, they may have survived thousand years of corrosion and erosion and still remained intact to tell the story of human mind and it’s creativity. However the recent discovery of cave and rock art sites deep inside the Chandaka Sanctuary may be showing a different shade of the story.

Image Credit – ResearchGate
Fresco sites can be found dispersed across the geography of Odisha. Out of 30 districts of Odisha, 23 districts have rock art sites. Some of the most important sites are Vikramkhol and Ulafgarh of Jharsuguda, GuDAhandi and Yogimath of Kalahandi, Ushakothi and Manikmoda of Sundargarh, Pakhana Pathar of Mayurbhanj, Sitabinji of Keonjhar etc. The latest expedition by Sambalpur University finds as much as 52 murals which is the largest ever cave art discovery in India.

Vikramkhol, Jharsuguda

The first fresco site discovered in Odisha

It is the first ever frescoe site in Odisha to get discovered. Vikramkhol is situated in the Jharsuguda district of Odisha. The site contains one rock shelter of 11 X 2.11 mtr where many paintings and engravings with numerous dots, lines, geometric shape and patterns, human foot prints, image of snakes and animals can be seen. The most significant one is the Yoni Chitra (Vaginal picture). The inscriptions are written using red  Ochre paint and then engraved with sharp cutting tools. According to K P Jaiswal, the discoverer of the place,  the rock art of Vikramkhol is the earliest form of scripts and calligraphy. He asserted that these inscriptions represent a picto syllabic writing system . In fact, some of the signs engraved in the sites ,more or less, look like fonts. And the drawing pattern are from right to left and some ligature (Sayuktakshar) can also be seen which make the claim more evident. Even some scholars find similarity of the signs with the ancient Brahmi and Harappan scripts . However some scholars like Richard Solomon and C L Fabri depicted it as a nonliterate rock carvings and rock art.

Travel Tips
 

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Vikromkhol is situated inside the Reserve Forest of Belpahar at a distance of 12 km from Belpahar town, Jharsuguda. The nearest railway sation is at Belpahar and nearest airport is Veer Surendra Sai Airport Jharsuguda. The tourister can reach Vikramkhol by hiring private vehicles from Jharsuguda or Belpahar. And the adventurous part is that you have to trek for a kilometer onto the place from the nearby village- Teteyabahal. As the place is surrounded by deep forest, it is suitable to visit during day light only and touristers are advised to take food and water with them but not to litter the place.

Ulafgarh, Jharsuguda

It is another significant rock art shelter of Jharsuguda district of Odisha. The place is located at a distance of about 7 kms north-west of Belpahar and 2 kms east of the village Ulap. Both paintings and engravings of pre-historic times can be seen here. Out of the total frescoes two thirds are paintings and rest are engravings. As per archeologists, this place was used as a dwelling unit by the pre-historic man. Red and white colours were being used extensively for drawing and in few instance yellow colour was also used in murals. The paintings and engraving mostly consists of geometric designs like triangles, straight lines and some non-geometric designs like broom or rough brush strokes, zigzags, honey combs, ladder, wheels etc. No murals of human being or animals are found. However, in engravings the parts of human body like palm, female genital motif, paws etc can be seen. On observation it is clearly visible that more importance was given to the lines over and above other pictorial motifs.

Due to environmental degradation, unmindfull mining activities in the surroundings, and exposure of the picture panel directly to the sun and water streaming over the panel during rainy season led the treasure trove, on the brink of fading out. Shoot marks can be seen due to cooking activities by the picnickers and forest officials right at the rock shelter also caused lot of damage. Immediate action should be taken by the Local administration as well as Forest Dept to preserve the archelogical site of priceless importance. ……. IT’S A SINCERE REQUEST TO THE PUBLIC AT LARGE, NOT TO VANDALISE THE PLACE AND KINDLY DON’T PUT ANY GRAPHITI ON THE ART SITE. IT IS OUR HERITAGE _OUR PRIDE.

Gudahandi, Kalahandi

Discovered in 1950 by Archeologist Satya Narayan Rajguru

Gudahandi frescoe site is situated in the Ampani reserve forest at a distance of 20 kms from Koksara town. Due to direct exposure to sun and wind the motifs are not in good condtion. Red, Blue and Black colours were used in paintings. Here one motif of humanbeing is discovered. Beside humanoid, some geometrical designs of squares and rectangles, circular wheel with spoke and horse shoe and replica of deer are significant. However, thematic description is absent in the paintings. On the basis of the art style and colour compositions, the paintings can be assigned to the early historical period.