Newfound Jain sites in Tamilnadu,

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Newfound Jain sites

 

T.S. Subramanian

 

Rock art, Jaina beds, dolmens near Gingee

 

†" Photo courtesy: K.T. Gandhirajan

 

SIGNIFICANT FIND: Jaina beds found in a cavern near Vadagal in Gingee

taluk of Villupuram district.

 

CHENNAI: Over the last three months, two rock art sites, two caverns

with Jaina beds, and dolmens have been discovered within a radius of

25 km on the hillocks behind the Gingee fort in Tamil Nadu’s

Villupuram district.

 

Members of the team that found the sites, said the discovery of Jaina

beds confirmed the earlier view that present-day Villupuram district

was once a prominent centre of Jainism. The presence of the rock art

sites and dolmens showed that the area had been under continuous human

occupation for 3,000 years, they added.

 

On June 1, K.T. Gandhirajan, an explorer who specialises in art

history, T. Ramesh, a researcher in archaeology, and others found a

big cavern with Jaina beds and rock art on a hillock called Pancha

Pandavar Kal, near Vadagal village in Gingee taluk.

 

The hillock, located 15 km behind the Gingee fort, forms part of a

chain of hills in the area. The team found a series of Jaina beds on

the floor of the cavern and pre-historic paintings on the boulder

surface opposite the beds.

 

“The beds are of primitive nature. They are not evolved. They are

about 2,000 years old,†said Mr. Gandhirajan.

 

Raised “pillows†had been hewn out of the rock-floor at one end of the

beds. Channels were cut to drain out rainwater from the beds or the

floor was scooped out to collect rainwater.

 

The rock art consists of a painting of a deer done in white kaolin

with outlines in red ochre.

 

“This is really rare,†Mr. Gandhirajan said. While this figure of a

deer is about 3 feet by 3 feet in size, there are tiny drawings of

deer and lizard (udu mbu in Tamil) on the adjacent rock surface, as if

to contra-distinguish their size. He estimated that the paintings

might belong to circa 1000 B.C.

 

“These paintings were done by pre-historic men †" by hunter-gatherers

who used to live in this cavern. Much later, the Jain monks occupied

them,†Mr. Gandhirajan said.

Earlier finds

 

Three months earlier, the team found about a dozen port-holed dolmens

on a hill near Devadanampettai, on the way to Tirukovilur, about 15 km

from the Gingee fort. While most of the dolmens were found disturbed,

a few were intact.

 

About 2 km away, the team discovered a small rock art site, with

drawings in white kaolin of marching men or men with raised hands.

 

About 25 days ago, Mr. Ramesh and Mr. Gandhirajan found 11 Jaina beds

on a hill near Kanchiyur village, 28 km from Gingee.

 

According to T. Arun Raj, Deputy Superintending Archaeologist,

Archaeological Survey of India, Chennai Circle, Jaina beds had been

discovered recently at Thirunarungkondai near Ulundurpet,

Paraiyanpattu and Melkudalur. There are remains of the structural

Jaina temples at Tirunarungkondai, Melsithamur and Thondur near

Tindivanam and Melmalayanur near Tiruvannamalai. All these places are

in Villupuram district.

 

On the hill at Sirukadambur, there is a bas-relief of 24 Jaina

tirthankaras. “Adjacent to this, we have an inscription about a Jaina

monk who went on a fast-unto-death. This inscription belongs to the

transitional period from Tamil-Brahmi to Vattezuthu,†he said.

 

There are rock art sites in the district at Sethavarai and Kizhvalavu.

 

“In addition to these relics of Jainism, we have now discovered these

Jaina beds in two places. All this show that the present-day

Villupuram district was a prominent centre of Jainism,†Mr. Arun Raj said.

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PICTURES: K.T. GANDHIRAJAN AND P. MANIVANNAN

The discovery of rock art, dating back to 2000 B.C., in Tamil Nadu offers a peek into history.

Four men, bound by a passion for exploration

and art history, arrived at Puliyankandi village near Aliyar in

Coimbatore district, Tamil Nadu, in the second week of May. The

apparent aim was to conduct a workshop on the art and heritage of the

Nilgiris for tribal children. Of particular interest to the group was

the exploration of not-yet-discovered areas of rock art; the hill

ranges formed an archaeological wonderland with all types of rock art,

particularly cave paintings. This time they hit the jackpot.

Prof. G. Chandrasekaran, Principal of the

Government College of Fine Arts in Chennai, has been on several such

expeditions with his colleague K. Natarajan and K.T. Gandhirajan and P.

Manivannan. Gandhirajan is a postgraduate in Art History from

Madurai-Kamaraj University, Madurai, and Manivannan is Senior Designer

at The Hindu,

Chennai. The group's strategy is to quiz local people, shepherds,

cowherds and honey-gatherers if they have come across rock paintings in

their areas.

THE CENTAUR-LIKE IMAGE in white ochre at Karikkiyur, the

largest rock art site in South India. Thus, when Gandhirajan asked the children at

the Puliyankandi workshop if they had seen any such paintings on rocks

in their villages, a girl sprang to her feet and replied excitedly that

she had seen paintings of elephants on a rock-shelter near her village.

But she could not explain clearly where the hill was.

However, that was enough for the group, which

included a few students of Chandrasekaran's college, to head for the

child's village, about 45 km from Valparai. Most villagers they

inquired about rock paintings had seen no such thing but spoke about

" stone-houses " (dolmens) in the area. However, an old woman remembered

having seen rock paintings at a place called Koppathuparai. The group

now trekked to Koppathuparai, from where a local guide took them to

Mavadaippu village. What they saw there surprised them.

The rock surface in Mavadaippu has a mix of ancient rock art,

contemporary tribal paintings, and graffiti. " A massive rock surface, curving inwards,

confronted us, " said Gandhirajan. " It looked like an arched dome. The

entire natural cavern was painted with rock art. A spectacular feature

of the site is that the rock surface is an admixture of ancient rock

art and contemporary tribal paintings, showing a continuity of

tradition. " There were modern graffiti, too.

PROF. G. CHANDRASEKARAN (extreme right) watching his team take

estampages of the petroglyphs in a cave at Yerpettu near Kothagiri. The painted surface is about 40 feet (12

metres) long and 20 feet wide. The images include a tiger, a deer with

straight horns, anthropomorphic figures marching inside a circle, an

elephant seizing a man with its trunk while another man chased it, and

several paintings of a bamboo-ladder used for taking honey from the

heights. Contemporary tribal paintings show the profile of a man

wearing a headgear and that of another man in a tight-fitting coat with

rectangular designs on it. This man has his right hand raised, while

his left hand rests on the waist.

The Karikkiyur surprise

THERE ARE ABOUT 20 dolmens in four different locations about a

kilometre from Mavadaippu. Mavadaippu is the latest discovery by the team.

It had discovered a prehistoric rock art site at Porivarai (2003), and

ancient rock paintings at Salekkurai and Sundasingam (2005), near

Karikkiyur, about 40 km from Kothagiri in the Nilgiris. In fact, the

team was totally unprepared for what awaited it at Porivarai. It turned

out to be the largest rock art site in South India with about 500

paintings in an area that is 53 m long and 15 m wide. Experts say the

rock paintings at both Mavadaippu and Karikkiyur could be dated to 2000

B.C. to 1500 B.C. How did they stumble upon this treasure trove? The

group was at Kothagiri to provide training in arts and crafts to tribal

youth at the Don Bosco Community College when it visited Konavakarai, a

tribal village, where a rock art site reportedly existed. But the

villagers were not aware of its existence. Disappointed, the team

returned to the college in Chennai. During a discussion on rock art

that evening, an Irula tribal student from Karikkiyur said he had seen

such paintings on a rock-shelter in a forest near his village.

Chandrasekaran and Gandhirajan lost no time in making it to Karikkiyur.

A 7-km trek through an elephant corridor led them to the rock-shelter,

locally known as Porivarai.

The paintings in white ochre include a

procession of bisons, monkeys clambering up a tree branch, a herd of

deer grazing, human beings welcoming one another with outstretched

arms, a battle scene with men aiming at each other with bows and

arrows, men on horseback engaged in battle, a shoulder-clasping dance

after a successful boar-hunt, a man with a mask, the depiction of sun

and its rays, a spiral, a tiger fighting another animal, and a man and

his dog sleeping.

THE MASTERPIECE OF Karikkiyur is a realistic depiction of

bisons moving in a row, in red ochre. Gandhirajan calls it " a huge gallery of ancient

rock art, the biggest in South India in terms of size and the number of

paintings " . The rock surface had been continually painted for about

3,000 years by different artists at various times, he said. No other

rock art site in South India can rival Karikkiyur by the sheer number

of paintings and the themes they represent. Some figures are outlines

or sketches; others are solid images. " The prehistoric artists used

white kaolin and red ochre to paint them. They may have used animal fat

or vegetable juice as a binding medium, " he said. " The rock surface is

in different shades of grey. The artists chose white pigment to paint

in dark grey areas, proving how intelligent they were. "

A remarkable feature of the Karikkiyur rock

art is that while the original artist made the painting in white ochre,

the succeeding artist used red ochre to work on the same painting,

trying his skill at ornamentation. Sometimes, the second artist mistook

an animal and redrew it into another animal.

REMARKABLE FEATURES OF Karikkiyur rock art are images like

monkeys clambering up a branch. An outstanding painting shows monkeys marching

in a single file on the curved branch of a tree. The attention to

detail is amazing. The monkeys on the lower side of the branch are

shown clinging on to it upside down even as they stay in line.

Another beautiful painting depicts a big herd

of grazing deer. " This painting is in symmetry, " said Gandhirajan. " It

needs skill to draw the same image repetitively because you need to

have a sense of proportion and symmetry. "

Victory-dance after a hunt. Another set of solid images is that of a child

sacrifice - a man holding a curved sword in one hand and dangling a

child from the other, and a centaur-like figure.

The masterpiece at Karikkiyur is a red-ochre

painting of a group of seven bisons moving in a row. One of them has a

calf in tow. In the opposite direction comes another bison. Above the

group of bisons is a solid white-ochre image of a monitor lizard (udumbu in Tamil).

A human sacrifice. Another salient feature of the Karikkiyur rock

art is the depiction of everyday life through scenes such as an animal

playing with its calf or feeding it, two bulls fighting, a celebration,

battle scenes or a fight between a man and an animal. There are also

several X-ray-like images in white ochre, showing the rib cages of

animals. Later generations of artists shaded them in red ochre. Also

seen are trees and plants, which are generally not found in rock art.

NEW SITES

The first discovery of rock painting in Tamil

Nadu was at Mallapadi in Dharmapuri district in 1978 by K.V. Raman,

then Head of the Department of Ancient History and Archaeology of the

University of Madras. In 2005, the State Department of Archaeology

brought out a publication called Rock Art of Tamil Nadu.

Its editor, T.S. Sridhar, who was then Special Commissioner, Department

of Archaeology, wrote in its preface that Raman's discovery " flagged

off the race for identifying new sites and the effort has not been in

vain " . He wrote: " Till date, more than thirty sites along the Western

and the Eastern Ghats [in Tamil Nadu] have been identified, many of

them by officers of the State Department of Archaeology. This has

conclusively proved the existence of cavemen who inhabited the rocky

shelters of Tamil Nadu in the megalithic period (the Iron Age). This

has also established the State's claims to be considered as one of the

important regions for studying and interpreting rock art. "

A man and his dog sleeping. " The rock art of Tamil Nadu displays great

virtues of balance, appropriate use of colour, love of nature and a

keen understanding of the life and times of the inhabitants. Scenes of

battlefield, travel, hunting, festivities and food habits are depicted

with realism and sensitivity. All the images etched on rock surfaces

clearly demonstrate their urge to express themselves in forms that are

intelligible... . Their study is at once fascinating and illuminating, "

according to Sridhar.

In Tamil Nadu, rock art is found in

Villupuram, Dharmapuri, Krishnagiri, Madurai, the Nilgiris, Coimbatore,

Sivaganga, Vellore and Dindigul districts. Notable among the sites are

Kilvalai, Alambadi and Settavarai in Villupuram; Mallapadi,

Maharajakadai and Mallachandram, now in Krishnagiri district;

Konavakarai, Iduhatti, Karikkiyur and Vellerikombai in the Nilgiris;

and Anaipatti, Muthupatti and Kidaripatti in Madurai.

Rock art falls into two categories. The first

is petrograms or pictographs, which are paintings done in white or red

ochre. The second is petroglyphs, figures chiselled out on rock

surface. In Tamil Nadu, petroglyphs are found at Perumukkal, about 12

km from Tindivanam, and at the remote, densely forested Yerpettu, 25 km

from Kothagiri. Mahalingam, an elderly Kurumba tribal person, led the

team to the petroglyphs in a dark cave near Yerpettu. The images

include that of a tree and human beings. The team has made estampages

of the petroglyphs.

A battle scene at Karikkiyur, depicting men with bows and

arrows and on horse back. Gandhirajan, a tireless explorer, says it is

not easy to locate a rock art site. " If we go in search of 100 sites,

we shall consider ourselves lucky if we can discover rock art in ten, "

he said. In fact, the team got a bonus on reaching

Mavadaippu late in the afternoon on May 17: it discovered not just a

rock art site, but about 20 dolmens in four different locations just

about a kilometre from the village. Most dolmens are in good shape,

some are broken down and in ruins. A few are big enough to accommodate

four persons. The dolmens are in different shapes - square, rectangular

and even circular. A particular big dolmen has a run-down " compound

wall " , about a metre tall, around it.

AT YERPETTU, A rare find of engravings that date back several

thousands of years in a cave deep in the Nilgiri forests. Mavadaippu, in the backdrop of the Anamalai

hills, is a small, enchanting tribal village with huts made of bamboo

plats packed with clay. It is about 7 km from the Kadamparai hydel

power station. The area is full of bamboo forests and is a favourite

haunt of elephants. The tribal people make intricate " ladders " using

bamboo poles. According to Manivannan, the technology to make them is

kept a secret. The tribal people rig them up at night. The leitmotif in

the Mavadaippu rock art is the bamboo ladder. A number of mystic

symbols also appear. There are paintings of elephants, cattle, tiger,

deer, wild boar and porcupine, and of human beings dancing or fighting.

AT MAVADAIPPU, IN the backdrop of the Anamalai hills, human and

animal figures in white ochre. The prehistoric artists used white kaolin, lime

or even ash to paint these figures. Contemporary tribal people have

used enamel paint to embellish some of these paintings. They also have

made beautiful paintings of elephants, peacocks and so on. The painting

of a bus indicates how the arrival of one there must have been an

exciting event. What mars the beauty of these paintings is

the modern-day graffiti by people from the plains below, who have

scrawled their names in Tamil. Chandrasekaran has appealed the State

government to protect these and other rock art sites.