Pengavan,a village near Bhopal,is home to cave paintings that date back to the same period as the ones in BhimbetkaALMOST every day,tourists zip down the Bhopal-Hoshangabad road on their way to the Bhimbetka caves,home to pre-historic cave paintings and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. But the Bhopal-Vidisha district road hardly sees that kind of activity. This road leads to Pengavan,a village with a population of 200 that has cave paintings dating back to the same period as the ones in Bhimbetka. Pengavan,about 50 km from capital Bhopal,has not received the kind of attention that Bhimbetka has,though the Archaelogical Survey of India (ASI) had conducted a survey here in 1994 and demarcated the rock shelters that house some rare cave paintings. After that,there has been no follow-up action, says Rajendra Kumar Thakur,sarpanch of Pengavan. Home to around 35 rock shelters that go back to the Mesolithic Age (the Middle Stone Age from 10,000 to 6,000 B.C.),the approach road to the village is a mess,especially during the monsoons. Maybe thats why our village has not attracted the kind of attention that Bhimbetka,which lies on the main state highway to Hoshangabad,has managed to get. Pre-dominantly made up of sedimentary rocks,the paintings here depict battleground scenes and show people going about their daily lives. A couple of paintings found here are very rare and have not been found even in Bhimbetka or other rock shelters across the country. One of them depicts an elaborate drawing of an eagle,in addition to four to five people seated in a circle. The detailing in this painting is painstaking, says Dr Narayan Vyas,superintendent archaeologist,ASI Bhopal. The other rare etching is that of a chakravyuha (seven concentric circles),which has also been found in Altamira Caves in Spain and in some parts of England and France, says Vyas. The red colour used in the cave paintings here,which have withstood years of weathering,is made from the laterite rocks found in abundance in the area. The scenes depicted are simple yet intricate line drawings of cattle (cow,oxen,goat,sheep),wild animals (antelopes,tiger,elephants),religious rites and burials,community dancing and drinking. The striking thing about the Pengavan rock shelters is that they have some paintings in white colour as well,which date back to the Copper Age. There are also paintings of horsemen and even a chariot,which is again very rare, says Vyas. Since the villagers often come to these rock shelters,the threat of disfiguration and damage to these millennia-old paintings is high. However,as Thakur says,The villagers take their cattle for grazing around the caves but they revere the signs and symbols depicted in the rock shelters. Till date,no damage has been done to the cave paintings by any villager.
