Ponniyin Selvan Varalaatru Peravai

Hi,

pl. find the details about the rock art.

The symbols in rock paintings at Onake Kindi are a peek into age-old beliefs


We pass through lush fields as we drive down from Anegundi. There are
neither huts nor shops in sight. All we see are columns of boulders on top
of each other. Our auto stops in front of paddy fields, as my guide
Virupaksha announces our destination — Onake Kindi, a prehistoric site.

The idea of heading to Onake Kindi came up when I asked Virupaksha about
megalithic dolmens in a site called Mourya Mane. I learnt it was much
further and high up in the hills, and Virupaksha convinced me we could
instead visit a prehistoric site closer to Anegundi, which had rock
paintings.

The sun's rays beat down rather mercilessly as we cross the fields and climb
a steep narrow pathway in a rocky terrain. The path leads us to a wide
plateau of tall grass, and we find ourselves ringed in by hillocks; there's
no one in sight. As we walk through the grass and look around the boulders,
we spot a rock with red and white markings, stick figures of humans and
animals such as the bull. On another boulder is a circular diagram
resembling the sun and the moon, but we can't figure out what it symbolises.


On returning to Bangalore, I start researching on the prehistoric sites near
Anegundi, and learn from Ravi Korisettar, an authority on the subject, that
the rock painting belonged to the Iron Age.

“The faded circular painting is a rare depiction of a megalithic style of
burial. If you look closely, you can see a human body in the middle, and a
lot of burial goods, surrounded by a circle of stone,” says Korisettar, from
the Department of History and Archaeology, Karnatak University, Dharwad.

“You'll find the bull in almost all paintings. It's a reference to the bull
cult, a symbol of male fertility,” he explains.

The sun- and moon-like symbols, the ladder and the water depicted on the
rock probably refer to their various beliefs.

“We can only interpret — the sun and moon, for instance, can be seen in some
hero stones as well, which probably suggests immortality,” adds Srikumar
Menon, a faculty of Architecture, the Manipal Institute of Technology.

As I delve deeper into the paintings later, I realise they are some of the
most ancient beliefs, rather deep-rooted within us today.