AUDITORIUM ROCK: BHIMBETKA.

A GENDERED PERCEPTION OF INDIAN ROCK ART: WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO CENTRAL A GENDERED PERCEPTION OF INDIAN ROCK ART: WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO CENTRAL INDIAN SITESINDIAN SITES

BYBYAJAY PRATAPAJAY PRATAP

DEPT OF HISTORYDEPT OF HISTORYFACULTY OF SOCIAL SCIENCESFACULTY OF SOCIAL SCIENCESBANARAS HINDU UNIVERSITYBANARAS HINDU UNIVERSITY

• The present author has been in-charge of the Adi Drsya (rock art gallery) of the Indira Gandhi National centre for the Arts for over three years, and has visited Bhimbetka more than once as well as central Indian sites like: Chambdi Nala, Chaturbhuj, Chattaneshwar, Rawatbhata and Gandhi Sagar. He has supervised projects to study the rock art of the north-east India, Kerala and Kumaon Hills.

• In all his time spent studying Indian rock art from these regions, he has been struck by the singular absence of female figures from the total corpus of paintings of central India.

• This is not to deny that female figures are, here and there, depicted.• However, compared to the overarching predominance of male and animal figure depictions, female figures pale into

insignificance.• This tentative hypothesis may be rationalized in the following way.• The paintings in question are no doubt Mesolithic in chronological terms, when the main subsistence technique was

hunting-gathering.• It is now common knowledge, that in hunting-gathering societies, the main food-supply to bands is from what the

women of these societies gather on a day-to-day basis, as compared to the occasional big-kills made by the men.• Two conclusions then seem appropriately drawn. Firstly, rock-painting was a male preserve and hence issues closer

to the male heart, like game animals, hunting, agriculture and war scenes find frequent depictions.• Secondly, an abundance of either male figures, or subjects related with men alone, was a way of valorizing male

labour inputs, at least through the medium of art that commemorates hunts, such as the mythical boar and several other hunting scenes found in abundance in rock art around the country.

• CONCLUSION: As female related activities, particularly productive activities are almost never depicted, it may be concluded that in the Indian context, Mesolithic societies used rock-paintings to glamourise the male labour inputs into subsistence activities.

• Secondly, and consequently, art, even at this early period of history, may not be seen as a neutral, value-less, aesthetic activity alone.

Summary of PaperSummary of Paper• In the context of postprocessual developments in archaeology it has now become imperative to

examine the theoretical basis of our interpretations of archaeological material.• Under the influence of New Archaeology, largely a positivist method of research was adopted in

which gender had no place. Archaeologists were more concerned with finding cross-cultural laws of human behavour.

• In this paper we have not argued that we should in any sense reject the positivist methodology in the study and interpretation of Indian rock-art.

• Instead we have tried to combine the methods of New Archaeology, with that of Postprocessual archaeology by advancing hypotheses connected with gender-bias in rock-art depictions.

• On the basis of our curatorial and fieldwork experience at about half-a-dozen sites of Central India we have presented a hypothesis that there is almost a complete lack of depictions of female figures in rock-art.

• The depictions in this area fall mainly into three categories: The Animal World, The Human World and, Human Activities.

• In all cases female figures are conspicuous by their absence.• Why is this so?• What is a plausible explanation for this absence?• Meaning of Rock-Art is the further issue that this paper engages in.• Most workers have either presented a static description of what painted panels tell us, or tried to

arrive at its meaning in cognitive terms or by other “scientific parameters” a method that is not always faithful to the historical significance and meaning of rock-art representations.

• How is rock-art best used as a source for history is the main concern of this paper.

Interpretation of Rock ArtInterpretation of Rock Art• There are several methods used by archaeologists to study rock art.• The most popular, in India, is to list figures in terms of what they represent: animal figures,

human figures, human related activity (hunting etc.) related figures, and abstract designs.• Elsewhere, like in Australia, they have developed, and ethnographic approach to the

interpretation of rock-art, since many existing groups of aboriginals regard rock-paintings as a source for religious and ritual activities. Here archaeologists tap into the interpretive ability of aboriginal groups to discern the meaning of rock-art.

• A method called “internal analysis” of meanings of rock-art, has been developed in the European art history, where parietal art dating to Pleistocene is widely found.

• However, in India, the method most favoured is the iconographic method of analysis. Here, we may take each depiction (of human, animal or any other design) and treat it as such, rather than regarding it as a symbol with deep underlying meanings.

• This is because artistic expression, such as is represented in rock-art, is already symbolic. To treat it semiotically, as having two layers of meaning, is, in our view, unnecessary.

• In India we do not, like in Australia, have tribal groups, who relate in any direct-way with prehistoric rock-art.

• Therefore, unlike in Australia, Norway, North America and South Africa, there is no pool of living memory about the meaning of rock-art and it is left to the archaeologist to devise the ways and means to understand the meaning of such expression.

PAINTED ROCK: BHIMBETKA

VIEW FROM INSIDE A SHELTER: BHIMBETKA

CLOSE-UP VIEW OF PAINTED SHELTER: BHIMBETKA

WATCHMAN’S DWELLING INSIDE AUDITORIUM ROCK: BHIMBETKA

PAINTED SHELTER: BHIMBETKA

LANDSCAPE CONTEXT OF ROCK-ART: THESE MAGNIFICENT MONOLITHIC ROCKS CONJURE A NATURAL ELEGANCE, THEY ARE ALSO VERY PROMINENT AND HENCE WERE SELECTED FOR PAINTING AT BHIMBETKA

MYTHICAL “BOAR” ROCK. OR IS IT A “BULL”? ROCK: BHIMBETKA. AGAIN THE ROCK SURFACE AND ITS NATURAL ARCHITECTURE, IN THE LANDSCAPE PREDISPOSES PREHISTORIC PAINTERS TO SELECT THIS MAGNIFICENT NATURALLY ARCHITECTURED SURFACE.

MYTHICAL BOAR OR BULL SURROUNDED BY MALE FIGURES (CLOSE-UP): BHIMBETKA

PAINTED HORSE-RIDING WARRIORS: ONLY MALE FIGURES DEPICTED: BHIMBETKA

WHITE-PAINTED WARRIORS, ONLY MALE FIGURES DEPICTED, BHIMBETKA.

TURTLE-ROCK, BHIMBETKA. LANDSCAPE AT AND AROUND BHIMBETKA. THE LANDSCAPE TELLS US THAT BHIMBETKA OWING TO ITS CURIOUSLY SHAPED ROCKS STANDS DISTINCT FROM ALL OTHER LAND-FORMS AROUND, AND HENCE, WAS CHOSEN TO BE THE SCENE OF ALL PAINTINGS.

LANDSCAPE AROUND A ROCK-SHELTER, SHYMALA HILLS, BHOPAL

PAINTED MALE FIGURES SUPERIMPOSED ON OTHER PAINTINGS: BHIMBETKA.

MAN RIDING AN ELEPHANT. THIS DESIGN IS REMNISCENT OF LATTER-DAY FOLK PAINTINGS OF THAT AREA: BHIMBETKA.

ABSTRACT DESIGN SUPERIMPOSED ON OTHER FIGURES, BHIMBETKA. WHAT DO THESE MEAN? WHERE IS THE ART IN THIS? OR IS THIS MERE SYMBOLISM?

PLOUGHING SCENE: HISTORICAL PERIOD PAINTING, BHIMBETKA. THIS IS, OTHER THAN THE DEPICTIONS OF WARRIORS THE ONLY REALISTIC, ALMOST “HISTORICAL RECORD” OF ACTIVITIES CONTEMPORANEOUS WITH PAINTERS.

TWO MALE FIGURES: RAWATBHATA, CHAMBAL VALLEY

PAINTED HUMAN AND ANIMAL FIGURES: BHIMBETKA.

PAINTED DANCING HUMAN FIGURES: BHIMBETKA.

X-RAY PAINTING OF CROCODILE: RIVER-SHELTER, GANDHI-SAGAR, CHAMBAL RIVER.

PAINTED ANIMAL FIGURES: BHIMBETKA

MALE FIGURE, PAINTED WITH GEOMETRIC SHAPES: BHIMBETKA.

PAINTED FIGURE: ELEPHANT, BHIMBETKA.