Pre-historic: Paintings at a rock shelter near Mungil-Alai village in the Palani hill ranges of Tamil Nadu, January 2009.
CHENNAI: Three rock art sites with a profusion of paintings have been discovered in dense forests in the lower Palani hill ranges in Tamil Nadu by a team of academicians documenting such sites. The paintings are in caverns near the tribal hamlets of Mungil-Alai, Veguritta-Alai and Pakki-Alai in Dindigul district.
What is significant and exciting is that some of the paintings deal with themes that have not been found anywhere else in Tamil Nadu.
For instance, two paintings at Mungil-Alai show devotees performing "kavadi," a ritual performed in Murugan temples, with devotees balancing a bow-shaped decorated object on their shoulders as an offering.
Another new subject found at both Mungil-Alai and Veguritta-Alai rock shelters shows bullock-carts. The paintings of bullocks yoked to carts have been executed in an ingenuous way using the top angle approach.
There are also paintings of elephants, bisons, tigers and even cheetahs. Both red ochre and white kaolin have been used to draw the figures.
The team found these sites in January while documenting such sites in Tamil Nadu as part of a national project of the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, New Delhi. The IGNCA is doing it in association with Pondicherry University.
K. Rajan, Professor and Head, Department of History, Pondicherry University, is the coordinator. The other team-members are Bansi Lal Malla, Project Officer, IGNCA; rock-art enthusiast S. Mohanasundaram; academicians V. Subramaniam, K.T. Gandhirajan, V.P. Yatheeskumar, M.V. Rao, G. Stephen and A. Chellaperumal.
Dr. Rajan said the suffix "alai" in the names of the villages was a pure Tamil word denoting a cave. It occurred in several instances in Tamil Sangam literature (3rd century B.C. to 3rd century A.D.) including in "Purananuru."
The significance of the paintings depicting bullock-carts was that a trade route passed some distance away from the Pandya country to the Chera country through Nilakkottai, Dindigul, Palani, Udumalpet, Pollachi and entered Vanchi, which is present-day Thrissur in Kerala. Bullock-cart caravans often passed through this route, ferrying merchandise.
Roman coins had been discovered at Chinnakalayamuthur near Palani and Pollachi which lay on this trade route.
Dr. Rajan estimated that the bullock-cart paintings belonged to 3rd or 2nd century B.C.
Mr. Gandhirajan and Mr. Yatheeskumar described the bullock-cart paintings as "a unique subject which has not been elsewhere in Tamil Nadu." The carts were drawn in profile and the bullocks shown from a top-angle.
"So the same subject had two different approaches. Importance has been given to geometry and shape-making," said Mr. Gandhirajan.
The kind of paintings of men offering "kavadi" found in caverns near Mungil-Alai and Veguritta-Alai were not found elsewhere in the State, Mr. Gandhira, was clearly visible. Devotees carried "kavadi" during "Thai poosam" to this temple.
The absence of any habitational material in the rock art sites suggested that the shelters were used by people of the Iron Age mainly for rituals, said Dr. Rajan.
Several layers of paintings were available, indicating periodic visits to the caverns. The paintings could span a period from the 3rd century B.C. to the first century A.D.