Every NCERT book that matters for UPSC — open a book, then a chapter. Learn each chapter's concepts, then how UPSC tests them — with diagrams, flowcharts and the past questions to attempt.
In simple wordsImagine a family that cannot write keeping a diary anyway — in pictures, on the wall of the rock shelter they live in: the hunt that went well, the dance after it, the honey they gathered, the animal they feared. Thousands of years later those pictures are still there. This chapter teaches you to read that picture-diary.
This is the first chapter of NCERT’s art history book, and it starts at the very beginning: paintings and engravings on rocks made by people who had no writing. It answers four questions a curious reader asks: Who found them and where? How old are they? How were they made? What do they tell us? Its star site is Bhimbetka in Madhya Pradesh, but it also takes you to Lakhudiyar in the Kumaon hills and to the granite hills of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.
Links in this book: Chapter 2 (Arts of the Indus Valley) picks up where the Stone Age ends — with cities, seals and bronze. Chapter 5 (Later Mural Traditions) returns to painting on walls, centuries later, at Ajanta, Bagh, Badami and beyond — do not mix the two up.
Links to Themes in Indian History: Theme One (Bricks, Beads and Bones) gives NCERT’s timeline of Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic and Chalcolithic phases, which we use below to place the paintings in time; Theme Four covers the much later Buddhist cave paintings of Ajanta.
UPSC: GS1 (Indian culture — art forms from ancient to modern times). Mains 2015 asked directly about the Mesolithic rock art of India and its aesthetic sense. Prelims tests the site names, the discoverer, the periods, the colours and the location of Bhimbetka.
Word
What it means here
Prehistory
The period before writing — known only from objects and pictures
Palaeolithic
‘Old Stone Age’; its last stage, the Upper Palaeolithic, gives India’s earliest paintings
Mesolithic
‘Middle Stone Age’ — hunter-gatherers; the period of most Bhimbetka paintings
Neolithic / Chalcolithic
‘New Stone Age’ (early farmers and herders) / the ‘copper-stone’ age
Rock shelter
A natural overhang or hollow in a rock face, not a cave dug by people
Ochre
An earth pigment coloured by iron oxide — red or yellow
Haematite (geru)
An iron-oxide mineral, ground to make red paint
Chalcedony
A fine-grained variety of quartz; a green kind gave green paint
Binder
A sticky substance (fat, gum, resin) that holds powdered colour together
Wash painting
Thin, watery colour spread over an area, rather than lines
Engraving
A picture cut or scratched into rock (a petroglyph), not painted
Superimposition
A newer painting made on top of an older one
Naturalistic / stylised
Drawn close to how it looks / reduced to a simplified pattern (e.g. stick figures)
The phases of the Stone Age on a to-scale axis, using the start dates from NCERT’s own archaeology timeline (Themes in Indian History I).
Reading NCERT’s chapter-opening picture and line drawings (page 1)
The opening photograph shows a rock surface crowded with red-ochre figures: a rider on a four-legged mount and several thin, stick-like people with raised arms, all drawn in flat colour without shading. It sets the tone — red figures on bare rock, full of movement.
The line drawings in the margins are simplified red outlines of rock-art motifs: two small four-legged animals with upright heads; a figure on an animal with a bow and arrows; a row of four hand-linked stick figures; and a heavy horned bovine with sweeping horns. Notice the shorthand: bodies as a few strokes, animals as solid silhouettes, horns and legs exaggerated. These are NCERT’s drawings of motifs, not dated individual paintings.
Reading NCERT’s map — ‘Map showing prehistoric sites’ (before page 1)An outline map (not to scale) with three symbols: areas with paintings, with engravings, and with both. Paintings cluster in central India — Bhopal, Sagar, Pachmarhi, Bhanpura, Kota, Gwalior, Agra, Mirzapur, Allahabad, Varanasi — and in boxes around Raigarh and Bellary; others appear at Almora, Tirupati, Vettavalam and Munnar. Engravings are marked in the far north (Gilgit, Kargil, Leh) and at Edakal Cave and Tenmalai in Kerala. What to take away: the Vindhya–Kaimur belt of central India is the densest zone, but rock art is found from the Himalaya to the far south. (Our diagrams group the sites but never redraw this map.)
At a glance — the six ideas to carry away
Prehistory = the time before writing; paintings, tools, pottery and bones are its sources. India’s earliest paintings are Upper Palaeolithic.
Discovery: Archibald Carlleyle, 1867–68 — 12 years before Altamira; V.S. Wakankar found Bhimbetka in 1957–58.
Lakhudiyar (Suyal river, Kumaon, Uttarakhand): humans, animals, geometric patterns; hand-linked dancers; layers black → red → white.
Southern granite (Kupgallu, Piklihal, Tekkalkota): white, red on white, red; Neolithic to historical; bulls, elephants, sambhar, horses, tridents.
Bhimbetka (Vindhyas, 45 km south of Bhopal): ~800 shelters, 500 painted, 7 periods; Period I huge green/dark-red animals; Period II (Mesolithic) most paintings — hunts, dances, family life.
Colours: red from haematite (geru), green from chalcedony, white probably limestone; binder of fat, gum or resin; plant-fibre brushes; up to 20 layers of superimposition.
1. Prehistory, and why people painted
In simple wordsOnce people had food, water, clothing and shelter, they had something left over — time, and the urge to say something. With no paper and no script, the rock wall was the only canvas, and pictures were the only way to ‘write’.
The distant past without paper, script or written documents is called prehistory. We knew little about it until scholars found the places where people had lived. Excavations there brought out tools, pottery, dwellings, human and animal bones — and drawings on rock walls. Putting these clues together has given a fairly reliable picture of how people lived. NCERT calls painting and drawing the oldest art forms practised by human beings.
Why did they paint? NCERT suggests two simple reasons — to make their shelters colourful and beautiful, or to keep a visual record of daily life, like a diary. Later in the chapter it adds more: some paintings may have had religious or ritual meaning, some were placed to be seen from a distance, and hunting pictures may have given people a sense of power over the animals they faced.
⤵ From survival to self-expression (NCERT’s reasoning)
Basic needs metfood, water, clothing, shelter
Urge to expresspainting and drawing — the oldest art forms
The rock as canvaswalls and ceilings of rock shelters
Many purposesdecoration, a ‘diary’ of daily life, ritual, signalling from a distance, a feeling of power over animals
Around the world and in India. Prehistoric paintings occur in many parts of the world. We do not know whether Lower Palaeolithic people made any art; by the Upper Palaeolithic art flourished, and caves across the world were filled with finely carved and painted animals that people hunted. The subjects: human figures, human activities, geometric designs and animal symbols. In India the earliest paintings are reported from the Upper Palaeolithic.
Prehistory is not only the Palaeolithic — an NCERT slipNCERT’s side box says the prehistoric period ‘is commonly known as the Old Stone Age or the Palaeolithic Age’. Yet the same chapter discusses Mesolithic, Neolithic and Chalcolithic paintings, and says the southern granite paintings run into the early and late historical periods. Safe exam line: prehistory = everything before writing; the Palaeolithic is only its first and longest part. Do not tick an option that equates the two.
2. Discovery: from Carlleyle to Wakankar
In simple wordsIndia’s rock paintings were noticed before Europe’s most famous cave paintings. The first find came in the 1860s; the greatest site, Bhimbetka, was only recognised in the 1950s, by a scholar who spent years walking the hills.
The first discovery of rock paintings in India was made in 1867–68 by the archaeologist Archibald Carlleyle (NCERT spells it ‘Archibold’) — twelve years before the discovery of Altamira in Spain. Cockburn, Anderson, Mitra and Ghosh were among the early archaeologists who found many more sites across the subcontinent. The caves of Bhimbetka were discovered in 1957–58 by V.S. Wakankar, who then spent several years surveying the difficult hills and forests; many more shelters were found later.
Discovery dates drawn to scale. The Altamira year and the UNESCO listing are Beyond NCERT.
⤵ How a rock-art site becomes known
A chance find or surveyCarlleyle, 1867–68; later Cockburn, Anderson, Mitra, Ghosh
Systematic explorationWakankar walks the Vindhyan hills from 1957–58
Recording and classificationby style, technique and superimposition into periods
Excavation nearbytools, pottery, bones fix the setting
Interpretationwhat the scenes say about life and thought
Beyond NCERT
Altamira (northern Spain), famous for Upper Palaeolithic paintings of bison, was discovered in 1879 — which is why ‘twelve years’ after 1867–68 works.
Carlleyle’s find is usually placed in the Kaimur hills of Mirzapur district (Uttar Pradesh) — the ‘Kaimurean extension’ of the Vindhyas the chapter mentions.
The Rock Shelters of Bhimbetka were inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2003. They lie in Raisen district, Madhya Pradesh. The name is popularly linked to Bhima of the Mahabharata (‘Bhima’s seat’) — a local tradition, not history.
Exam traps
Carlleyle made the first discovery in India (1867–68); Wakankar discovered Bhimbetka (1957–58). Do not swap them.
India’s first find came before Altamira, not after.
3. Where the paintings are: Kumaon, Kashmir and the southern granite
In simple wordsRock art needs two things: a good rock surface sheltered from rain, and people living nearby. India has both in many places — sandstone overhangs in the central hills, granite boulders in the south, rock shelters along Himalayan rivers.
Remains of rock paintings have been found in several districts of Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Bihar, and some in the Kumaon hills of Uttarakhand.
Lakhudiyar (Uttarakhand). Rock shelters on the banks of the Suyal river, about 20 km along the Almora–Barechina road. The name means ‘one lakh caves’. The paintings fall into three categories — humans, animals and geometric patterns — in white, black and red ochre. Humans are stick-like. The main animals are a long-snouted animal, a fox and a many-legged lizard. There are wavy lines, rectangle-filled geometric designs and groups of dots, and a notable scene of hand-linked dancers. Paintings overlap: the earliest are black, over them red ochre, and the last group is white.
Reading NCERT’s photograph ‘Hand-linked dancing figures, Lakhudiyar, Uttarakhand’ (page 2)A weathered grey rock face; NCERT has drawn a red oval around a faint row of small reddish figures standing side by side with their arms joined. They are stick-like — a line for the body, strokes for limbs — and rhythmically repeated. What to notice: group dance as a theme, the stylised human form, and how faint and weathered real rock art is. NCERT later links this scene to a similar dancing scene at Bhimbetka.
Reading NCERT’s photograph ‘Wavy lines, Lakhudiyar, Uttarakhand’ (page 2)A rock panel crossed by several bands of closely packed zigzag or wavy lines in a pale reddish colour, with a small red shape above. What to notice: not every painting shows living things — geometric patterns are one of Lakhudiyar’s three categories. Their meaning is unknown; avoid claiming they show water or snakes as fact.
Kashmir. Two slabs with engravings have been reported — engravings, not paintings.
Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. The granite rocks here gave Neolithic people suitable surfaces. Of many sites, the best known are Kupgallu, Piklihal and Tekkalkota. Three types of painting are reported: white; red ochre on a white background; and red ochre. NCERT dates them to the late historical, early historical and Neolithic periods. Subjects: bulls, elephants, sambhar, gazelles, sheep, goats, horses, stylised humans and tridents, and only rarely plant motifs.
The four groups of sites the chapter describes, side by side. A comparison grid only; it does not show locations.
Beyond NCERT
Kupgal, Piklihal and Tekkalakota (the usual spellings) are all in northern Karnataka, in the Bellary–Raichur region, though NCERT groups them with Andhra Pradesh.
Edakkal caves (Wayanad, Kerala), marked on NCERT’s map as ‘Edakal Cave’, are famous for rock engravings, not paintings.
Sandstone overhangs of the Vindhyas and granite boulders of the Deccan are the two common rock surfaces for Indian rock art.
Exam traps
Lakhudiyar is in Uttarakhand (Suyal river, Almora) — not Madhya Pradesh.
Lakhudiyar layer order: black (oldest) → red ochre → white (latest).
The southern granite paintings are linked to Neolithic people (and later), not to the Upper Palaeolithic.
4. Bhimbetka: the largest and richest site
In simple wordsThink of Bhimbetka as a huge open-air gallery that people kept adding to for thousands of years — hundreds of rock shelters in a forested hill, about half of them painted, some with painting on painting.
The richest paintings come from the Vindhya ranges of Madhya Pradesh and their Kaimur extensions into Uttar Pradesh. These hills are full of Palaeolithic and Mesolithic remains, and of forests, wild plants, fruit, streams and creeks — an ideal home for Stone Age people. The largest and most spectacular group is at Bhimbetka in the Vindhya hills, 45 km south of Bhopal, across 10 sq km, with about 800 rock shelters, of which 500 bear paintings.
Reading NCERT’s photograph ‘Cave entrance, Bhimbetka, Madhya Pradesh’ (page 3)A towering mass of layered rock with a natural archway beneath an overhanging ledge, trees growing on top and a person standing at the base for scale. What to notice: this is a natural rock shelter formed by weathering, not a cave cut by people — the overhang kept rain off the walls and ceilings, which is why paintings survived. The human figure shows the shelters’ great size.
Themes at Bhimbetka range from everyday life to sacred and royal images: hunting, dancing, music, horse and elephant riders, animal fights, honey collection, body decoration and household scenes.
Seven periods. Bhimbetka’s rock art has been grouped by style, technique and superimposition into seven historical periods: Period I — Upper Palaeolithic; Period II — Mesolithic; Period III — Chalcolithic, followed by four successive periods. NCERT says it will confine itself to the first three.
The seven periods as a stack of layers, oldest at the bottom. Only Periods I–III are named in NCERT; the labels for IV–VII and the Chalcolithic note are Beyond NCERT.
NCERT promises three periods but describes twoNCERT says it will cover the first three phases, but it describes only Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic paintings; Period III (Chalcolithic) is named and never described. Standard summaries (Beyond NCERT) say Chalcolithic paintings show the shelter-dwellers’ contact and exchange with farming communities of the Malwa plains, with pottery and metal tools appearing; the early historic periods add riders and religious symbols, and the medieval ones become geometric and schematic. Use these as background; for NCERT-based questions the safe facts are the period names.
Reading NCERT’s photograph ‘Can you figure out what the artist is trying to depict in this painting?’ (page 3)A dark reddish rock surface with figures in white: a large elephant on the right, drawn in outline with trunk and legs; at upper left what appears to be a figure mounted on an animal with others around it; and a smaller cluster of white shapes below. A reasonable reading: riders and animals — perhaps a procession or a hunt with elephants. Clue: NCERT lists ‘horse and elephant riders’ among Bhimbetka’s themes. Riders on tamed animals belong to the later periods, not the Stone Age phases (Beyond NCERT).
5. Upper Palaeolithic paintings (Period I)
In simple wordsThe oldest layer at Bhimbetka is the ‘big animal’ layer: huge beasts drawn as outlines and filled with patterns, with tiny stick people beside them — as if the animals mattered far more than the humans.
Paintings of the Upper Palaeolithic phase are linear representations in green and dark red of huge animals — bison, elephants, tigers, rhinos and boars — with stick-like human figures. A few are wash paintings; most are filled with geometric patterns. NCERT notes a colour pattern: the green paintings are of dancers and the red ones of hunters.
Why the colour rule is worth rememberingIt is a small, oddly specific NCERT fact — exactly the kind UPSC turns into a statement question (‘In the Upper Palaeolithic paintings of Bhimbetka, green figures are of hunters’ — false). Pair it: green → dancers, red → hunters.
Exam traps
Upper Palaeolithic = huge animals; Mesolithic = smaller figures but the largest number.
Upper Palaeolithic colours named by NCERT: green and dark red — not white.
6. Mesolithic paintings (Period II): the richest phase
In simple wordsIf the first layer is a zoo of giant animals, the Mesolithic layer is a busy village: groups of hunters with bows, children playing, women grinding food, people dancing in a ring, someone climbing a tree for honey.
Most paintings belong to Period II, the Mesolithic. Themes are many, but the paintings are smaller. Hunting scenes predominate: people hunt in groups, armed with barbed spears, pointed sticks, arrows and bows; some carry traps and snares. Hunters wear simple clothes and ornaments; some have elaborate head-dresses or masks. Animals include the elephant, bison, tiger, boar, deer, antelope, leopard, panther, rhinoceros, fish, frog, lizard, squirrel and sometimes birds. Sometimes animals chase men; sometimes men hunt animals. Some scenes show fear of animals, many others tenderness and love for them. A few engravings, mainly of animals, also occur.
Animals are naturalistic, humans stylised. Women appear nude and clothed; young and old both appear; children run, jump and play. Community dances are a common theme. People gather fruit or honey; women grind and prepare food; some groups of men, women and children suggest family life. Many shelters also have hand prints, fist prints and dots made with fingertips.
The two periods NCERT describes, compared point by point.
Reading NCERT’s photograph ‘One of the few images showing only one animal, Bhimbetka’ (page 4)A rough, stained rock ceiling or wall with one large animal outlined in white, its body partly filled, legs and head faint. What to notice: most Bhimbetka panels are crowded scenes; a single, isolated animal is unusual. NCERT later praises such individual animals for realistic proportion and tonal effect.
Reading NCERT’s photograph ‘Painting showing a man being hunted by a beast, Bhimbetka’ (page 5)A large animal painted as a solid red-ochre mass with a thick body and a horned or tusked head fills most of the panel; a very small human figure is near it. NCERT asks: why is the animal so big and the man so small? Possible answers: the artist showed importance and danger through size; it records fear and the animal’s power; the animal is the real subject. Note the reversal — here the animal hunts the man.
Reading NCERT’s ‘Hunting Scene’ (page 6) — and a mismatch to noteNCERT’s caption: Mesolithic hunting scenes predominate; this one shows a group hunting a bison, with injured men lying scattered, and shows mastery in drawing. The photograph itself shows pale figures with raised weapons who appear to be seated on horse-like mounts, moving left to right across a dark red surface. Mismatch: riders on horses are normally assigned to Bhimbetka’s later, historical periods (Beyond NCERT), not the Mesolithic. Safe exam line: Mesolithic hunters hunted on foot, in groups, with spears, bows and arrows — do not use this photograph to claim Stone Age horse-riding. The bison hunt with scattered injured men is described in NCERT’s text too, so that fact stands.
Reading NCERT’s ‘Dancing Scene’ (page 6)Rows of small white stick figures with joined hands curve across a dark red rock, in two or three tiers; a larger figure stands above them, and animal-like shapes appear at the edges. NCERT notes that hand-linked dancing is a recurrent theme and recalls the Lakhudiyar dancers — the same idea in rock art hundreds of kilometres apart. What to notice: rhythm by repetition, the stylised human form and community as subject.
Exam traps
The largest number of Bhimbetka paintings are Mesolithic (Period II).
Mesolithic: animals naturalistic, humans stylised — not the other way round.
Hand prints, fist prints and fingertip dots are found in many shelters.
7. Colours, brushes, and why the paint survived
In simple wordsNo shop sold paint. Artists made it as you might make chalk paste: crush a coloured stone to powder, add water and something sticky so it holds, and brush it on with a bundle of plant fibres.
Bhimbetka’s artists used many colours — shades of white, yellow, orange, red ochre, purple, brown, green and black — but white and red were their favourites. Paints were made by grinding rocks and minerals: red from haematite (known in India as geru); green from a green variety of chalcedony; white perhaps from limestone. The powder may have been mixed with water and a thick, sticky substance — animal fat, gum or tree resin. Brushes were made of plant fibre.
Three colour sources named by NCERT and how they became paint.
⤵ Making and applying the paint
Collect coloured mineralshaematite (red), green chalcedony, limestone (white, probably)
Grind to powderon stone
Mixwith water and a binder — animal fat, gum or resin
Applywith plant-fibre brushes on walls and ceilings
Survive for millenniabelieved due to a chemical reaction with oxide on the rock surface
Why have the colours lasted? They have survived thousands of years of harsh weather. NCERT says it is believed that they remained intact because of a chemical reaction with the oxide present on the rock surface.
Beyond NCERT
Haematite is an iron oxide; ochres are earths coloured by iron oxides, which is why red is the commonest colour in rock art worldwide.
Chalcedony is a fine-grained (microcrystalline) quartz; agate and carnelian are related forms — the same stones later used for Harappan beads.
Exam traps
Red ← haematite (geru); green ← chalcedony; white ← probably limestone. Do not match green to copper ore or white to chalk ‘as fact’ — NCERT gives only these.
Brushes: plant fibre (not animal hair, as per NCERT).
Favourite colours: white and red.
8. Where they painted, and painting over paintings
In simple wordsA school noticeboard collects new posters over old ones; the top one is always the newest. Rock walls were used the same way — and that lets archaeologists work out which painting came first.
Placement. Paintings are on the walls and ceilings of rock shelters. Some are in shelters where people lived; others are in places that do not seem to have been homes — perhaps of religious importance. Some of the finest are very high up or near the ceiling; NCERT suggests they were placed there to be noticed from a distance.
Superimposition. At many sites a new painting is made over an old one; at Bhimbetka there are as many as 20 layers in places. Why? Perhaps the artist disliked the earlier work; perhaps the painting or place was sacred or special; or perhaps different generations used the same spot at different times.
Left: the Lakhudiyar order of layers. Right: NCERT’s three possible reasons for repainting.
⤵ Using superimposition to date paintings (relative dating)
Find overlapping paintingse.g. black under red under white at Lakhudiyar
The upper layer is youngerit was painted after the one it covers
Group by style and techniquecolours, size, line or wash, subjects
Build a sequenceBhimbetka’s seven periods
Tie to tools and remainsUpper Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, Chalcolithic deposits nearby
Why this mattersSuperimposition gives only a relative order (‘older than’), not a date in years. That is why the chapter gives periods, not exact dates — and why your answers should too.
9. What the paintings tell us
In simple wordsTools tell us what people did with their hands; paintings tell us what was on their minds — what they feared, celebrated, hoped for and found beautiful.
Though ancient and made in hard conditions with simple tools and materials, the paintings have real pictorial quality and the charm of simple rendering. Men appear adventurous and rejoicing; animals look more youthful and majestic than they perhaps were. The artists had a passion for storytelling, showing men and animals in a struggle for survival: a group hunting a bison with injured men scattered on the ground; an animal in the agony of death while men dance. Such pictures may have given people a sense of power over the animals they met in the open.
NCERT adds that some communities today still engrave or paint on rocks as part of rituals at birth, death, coming of age and marriage, and dance in masks during hunting rites to help them find or kill difficult animals. (NCERT uses the word ‘primitive’; historians now prefer neutral terms such as ‘hunter-gatherer’ or ‘present-day communities’.) Such parallels suggest possible meanings for ancient paintings but do not prove them.
The paintings of individual animals show mastery: proportion and tonal effect are realistically kept. Above all, these paintings tell us about early humans’ lifestyle, food habits and daily activities, and help us understand their mind — how they thought. NCERT calls rock paintings the greatest wealth left by the people of this period, alongside rock weapons, tools, ceramics and bones.
What we see
What it suggests (cautiously)
Group hunts with bows, spears, traps
hunting-gathering economy; cooperation
Honey and fruit gathering; women grinding food
a varied diet; division of tasks
Dances, masks, head-dresses, body decoration
social life, celebration, perhaps ritual
Paintings in non-living spaces, high up
special or sacred places; display
Fear and tenderness towards animals
close, mixed relationship with the animal world
Later riders, tridents, horses
contact with settled and historical societies
Beyond NCERT — a Mains frameFor ‘Mesolithic rock art reflects cultural life and a fine aesthetic sense comparable to modern painting’ (GS1 2015): cultural life — hunting, gathering, dance, family, ritual; aesthetic — economy of line, movement and rhythm, naturalistic animals, abstraction of the human figure (as in much modern art), narrative composition; critically — purposes were probably ritual or practical, not ‘art for art’s sake’; dating is relative; meanings are inferred. Note that rock shelters are natural; ‘rock-cut architecture’ in that question really means rock art.
NCERT’s side questions — short answers
Can you figure out what the artist is trying to depict in this painting? (page 3)
White figures on a red rock: an elephant on the right and what appear to be riders and other animals to the left and below — most likely riders with elephants, perhaps a procession or a hunt. NCERT lists ‘horse and elephant riders’ among Bhimbetka’s themes; such scenes belong to the later periods.
Why has the animal been shown so big and man so small? (page 5)
To show the animal’s strength, danger and importance; to express the hunter’s fear; because the animal, not the man, is the subject. Size here shows importance, not real proportion — a device seen in much early art.
Why did artists paint in the same place again and again? (page 7, in the text)
NCERT’s possibilities: the artist was unhappy with the earlier work; the place or painting was sacred or special; different generations used the same shelter at different times. These are guesses, not proven facts.
Why paint high up in uncomfortable positions? (page 5, in the text)
So that the paintings could be seen from a distance; possibly because the place was special. NCERT offers the visibility reason.
NCERT exercise — answer outlines
These are short answer and project questions. Try each first, then compare.
Q1. According to your observation, how did the people of prehistoric times select themes for their paintings?
From their own environment and experience: the animals they hunted and feared (bison, elephant, tiger, boar, deer); their activities — group hunting, honey and fruit gathering, food preparation, dancing, music, body decoration; family and community life (children playing, the old and young); struggle for survival (men attacked by animals, injured hunters); possibly ritual and sacred themes (paintings in non-living spaces, masked figures); later, contact with settled societies (riders, horses, tridents). Geometric patterns (Lakhudiyar wavy lines, dots) show decoration or symbols. So themes were what mattered most to daily survival and belief.
Q2. What could have been the reasons for depicting more animal figures than human figures in cave paintings?
Animals were central to life — food, skins, bones, danger; hunting depended on knowing them; paintings may have had a ritual/magical purpose to ensure a successful hunt or give a sense of power over animals; animals were feared and admired (shown majestic, larger than life); some may have been sacred; artists showed tenderness and love as well as fear; animals were drawn naturalistically as subjects in their own right, while humans were stylised supporting figures. (Caution: reasons are inferred, not recorded.)
Q3. Which visual in this chapter do you like the most and why? Give a critical appreciation.
Example — the Dancing Scene, Bhimbetka: subject — rows of hand-linked figures in white on red rock, a larger figure above; composition — curving tiers create rhythm and movement; style — stylised stick figures, repetition, economy of line; technique — mineral white on a ferruginous surface; meaning — community, celebration, perhaps ritual; links — the Lakhudiyar dancers show a shared theme. Critique — faded, partly overpainted; meaning uncertain. (Any figure works if you cover subject, form, colour, technique, meaning, and limits.)
Q4. Other than Bhimbetka, which are the other major sites where prehistoric paintings have been found? Prepare a report.
Lakhudiyar (Suyal river, Almora, Uttarakhand) — humans, animals, geometric patterns; white, black, red ochre; black → red → white layers; hand-linked dancers. Kupgallu, Piklihal, Tekkalkota (granite, Karnataka–AP) — white, red on white, red ochre; bulls, elephants, sambhar, gazelles, sheep, goats, horses, stylised humans, tridents; Neolithic to historical. Kashmir — two engraved slabs. Vindhya–Kaimur sites in MP and UP (map: Bhopal, Sagar, Pachmarhi, Mirzapur and others). Map also marks engraving sites (Edakal Cave, Leh, Kargil). Add your own line drawings — not tracings of photographs — for each.
Q5. In modern times, how have walls been used as a surface to make paintings, graphics, etc.?
Murals in public buildings and metro stations; street art and graffiti; folk wall painting continued in homes (e.g. Warli, Madhubani wall painting, Pithora); political and advertising wall writing; school and hospital murals; community art and awareness campaigns (Swachh Bharat walls); digital projection on walls. Continuity: the wall remains a public canvas for story, belief and message — as in the rock shelters.
Reading the map at the end of the chapter — ‘Map of Indus Valley sites’ (after page 7)The last page of this chapter’s file is the opening map of Chapter 2: an outline map (not to scale) shading the Indus–Ghaggar region and marking ancient cities such as Harappa, Mohenjo-daro, Kalibangan, Lothal, Surkotada, Banawali, Rangpur, Rojdi, Ropar, Alamgirpur and Daimabad (with modern towns for reference). It is studied in the next chapter; it is not part of rock art.
What to remember
Numbers
First rock paintings found in India1867–68 (Archibald Carlleyle)
Gap before Altamira, Spain12 years (Altamira 1879 — Beyond NCERT)
Bhimbetka discovered1957–58 (V.S. Wakankar)
Bhimbetka from Bhopal45 km south
Bhimbetka area10 sq km
Bhimbetka rock sheltersabout 800
Painted shelters500
Bhimbetka periods7 (I Upper Palaeolithic, II Mesolithic, III Chalcolithic + 4 later)
Maximum layers of superimpositionup to 20 (Bhimbetka)
Lakhudiyarabout 20 km on the Almora–Barechina road; ‘one lakh caves’
Bhimbetka: Vindhyas, 45 km south of Bhopal; ~800 shelters, 500 painted.
Upper Palaeolithic: huge linear animals; green dancers, red hunters.
Mesolithic: most paintings, smaller; hunts dominate; animals naturalistic, humans stylised.
Red = haematite (geru); green = chalcedony; white = limestone (probably).
Binder: fat, gum or resin; brush: plant fibre.
Top layer = younger: superimposition gives relative dates.
Traps to avoid
NCERT’s box equates prehistory with the Palaeolithic; prehistory also includes the Mesolithic, Neolithic and Chalcolithic.
Carlleyle discovered India’s first rock paintings; Wakankar discovered Bhimbetka.
India’s first find (1867–68) came before Altamira (1879), not after.
Lakhudiyar is in Uttarakhand, not Madhya Pradesh; its earliest layer is black, its latest white.
The largest number of Bhimbetka paintings are Mesolithic, not Upper Palaeolithic.
Upper Palaeolithic: green figures are dancers, red ones hunters.
Mesolithic: animals naturalistic, humans stylised — not the reverse.
NCERT names Period III (Chalcolithic) but never describes it.
NCERT’s ‘Hunting Scene’ photograph appears to show riders on horses — a later-period theme; Mesolithic hunters hunted on foot.
Bhimbetka’s ‘caves’ are natural rock shelters, not rock-cut caves like Ajanta.
How to strategise
Prelims — what UPSC asks
Our Prelims archive has no direct question on Bhimbetka or rock painting yet — a gap that makes the topic a likely candidate. The closest is 2021, where ‘pre-historic cave paintings’ appeared as a wrong option for Halbi, Ho and Kui (they are tribal languages) — so know the real names: Bhimbetka, Lakhudiyar, Kupgallu, Piklihal, Tekkalkota.
Expect statement-type questions: discoverers (Carlleyle, Wakankar), dates (1867–68, 1957–58), Bhimbetka’s location and numbers, the seven periods, which period has most paintings (Mesolithic), colour sources (haematite/geru, chalcedony, limestone), Lakhudiyar’s layer order, and UNESCO listing (2003, Beyond NCERT).
Do not confuse prehistoric rock painting with later murals (Ajanta, Bagh, Lepakshi — asked in 2010, 2013, 2017, 2026), which belong to chapter 5 of this book and to Theme Four.
Mains — where it appears and how to answer
GS1 2015: ‘Mesolithic rock-cut architecture of India not only reflects the cultural life of the times but also a fine aesthetic sense comparable to modern painting. Critically evaluate.’ Use sections 6 and 9: cultural life (hunts, gathering, dance, family, ritual), aesthetics (line, rhythm, naturalism of animals, stylised humans, narrative), and the critique (purpose, relative dating, inferred meaning; shelters are natural, not rock-cut).
Frame for any rock-art answer: site and setting → discovery → periods and superimposition → themes → technique and colours → what it reveals → limits of interpretation.
Use one named example per point — Bhimbetka’s bison hunt, the Lakhudiyar dancers, the haematite red — and draw a quick sketch of a superimposition sequence if space allows.
Self-check
Tap an option. NCERT's own exercise questions come first; the rest test the figures and common confusions.
1. The first discovery of rock paintings in India was made in 1867–68 by:
2. At Lakhudiyar, the order of superimposed paintings from earliest to latest is:
3. The largest number of paintings at Bhimbetka belong to which period?
4. In the Upper Palaeolithic paintings of Bhimbetka, as described by NCERT:
5. The green colour in Bhimbetka paintings came from:
6. Kupgallu, Piklihal and Tekkalkota are known for:
7. Which statement about Bhimbetka is correct?
UPSC questions from this chapter
Open any question to attempt it in the Question bank — your attempt is saved to your progress.