Anegundi Rock Paintings

By Meera

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Visiting the World Heritage Site of Hampi year after year has become a pilgrimage but this time after a let up in the pandemic, our Spotted Owlets team traversed to some offbeat places in this ancient landscape. There is something more to see around Hampi and in the neighboring land of Anegundi, we got to see some rare and prehistoric rock art that is off the tourist track and hardly visited by anybody.

 

Anything to do with stone age or new stone age and relics from any era is very fascinating as one gets to know how humans lived during those days. We have seen dolmens, menhirs, iron tools and many other things in Shivamogga, Bengaluru and Ballari districts but the Onake Kindi rock paintings of Anegundi in Koppal district is amazing as it has survived till date.

View of the hillocks with gate closed

A remarkable feature of people living between 1200-600 BC was to create sketches of their life in their dwellings, that is caves or any kind of rock shelter. Painted on hillocks, these brick-colored pictographs are made out of some vegetable dyes and are still visible at Anegundi (considered the ancient Kishkindha kingdom of Ramayana) in Karnataka state, India. In fact, nobody talks much about this heritage from the Iron Age as it is hidden amongst paddy fields and is not easily accessible to people.

View of the rock painting caves amidst the paddy fields and solar panel

 

Searching for this place and trying to get an entry into this place became a herculean task as one has to cross a farmer’s field who does not easily allow people to enter these caves. Fortunately, we were accompanied by our heritage guide Sharbesh whose persistence paid off and the gate lock was opened. After crossing the paddy field, we climbed and criss-crossed a few boulders to reach these caves.

 

Traversing some steep pathways, we avoided some rocky outcrops to protect our face. Even as we climbed up, we came across an open scrub and thorny landscape which is surrounded on two sides by small boulder strewn hillocks. Wading across the rocky uphill, we stumbled upon the fresh scat of a sloth bear containing some fruit seeds in the open landscape. The local staff of the landowner told us it was a leopard and bear land and every now and then, they came out of their dens. Not disturbed by wild tales, the cave front beckoned us to take a look at its ancient heritage.

A view of the Cobra that stretches from the mouth to the interiors of the cave

With three people accompanying us and asking us to see the paintings and scoot within 10 minutes, it became very difficult for us to soak in our ancient heritage. With the farmer raising a hue and cry and ordering us to quit, we could not venture further to see a greater number of caves having more such paintings. In almost all the paintings we saw here, the bull (symbol of fertility) is common in most of the pictographs.

 

Front view of Cave with rock art

All three of us including Tharangini and Adhikari managed to see only two cave fronts which had these paintings at a very low level. In the first one, we had to literally crawl inside the mouth of the cave to get a better view. Some painted figures are visible while some are disappearing. There seems to be no effort to preserve this ancient rock art or maybe, even take restoration works. Lack of funds seems to be the standard answer for inability to preserve our heritage.

How To Go There?

 

Located inside a paddy field, these ancient cave paintings fall near Chikkarampur village in Anegundi taluk of Koppal district. From Hampi, Anegundi is about 20 kilometres and from here, it is about 2 kilometres. However, getting an entry into this place is difficult as the owner of this land discourages visitors and keeps the gate locked.

Join me in Part II for more...