Place · prehistoric rock art · India

Janakpur rock paintings — Ara, Bhanwarkhoh and Tilauli

Periods

Prehistory

Function

Archaeology & heritage

Confidence

Established / referenced

Location

23.743, 81.848 (approximate)

Worth knowing

The plough is the telling motif: it places at least part of this painting after the beginning of settled cultivation rather than in a purely hunting economy. Three sites make up the group — Ara, on the hillside about 500 m from the village on the Kelhari–Janakpur road; Bhanwarkhoh, a run of caves and deep shelters near Murelgarh hill on the same road; and Tilauli in the Chutki area, about 5 km further on.

About the place

The marker is the Ara and Bhanwarkhoh cluster. Tilauli lies about 5 km further on; the shelters themselves are unpublished, so this locates the group rather than any one cave mouth.

Connections (3)

• AnalogueJogīmārā & Sitabenga, Ramgarh

  Two painted rock traditions in the same hills: the Janakpur shelters with their bulls, deer and ploughs, and the Jogimara cave with its inscribed and painted chamber beside the Sitabenga theatre. Together they show the Surguja ranges were painted over a very long span.

• AnalogueBaijan Pat wall paintings

  The Baijan Pat paintings are dated to the fourteenth or fifteenth century and the Janakpur shelters far earlier. Set side by side they make the point that painting rock in this country was not a prehistoric episode but a practice that continued into the sultanate centuries.

• AnalogueSendurigarh, Badra

  Sendurigarh carries rock paintings on the same hill as a fort and a goddess shrine, which is the recurring Surguja pattern: the painted shelter, the defensible height and the living cult on one outcrop.

Sources

Commissioner, Surguja Division (division-surguja.cg.gov.in), tourist-destination pages, 2026; coordinates supplied by the editor