Object No 5: Edakkal Caves

The approach to the caves

The Paleolithic origin of India was not recognised until relatively recently, possibly because no-one had looked for it. Stone tools had been found in Tamil Nadu, but megalithic stones and the rock shelters such as Edekkal had been ignored by researchers. A gradual appreciation of the ancient history of the area has led to a re-examination of many sites, Edakkal itself being excavated in 2010, many finds pointing to its occupation seven thousand years ago. The ancient is often wrapped up in the sacred in India, and legend tells that the caves were made when Lava and Kusha, the sons of Sri
Rama, their tale told in the Ramayana, fired arrows in a battle, and Lord Rama killed Ravana’s sister Surpnakha in the narrow cleft in the rock to the south of the cave. This pinpoints Edakkal as an important place in the distant past, one which is not past but contiguous with the present to many Hindus.

The cave itself is more a rock shelter, a split in the cliff face, approached by a steep climb and a passage through other clefts in the rock. There is a view of many miles into the distance. I had seen
many pictures and videos of the engravings but the size and scale of the caves  breath taking. Deep, meandering grooves cover the left-hand wall, incised into the sandstone. Patterns and squiggles, random lines, wheels, suns and possible animals and figures stretch along one wall, out of the sun and presumably out of the rain. According to our guide when we visited the caves Neolithic people lived here and scratched on the walls to amuse themselves and for decoration. I wasn’t buying it. He  showed us a peacock, a man with hair which stood straight up on end, an elephant and a sun symbol but I found it as convincing as seeing faces in clouds. I asked him about the maze, circular and
very clear, and right in front of us, explaining that it closely resembled drawings found on monuments of a similar age, something commented on by Captain Fawcett when he had come across the caves over a century before.
 “A sun,” he explained, and I let him be, not wanting him to have to lose face by telling us that no-one had the faintest idea what the engravings were all about. In David Lewis Williams’s book, “The Mind in the Cave,” he explores the way in which modern archaeologists and philosophers go about interpreting the mind set of ancient people, arguing that we cannot know what drove them, or what the origins of the first art might have been. In an examination of consciousness and unconscious states he describes the many types of patterns which are experienced and are directly associated with the neurological construction of the brain. These include the jagged castellation seen by migraine sufferers. In laboratory experiments subjects asked to make marks go through stages of  consciousness, demonstrated by inscribing simple patters and more complex drawings, always culturally based.

The complex drawings are related to entering a region by way of a passage often described as a tunnel or vortex. This is an experience common to modern shamans who believe this to be the entrance to the spirit world. The images which come from the earlier states of altered consciousness
are found all over the world in the art of the early period, from the caves of France to the rock paintings of the Sahara, to Australia and the Americas. A common humanity links these symbols and here they all were on the walls at Edakkal, along with the maze, a universal focus, hidden behind a boulder.
The ancient remains of prehistoric India ae gradually revealing themselves and promise a richer history than has yet been dreamed of.