01Bhima’s seat
The local name means the seat of Bhima: the people of the area say the Pandava Bhima sat and rested here during the exile. V. S. Wakankar, travelling by train in 1957, saw the rock formations from the window, got down and found the painted shelters. His excavations and later ones found stone tools of the Acheulian stage in the deepest levels of the Auditorium shelter, and a long sequence above them to the historical period.
02The painted walls
The oldest paintings, in red and white, show bison, deer, boar and rhinoceros, and men hunting them with spears and bows. Later layers show riders on horses and elephants, warriors with swords and shields, and rows of dancers holding hands. In the Zoo Rock shelter hundreds of animals are crowded on one face. Many tribal families of the Vindhyas, the Gonds and Korkus among them, still paint their walls in the same manner. UNESCO inscribed the shelters in 2003.
The life of this place
- 1957 CEV. S. Wakankar discovers the painted shelters.
- 2003 CEInscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
45 km south of Bhopal off the Hoshangabad road; a marked walk takes in the main painted shelters. ASI ticketed.
