Indian Paintings: Rock art and murals

Ajanta is a Buddhist monastic site. Its murals narrate Jataka stories of the Buddha's previous births (such as the Mahajanaka, Vessantara and Chhaddanta Jatakas) and events from his life, with Bodhisattvas, celestial beings and scenes of courtly and daily life serving these stories. Epic narratives belong to later Hindu temple murals, and Kalpasutra scenes to Western Indian Jain manuscripts.

Ajanta has two main phases. The early chaitya and vihara caves, especially Caves 9 and 10, carry paintings of about the 2nd–1st century BCE, in the Satavahana period. The second and larger phase came in the 5th century CE, when the Vakataka court, including Harishena's minister Varahadeva (Cave 16 inscription), patronised new caves such as 1, 2, 16 and 17. Both statements are correct.

The Mesolithic paintings of Bhimbetka are prehistoric, thousands of years older than anything else here. Ajanta Cave 10 carries paintings of about the 2nd–1st century BCE. The Thanjavur murals date to Rajaraja I's Chola temple, completed around 1010 CE. The Lepakshi ceiling murals are Vijayanagara work of the 16th century. Order: 1-2-4-3.

NCERT describes Upper Palaeolithic paintings as linear representations, in green and dark red, of huge animals and stick-like humans, so statement 1 is correct. Pigments came from ground minerals: red from haematite (geru), green from a variety of chalcedony and white probably from limestone, so statement 2 is correct. Rock paintings were first found in India in 1867–68 by Archibald Carlleyle, twelve years before Altamira; Wakankar discovered Bhimbetka much later, in 1957–58. Statement 3 is false.

Kerala murals (roughly 16th–19th century) use bold outlines, a palette dominated by ochre, red and green, and full, rounded figures from the epics and Puranas. The Ramayana panels of Mattancherry Palace (Kochi), the murals of Padmanabhapuram Palace (the old Travancore seat, now in Kanyakumari district of Tamil Nadu) and the temple walls of Vadakkunnathan at Thrissur all belong to this tradition. Sittanavasal is a Jain cave of the Pandya period in Tamil Nadu, outside it. So three.

NCERT groups Bhimbetka's art into periods. The largest number of paintings belong to Period II, the Mesolithic, when themes multiply, figures become smaller and hunting scenes predominate, along with animals, dancing and family groups. Upper Palaeolithic figures are fewer and large; Chalcolithic paintings show contact with agricultural communities and pottery.

The Bagh caves are Buddhist viharas cut into the hills by the Baghani river in Dhar district, in the Malwa region of western Madhya Pradesh. Their paintings (c. late 5th–6th century CE) are close to the later Ajanta style, with the well-known hallisaka dance scene in Cave 4. Raisen has Bhimbetka and Sanchi, Vidisha has Udayagiri, and Mandsaur is known for the Yashodharman pillars.

The Chola paintings in the circumambulatory passage of the Brihadishvara temple were found in 1931 beneath a later layer of Nayaka paintings, so statement 1 is correct. NCERT lists their themes as narrations of Shiva, Shiva in Kailasa, Tripurantaka and Nataraja, so statement 2 is correct. They also show the patron Rajaraja I with his mentor Karuvurar (Kuruvar), so statement 3 is correct.