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Many people are arguing that horses are native to India and were domesticated here in pre-historic times. They argue that cave paintings of horses in Bhimbetka prove that horses existed in India even before the Harappan period (2500-2000 BC). But this is simply not true.
The horse species Equus namadicus is an extinct equine native to the Indian subcontinent that disappeared by the Holocene epoch, around 11,700 years ago. But this is not depicted in artworks. Only fossils have been found in the Narmada valley.
Bhimbetka is located on the Vindhya hills near Bhopal. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site that preserves some of the earliest traces of human imagination. Spread across seven hills and comprising more than 700 rock shelters, these caves are not just prehistoric dwellings but also canvases where early humans left behind engravings and paintings.
First recognised for their prehistoric significance in 1957 by archaeologist V. S. Wakankar, Bhimbetka has since become central to our understanding of human evolution and cultural history in South Asia.
What makes Bhimbetka truly remarkable are its petroglyphs – engravings of cupules (cup-shaped depressions) and linear grooves carved into stone. Some experts, especially Robert Bednarik, suggest these could date back as far as 700,000 years, perhaps even before Homo sapiens walked the earth.
In the famed Auditorium Cave, with its cathedral-like grandeur, these engravings appear beneath Acheulean tool layers, indicating that they were created by earlier hominins. If so, Bhimbetka, along with Daraki-Chattan in Madhya Pradesh, may hold the title of the world’s oldest known rock art.
The popular image of Bhimbetka, however, comes from its wall paintings of hunts, dancers, and riders. Some reports claim they are 30,000 years old, but scholars caution against exaggeration. Unlike the engravings, the paintings lack reliable scientific dating. People have painted over earlier works making dating difficult.
Most experts now agree that the majority belong to the Mesolithic and later Holocene periods (around 10,000 years ago onwards), with many extending into historic times. There is clear evidence of artworks of the Stone Age (hunting and foraging) and later Copper (Chalcolithic Age), when farming and herding began.
There are scenes depicting men riding horses or elephants. These cannot predate the arrival of those animals in Indian society. The horse was domesticated around 2200 BC on the Eurasian steppe. Evidence of horses in India appears only from the Megalithic period, around 1000 BC. They came with the Vedic people.
Rig Veda, dated to 1500 BC, contains the earliest horse poetry in the world. There were no horses in any civilization prior to 1500 BC. It reached Egypt, Greece and China around this time. The earliest uncontroversial evidence of horse remains on the Indian subcontinent dates to the early Swat culture (around 1600 BC), long after Harappan cities ceased to exist.
Chariot riding came first, as horses breeds domesticated early were too small for riding. Horse riding came later. Horse riders appeared worldwide only after 700 BC. Not earlier. Thus, the horse paintings at Bhimbetka (chariot-riders and horse-riders) are at best 2500 years old.
Horses are difficult to breed in India’s monsoon climate. Horse breeding began in Maharashtra (Bhimthadi horse), Gujarat (Kathiawar horse) and Rajasthan (Marwari horse) only after 1200 AD, not before.
Similarly, elephants – depicted with ropes on Indus seals around 2500 BC – were captured but never truly domesticated, since no selective breeding programmes ever reshaped their biology. The earliest reference to domestic elephants comes from Vedic ritual manuals (the Brahmana) dated to 800 BC.
The rock shelters themselves were perfect homes for humans. Abundant spring water, game animals like deer and boar, and natural protection made Bhimbetka a thriving settlement for hundreds of thousands of years.
Excavations have yielded Acheulean hand axes, cleavers, and hammerstones, proving continuous occupation from the Paleolithic through the Mesolithic. Even the Toba super-eruption of 74,000 years ago, once thought catastrophic for humanity, did not wipe out life here — stone tool traditions carried on uninterrupted.
The name “Bhimbetka” connects the site where Bhima of the Mahabharata met (bhet) Hanuman. But its true legacy is deeper, belonging to prehistoric humanity itself. The site captures the entire arc – from early hominin engravings possibly older than 500,000 years, to Mesolithic hunts, to historic battle scenes with horses and elephants. It tells us that art did not arrive suddenly with modern humans; it evolved gradually, layered over millennia, reflecting shifting economies, technologies, and rituals.
Are horses native to India and were they domesticated here in pre-historic times? What do cave paintings of horses in Bhimbetka say?
How has Bhimbetka become central to our understanding of human evolution and cultural history in South Asia?
What makes Bhimbetka truly remarkable are its petroglyphs – engravings of cupules (cup-shaped depressions) and linear grooves carved into stone. Discuss.
Discuss the historical and cultural significance of Bhimbetka rock paintings.
(Devdutt Pattanaik is a renowned mythologist who writes on art, culture and heritage.)
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