Rock carvings of Ladakh Himalayas

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Rock carvings of Ladakh Himalayas

Written by Administrator
Friday, 15 September 2006



By: SD Singh Jamwal, IPS


Ladakh is an ancient land. River Indus cuts across Ladakh and forms one of the biggest river systems of the world. Civilizations have developed along this river since time immemorial.
Scattered throughout this vastness of Ladakh are the unique rock carvings which were made by ancient people who used the glazed surfaces of huge magnetite rocks and boulders as canvas to carve out various pictures depicting an array of activities of their day to day life- economic activities, religion, culture, beliefs, and customs. Most of these rock carvings date back to 8th - 5th century BC. Some of them even are from 2nd century BC.

Though Ladakh has an enormous amount of rock art, much of the terrain is inaccessible; the climate is cold and harsh, there is a very short working season. Perhaps, this is the reason that very little field research has been done until now on the Ladakh rock carvings, although there are some reports by travelers, missionaries or foreign scholars.
Rock carvings or Petroglyphs are the main documents about the prehistoric history and cultures of Ladakh. They were first recognized in the mountainous region of Himalaya by August Herman Francke in 1902, in his paper: Notes on rock carving in lower Ladakh. This pioneer study was followed by others like Gordon. Recently, we have some reports by scholars like Rohit Vohra, Snellgroove and Skorupski, Franckfurt et.. In the areas of Gilgit, Baltistan, Skardu and Chilas of Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir, detailed work was done by scholars like Karl Jettmer, Dr. A.H Dani, and Prof. Harald Hauptmann. Most of this work has been done since 1980 only as a part of joint Pakistan-German project to explore rock art sites along the Karakoram Highway. Studies have been done on the Tibetan side too but there are very fewer reports about them.

Working on the Ladakh rock carvings project since 2001, I along with a friend of mine Tashi Ldawa, have tried to make an inventory of rock carvings in Ladakh. The study was a team effort, particularly helped by the district police network under its police civic action programme.
The project made thorough searches of all the areas of the Leh district and some parts of the Kargil district, stretched thousands of kilometres, including the Nubra region to the North, the Changtang region to the East, the Sham region to the West and from Nemo to Chilling to the south. It documented thousands of petroglyphs that vary enormously in time period, subject and distribution. Few of the carvings were previously reported.
Interestingly, it was by sheer chance that I came across few rocks carving in Ladakh while on tour in the area in the year 2001.It so happened that my official vehicle broke down near village Taru, some 20 kms from Leh on Leh-Kargil road. While the driver took a few minutes to set the engine right, I just looked around the rocks and boulders. What I saw was amazing. I couldn’t believe that this form of rock art had remained hidden for all these years. The Petroglyphs-the images carved on rock surfaces- aroused my curiosity and after returning to Leh, discussed these with Tashi Ldawa, my college and university colleague and now a lecturer in Zoology who already had some photograph collection of such rock carvings. Thereafter, we started looking for such more rock carvings on their travels together in Ladakh.
As extensive traveling in Ladakh was a part of my job, I always carried cameras and other equipment required for this research work on rock art. But soon the realization dawned that something needed to be done urgently for recording these rock carvings and their conservation. The reasons were many.
Since most of these carvings have been found along the ancient foot tracks and the present day roads have been constructed along these tracks, such construction works spell doom for these rock carvings.
While recording rock carvings in Ladakh, we faced a major problem. As none of us were trained archeologists or geographers, we approached the Archeological survey of India (ASI) office in Leh. It however proved to be a futile exercise. The ASI didn’t know much about Ladakh rock carvings and since these artifacts were not covered under ancient monuments, there destruction didn’t amount to any offence technically.
As rock carvings in Ladakh are under constant threat of getting lost for ever, the endeavour was also to educate local people about their importance. But still not satisfied with all these things including making several presentations in a number of exhibitions and seminars, the realization occurred that unless some drastic interventions were not made, many of these treasures of history would be lost to mankind for ever. In spite of all these actions, we realized that rocks were being destroyed every passing day. The situation was really alarming. It was clear that unless some drastic interventions are made, these masterpieces of human history would be lost forever.
But before that, we needed a detailed data as to where all these rock carvings were located. And to locate these rock carvings in the vast cold desert and rugged mountains was a really uphill task.
What followed was gigantic task taken up by our team which included adopting various means to get information about rock carving, clicking some photographs and sending copies of these photographs to different police stations and police posts in Leh and Kargil districts where these could be shown to Village Chowkidars and Nambardars, who could regularly inform the police station about any related knowledge.
These photographs were also shown to villagers, monks, shepherds grazing their cattle and laborers working on construction works so as to find whether they have seen rocks with such carvings. Miles were trekked on foot looking for such rocks. The efforts bore fruits when in just two months; a collection of about 1000 photographs was made.
Sleeping over it for many nights, ultimately a decision was taken to occupy a large chunk of land near village “Taru” , about 20 kms from Leh on the Leh- Kargil National Highway. This particular site was selected because many rock carvings naturally existed there. The spot was near Leh town and right on the National Highway, therefore, excess of the tourists and art lovers to the site could be very easy.After talking to the local people and the district administration, 55 hectares of land was occupied and rocks bearing petroglyphs which were in immediate danger of being lost for ever relocated. A temporary police post was established there to ensure the rocks remain safe from human vandalism. Original location of the rocks was marked by GPS for future reference before relocating. To date, more than 20 boulders have been transported to this new location, which we propose to develop as a heritage rock garden. Flag posts have been put next to petroglyph boulders for easy identification from a distance. Placards next to each rock describe the carvings and places from where they were brought. Finally, an NGO- “Upper Indus Rock Art Society”- (UIRAS) with its headquarters at “Central Institute of Buddhist Studies” (CIBS), Leh has also been started. This has been done to ensure interest and involvement of local communities from all parts in the exploration and documentation of Petroglyphs so that the project will attain a satisfactory outcome.
In this work, the team has got the guidance of Professor Harald Hauptmann of Heidelberg Academy of Sciences, Germany who is associated with us for providing technical and expert guidance. Prof. Hauptmann is a world-renowned authority on rock art and besides his numerous works, is working in Northern Areas of Pakistan on a similar project.
He and his wife Salwa, also an archaeologist, traveled to Ladakh twice and now they are helping us in for systematic exploration, documentation and conservation of Rock Art sites of Ladakh documenting and doing our work on scientific lines. The entire work of conservation and documentation of rock carvings is being sponsored by Jammu and Kashmir police under civic action program.