Tourist sites in Hazaribagh, Jharkhand, India

Rockart Sites

The prehistoric rock art of Hazaribagh is painted in some fourteen sandstone rock shelters in the hills of Sati, Mahadeva (Mahudi) and Satpahar Ranges of the Upper Damodar Valley. Authorities have dated the rockart to the Meso-Chalcolithic period (10,000 B.C). There is evidence of an older layer of rock art touching the Palaeolithic. Several microliths and polished stone axe-heads were found in the painted shelters with evidence of Palaeolithic habitation sites and heavy hand axes and stone tools in the hilly region above and alongside the rock art, with Black and Red Ware pottery and remains of an iron industry below. The rock art of the Mesolithic period evidences drawings of wild and domestic animals and the Chalcolithic evidences mandala designs and geometric forms in keeping with the chronology of Wakankar and Brooks (1976) in Central India. The oldest level of rockart I have found to be in Saraiya in the Satpahar Range discovered in 1994 by Erwin Neumayer and Justin Imam. This rockart has a shamanstic series of drawings painted in red haematite which I believe is of the Palaeolithic period, and the most priceless rockart of Hazaribagh.

Sites: Isco, Thethangi, Saraiya, Satpahar I,II, & III, Khandar, Raham, Sidpa, Gonda, and Nautangwa.

Buddhist Sites

The Buddhist sites of Hazaribagh range from an antiquity as early as 300 BC, as in the case of Marwateri in Sitagarha, where Painted Grey Ware (PGW) pottery has been found, to the comparatively recent find of a 9th century Sarasvati of the Pala-Sena period in Hazaribagh. A kilometre to the east, in the opposite direction, are the remains of a Buddhist sanctuary with marvellous sculpted stone monuments, located in a small grove on a rocky hillock. Remains of a Buddhist shrine, and stone relief panels of Bodhisatvas, and votive stupa with Buddha in four mudras. Barwadi Pankri site is in the middle of a series of concentric circles having a major megalithic cluster on the rim.

Sites: Sitagarha, Barwadi Pankri, Sekha Barasi, Dato, Sidpa and  Itkhori (Chatra).

Tribal Village Mural Painting Tradition

The village wall paintings of Hazaribagh are now world famous. The simple subject matter involves common design patterns which are both natural and symbolic and linked with the rock art. The village mural painting tradition is a matriarchal one, and for this reason it is a sacred tradition in an essentially original matriarchal indigenous order. The art is made by married women (Devi) during the marriage and harvest seasons. The marriage art is called Khovar after the Bridal room and bridegroom, and Sohrai is the other kind of village painting done during the winter harvest in which the paintings are painted using cloth swabs or chewed twigs of the local Saal forest tree used for brushing their teeth by the villagers. Sohrai is the other kind of village painting done for the harvest festival in which the paintings are made on earth treated wall with the natural pigments mentioned above using brushes. Only water is used as a dilutant.

Wildlife and Sanctuaries

Hazaribagh is a region rich in forests and wildlife. It is also famous for its National Park. It boasts of sheltering tiger, elephants, sambar, panthers, spotted deer, ratel, wolves, pythons, and Gaur, apart from being a haven for beautiful birds.