Pre-Indus God on Rachakonda paintings

Telangana historian Dr Dyavanapalli Satyanarayana decodes the motifs on rock paintings of Rachakonda, which contain letters and figures of Gods from the pre-Indus era
Rachakonda: In a historic determination, it was found that Rachakonda paintings and petroglyphs that date to the pre-Indus Valley Civilisation era with figurines, such as Katamaran (God), priest, intellectuals, houses, villages, small kingdoms, arrow men, Nagaru, etc on them.

Elaborating on the same, Telangana historian Dr Dyavanapalli Satyanarayana said, “The works of renowned linguist historians, A A Macdonell, S K Chatterjee, Alexander Kondratov, S R Rao, I Mahadevan, Kovoor Raghavan and Mothi Ravan Kangali treat that the Dravidian – Telugu languages were the root languages for Indus Valley seal-scripts. In view of their observations I studied the motifs of rock paintings of Rachakonda, which I discovered October 2014.”

Sharing details of the pre-Indus deity Pasupati Shiva and letters found on the paintings, he said, “The chief symbol engraved on the rock wall space at the entrance gate of Gurraalagutta of Rachakonda is of a man sitting in yogic posture. This engraving looks as the prototype of the Pasupati Shiva of the Indus seal scripts. This engraving has no surrounding animals like its counterpart in Indus sites.”

“This means that motifs at Rachakonda predated the Indus script as opined by scholars that the Dravidian/Telugu script migrated to the Indus area,” he said.

“Another man-like symbol with head dress is interpreted as ideographic syllable of a priest whose painting is also found in the Rachakonda paintings. The chakra like motif of Indus script is read by Raghavan as ‘ch va na’; ‘na’ meaning ‘nagara’. The same chakra (or quadrangular with hallows) symbols of Rachakonda paintings are called naguru even today by Padmanayaka tribals and are being drawn before their deities.

Incidentally the Padmanayakas ruled Telangana after Kakatiyas from Rachakonda,” said the historian.According to linguist Alexander Kondratov, the decimal numeration was used by Telugus several dozen centuries before Aryans. S R Rao observed that the Indus script letters, which appear like the capital letter E turning leftward and upward and leg bone like motifs, represent numbers.

Mahadevan and Raghavan opined that the series of l’s in Indus script represents numbers each conveying one. “The proofs for these opinions are found in Rachakonda paintings,” said Dr Satyanarayana.

Elaborating on it he said, “There are three series of l’s in Rachakonda paintings one below the other. First series contains 19 l’s, second has seven and third 21. A diagram and a king stand before the first series. Second one is followed by three knights fighting with swords. The ninth 1 in the third series is X under an umbrella and is read by Kangali as ‘Maga Maatayal’ meaning emperor.”

“The series of l’s represent the number of villages or small rajyas as per experts; Mahadevan read 1111111 as seven cites and Raghavan interpreted six lines in an Indus seal script letters as six year goat Yagva Patra. Megasthenes of fourth century BC also mentioned that Andhras had 30 cites. Therefore, it can be said that the Rachakonda series of lines 19 + 7 + 21 might represent the mentioned number of villages or rajyas under a king,” he explained.

The other symbols of Rachakonda include a quadrangle with a line shooting upward as conveying the meaning of villages (Gaavtaana) and house of intellectual (Kolamaada). A dumbbell like syllable is read as Koyavoora meaning traditional occupation.