Chaturbhujnath Nala (CBN) is a magnificent and richly painted rock art gallery in India. It is located in Gandhisagar Wildlife Sanctuary in Chambal valley in Madhya Pradesh. The site is very sacred to the people of the region, and is protected by Archaeological Survey of India.

The rock art of Chaturbhujnath Nala is still in its pristine condition. It presents varied aspects of life and cognitive development of hunter-foragers of pre-cattle domestication Stone Age (Period-I, Mesolithic) and early pastorals of the Neolithic-Chalcolithic and Historic Age (Period-II) in Holocene Period. The figures vividly depict their understanding of the nature, challenges faced, inventions made and varied devices they developed to meet them, and above all their spirit to live a happy life in harmony with nature. However, the most important feature of the rock art of CBN is the presentation of a distinct picture of transition from hunting-food-gathering mode of life to cattle domestication, which started with humpless cattle (bull) in the late Mesolithic Age, sometimes in the mid Holocene period or a little bit early. The miniature form of figures, sometimes less than 10 mm in length and height, is one of the unique features of the early pastoral rock art of CBN. The artists efficiently picked up specific moments of the episode of life and nature which were capable of creating the entire incident in the mind of an observer. The legacy of the creative traditions of CBN continues in the present pastorals and tribes of the region.

The book presents the rock art of Chaturbhujnath Nalas as a reflection of the celebration of life in perfect harmony with nature through time. It is the secret of achieving both the worlds of development and enjoying the meaningful and blissful life in its totality.

About the Author

Prof. (Dr) Giriraj Kumar (b. 1953) is an eminent scholar of Rock Art Science and Indian Culture. He established Rock Art Society of India (RASI) and its international journal Purakala in 1990, and serving it as its Founding Secretary General and Editor since 1990.

Prof. Kumar, the Indian representative of IFRAO, has organised many national and international conferences on rock art and chaired several symposia along with Prof. Robert G. Bednarik (Australia) in the IFRAO Congresses. He was invited as an Asian expert on rock art by UNESCO, France in 2008. For his outstanding contributions in rock art science and archaeology he was awarded with the prestigious Dr V.S. Wakankar National Award 2017-18 by the Government of Madhya Pradesh on 22nd March 2021.

He has over 110 research papers published in different national and international journals and 6 books devoted to rock art heritage and culture to his credit. He discovered many rock art sites, Stone Age sites, Chalcolithic sites and many fossil ostrich eggshell sites in Chambal valley and established the existence of ostrich in India in late Late Pleistocene Period.

Through the EIP Project, a joint venture by Indo-Australian scientists in the first two decades of twenty first century, he established the antiquity of the early Indian petroglyphs at Daraki-Chattan Cave to Lower Palaeolithic for the first time in the world, three to ten times much older than the European rock art.