PAMPASAROVAR SHELTER

Herbert Daniel Gebauer - 06/01/2018

No satisfying local name (Gavi Pampa?) is known to designate a natural sacred rock shelter and cult spot associated with the Hindu goddess -Durga- (personal -communication- in Kannada language) with a peasant, 01 March 2004), which lies on the way to the –>Pampasarovar Caves and on the left-hand side of the road but about four vertical metres up the rocky flank of a hill built up of gravitationally dislocated granite boulders. CAVE DESCRIPTION: The approximately 3 or 4 m wide and high shelter covers an inclined, stony area of about 5 or 6 square metres. It focuses on a central boulder with one almost plane, upright and painted surface (about 2 m wide and high), which, facing west-north-west (300°) and the road below, is flanked on its left and right by two larger boulders that support a third, wedged one that functions as roof. CULTURAL HISTORY - rock art: The paintings on a white washed back ground consist of five egg-shaped dots, about 15 by 20 large and horizontally striped in crimon and white. These are quite irregularly distributed on kind of a herald-shaped background (resembling a letter -U- closed at the top and then vertically mirrored, up to 60 cm wide and close to a metre high) surrounded by ochre coloured frame (approximately 10 cm wide) from which two bands (again in ochre and about 10 cm broad) swing of counter-clockwise, resulting in kind of a half-breed between spiral and swastika. HUMAN USE: An annual (?) religious event took place on 3rd March 2004, on the evening of half-moon day, when the dark half of the month ended and the bright half began.