Pre-Ashoka era rock paintings discovered on a boulder in Jubilee Hills

Hyderabad: Archaeological experts based in the city are claiming to have found pre-Ashokan era rock paintings on a huge boulder at the Jubilee Hills area that takes back the history of Hyderabad to some 5000 years.

According to DrDyavanapalli Satyanarayana, a historian, only few people know that Jubilee Hills was newly constructed with the help of Padmasri Challagalla Narasimham during the decade of 1960s-70s. However, he recently made an astonishing discovery at BNR Hills, a part of Jubilee Hills, during a visit to his friend’s house warming ceremony.

While claiming that he found pre-Ashokan era rock paintings on a huge boulder that takes back the history of Hyderabad to some 5000 years, he said, “A huge boulder that looks like snake hood contains ochre colour rock paintings in a straight line of some two metres.”

“These inscriptions, he said, are the letters comparable with the rock paintings found on the surfaces of caves in Mannemkonda near Mahbubnagar and Wargal Saraswati temple. But they are more comparable with the letters explored in Tungabhadra valley and Vikram Khol inscription, Sambalpur district of Odisha.

Scholars like Pandyan and K.P. Jayaswal deciphered and interpreted them as belonging to pre-Ashokan scripts. In the rock paintings of BNR Hills also we find similar script / letters. There are letters like D and E turned to their left. Letters like U and triangle / delta. There are several other letters. These letters are comparable to the letters of Indus Valley sites. Archaeologists and scholars like Iravatham Mahadevan, S.R. Rao, Asko Parpola, and others deciphered them.

The BNR hills letters too belong to the same age because there we come across several cupules hewn by the people of Neolithic age while making their tools here some 5000 years ago when Indus Valley civilization was in flourishing state.

Thereafter human culture lasted here because a rock bruising of “a trident going up through a circle” is also noticed; it is the characteristic motif of the successive age known as Megalithic Age which existed some 3000 years ago.

Further, a Telugu inscription of the letters “ja glam ti vem kka ta shaa va” (obeisance to Lord jaglanti / borlanti venkata) is also found at the southwest corner of the boulder of the rock structure in BNR Hills.

When contacted, he further said, Sri Muniratnam Reddy of Archaeological Survey of India explained that the legendary inscription belongs to the 18th century. Then it acquired importance because in that century this Banjara Hills area was visited by Banjara Guru Sant Sri Sevalal Maharaj whose local legend will now find written record; because the Banjara tribals worship Lord Venkateswara till date.

“The Government of Telangana should protect the site before it is vandalized by treasure hunters and depute scholars technically qualified to survey the site so as to enhance the historical value of Hyderabad, Telangana,” he argued.