same rake shape on the other side, but the superimposed carving of the sacrificial scene had obscured it. Pradesh looked closely. “The symbol of the labyrinth,” he murmured. “They’re found elsewhere in India and in central Asia, some in caves like this. The oldest ones are Neolithic, at least five thousand years old. Most of them have a stylized rectilinear shape in the middle, but I’ve never seen one as complex as this.”
Costas reached out and touched the carving. He looked intently at Jack. “Correct me if I’m wrong.”
“Incredible,” Jack whispered. “The Atlantis symbol.” He had been staring at it the day before, on the front cover of the monograph in his cabin on Seaquest II. He panned the light to and fro. It created a bizarre image, almost holographic, with the labyrinth appearing and disappearing beneath the shocking images of sacrifice. He wondered whether those who had carved the age-old symbol of a founder civilization were themselves interlopers, witness to primeval scenes of horror that some later artist would one day carve over their sacred symbol, half- obliterating it. The superimposition seemed to draw the ancient image closer, make it real. A labyrinth, hot with human blood .
“There’s more. Lots more.” Pradesh advanced cautiously down the passageway, his shoulders stooped, and then squatted down about five meters ahead of them. Jack and Costas joined him, and watched as he panned his light over the walls. “It’s the same style as those sacrificial images, but we’re not looking at a narrative here,” he said. “There’s a lingam, a phallus, the symbol of Shiva. And on the opposite wall you can see a coiled cobra, its head facing the entrance, its tongue flickering out. That could be a Hindu symbol too, but snake-gods are also relics of pre-Aryan cults. Remember back at Bebbie’s monument, the fear the Koya had of the giringar, the cobra spirit of the jungle? This carving would have put the fear of the gods in them. I think these two carvings were gateway guardians, to keep people out.”
They advanced a few meters beyond the carvings, and Pradesh stopped again, moving his light over the ceiling. It was painted deep blue, in places thick like lacquer, elsewhere patchy where the pigment had crumbled away. “The color of Shiva,” Pradesh murmured. “In Hindu imagery, blue signifies eternity.” He reached up and touched the rock, and then rubbed his fingers where some of the pigment had come away. “It’s lapis lazuli. That’s what they used to make blue pigment. They ground it up to make a paste. You’d never have seen anything as precious as lapis from Afghanistan traded up here in the jungle, so the artist must have brought it with him.”
Jack reached up and put his palm on the ceiling, on a patch where the blue was still as thick as enamel. He remembered what his grandfather had told him about the little carved elephant in his chest of family artifacts. Pradesh had said it too. Lapis lazuli, the color of immortality.
They moved on. The passageway opened up into a chamber, about eight meters across. It was covered with carvings, an extraordinary jumble of human and animal forms, strange symbols and monstrous beings. Pradesh panned his flashlight around. “I recognize some of these. There’s Vishnu, striding across a wall, vanquishing a demon. And Parvati, wife of Shiva, with her enraptured gaze, picked out in red. And Padmapani, bearer of the lotus, with her swaying torso. She’s supposed to radiate serenity, tranquility.”
“And an elephant,” Costas interrupted excitedly, pointing at a pillar carved as a trunk, with bulbous eyes and flapping ears at the top. “Odd though,” he said. “With those ears, I’d swear that was an African elephant, not Indian. The type more familiar to someone in the ancient world of the Mediterranean, who’d maybe seen them in the amphitheater in Rome.”
Pradesh nodded, then pointed at two other pillar carvings alongside. “Those are Buddhist stupas, with bulls on top. And there’s another one, with a spoked wheel. And look at the wall behind us. Crowded figures, bodhisattvas, enlightened beings, turbaned, be-jeweled, moustached. And check out the grotesque dwarflike creatures. They’re male yaksas and female yaksis figures, nature deities of the ancient religions, much older than Hinduism. The large one that looks like a Buddha is Kubera, a yaksa who was venerated as the god of wealth, the guardian spirit of treasure.”
“It’s all carved by the same hand,” Jack said, looking around. “The same style, the same techniques.”
“The figures are familiar to me, but the style isn’t,” Pradesh murmured. “I haven’t seen anything like this in southern India.”
“It’s reminiscent of Gandharan art,” Jack said. “The art of ancient Bactria, the kingdom founded by Alexander the Great’s successors in Afghanistan. A fusion of Indian and Greek styles.”
“But here, it’s not so much a fusion of styles,” Pradesh added. “It’s a fusion of Indian images with a foreign style. It’s as if someone from a completely different artistic tradition is trying to copy what he’s seen in India, maybe in Persia too, but using his own techniques and conventions.”
Jack traced his fingers over the elephant trunk. “This is technically skilled work, but not distinguished. If I were to make a comparison with the Graeco-Roman world, I’d say it was done by a jobbing sculptor, the kind who did sarcophagi, household altars, inscriptions, routine architectural decoration. An artisan more than an artist.”
“There’s something not right in all this,” Pradesh said, looking around.
“You mean the whole place is out of sync with the jungle?” Costas said. “I was thinking that. What you were saying earlier. The spirits, the gods of the jungle. The Koya have no need to represent their gods. They see them already.”
“That’s one problem. But even if you buy into the idea that all this Hindu and Buddhist and animist worship did happen here, it’s still not right.”
“Go on,” Jack said.
“When I was seconded to the Survey of India two years ago, my first posting was to Badami, a cave complex about two hundred miles west of here. I’d studied ancient mining technology for my engineering dissertation, and we were assessing the safety of the caves. They’re famous for the painting and sculpture, mainly sixth century AD. There are familiar mythological scenes, like this one, Vishnu striding across the universe. But at Badami they’re part of a coherent whole, flowing into other scenes, a fluid, confident iconography. Here they’re fragmented, like unmixed ingredients. The Badami sculptor knew his mythology and believed in it. Here they’re like a collection of tourist snapshots. There’s no soul to them, no depth. Hinduism is inclusive. Voraciously inclusive. It accepts all manner of different gods. But there’s just too much here. It’s too disjointed. I’m a practicing Hindu, and I can tell you, it doesn’t feel right.”
“It’s as if someone wanted to keep people out of here, but was hedging his bets, using all the deities he thought the locals might fear,” Costas said.
“Even including the odd Parthian one,” Jack murmured.
“Maybe there was something to hide,” Pradesh said.
Costas pointed at the gloom of the far wall, where dark cracks were visible between the shapes of the boulders. “Another chamber, maybe? That Kubera god, the god of treasure, could be the ultimate protector. If he’s a god of the older religion, maybe the sculptor did understand that the people here would fear the ancient gods more than anything from Hinduism and Buddhism. Whoever did this must have had some contact with the local people. He saw them carry out human sacrifice. And he must have been fed, somehow.”
Pradesh nodded. “Traditionally, the Koya from Rampa village left food offerings outside here every day. They thought the god Rama was inside, cornered by the spirits of the jungle. As long as he was fed, he would stay there. Every night, the food offerings would disappear. The muttadar probably came at night and took away anything left over by the animals to keep up the pretense. And the rats used to grow to a huge size here. The legend was that if an offering was missed, Rama would break free and wreak his vengeance on the jungle people, taking on the guise of the konda devata, the tiger spirit, and cleaving them with his great broken sword.”
“Broken sword?” Costas murmured. “That rings a bell, Jack.”
“If we’re going to seek history behind the mythology, the ritual makes sense,” Pradesh continued. “In ancient times, Rama comes into the jungle, the prince who is later deified. But the jungle people resist the intrusion of Hinduism into their spiritual world. The shrine becomes a focus of their cultural strength. They put Rama inside, the intruder. Their gods imprison him. So for the rebel leaders in 1879, this place was a rallying point, a focus of defiance against outsiders. They murder the police constables here, in the guise of sacrifice. But in the minds of the Koya, Rama was then sealed inside by the earthquake, and the food offerings gradually ceased. And something had gone, the velpu that disappeared in 1879. It was not Rama in the guise of the konda devata they now feared, but the konda devata itself, the tiger spirit of the jungle.”
“So where’s the image of Rama in all this?” Costas said, looking around. “I mean, isn’t this supposed to be his shrine?”
Pradesh paused. “In Hindu belief, Rama was the descendent of an ancient solar dynasty. He could be represented by that image of Vishnu, or by a sun carving. Maybe we just need to look more closely.”
