The Cobra's Gaze: Exploring India's Wild Heritage

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In The Cobra's Gaze, award-winning writer Stephen Alter takes us on an astonishing journey of discovery through the wild places of India. As we accompany him on his quest to uncover multiple layers of meaning associated with the flora and fauna of the country's woodlands, mountains, rivers, deserts, and coasts, we meet, among others, king cobras, the largest venomous snakes in the world, in the steamy rainforests of Karnataka; snow leopards, the elusive grey ghosts of the mountains, making their solitary way through the vastness of the Himalaya; rare crocodiles and blind dolphins in the Chambal ravines, once the haunt of dacoits; man- eating tigers stalking their prey in the mangroves of the Sunderbans; and Kottigehara dancing frogs trembling on the verge of extinction in the Western Ghats. We travel through coastal areas smudged with the roseate hues of flocks of flamingoes; the dry scrublands of Gujarat that echo with the roar of Asiatic lions found nowhere else on earth; grasslands and arid jungles where imported cheetahs struggle for a foothold; dense habitats in Assam that are home to killer elephants and singular species of birdlife; and scores of other places in which the last remaining animals and wildernesses of the country cling on in the face of the depredations of man.

India has always had a strong spiritual connection to nature, and the writer delves deep into myth and religion to show how reverence for the environment has been an inalienable part of our heritage. Yet, today, in the name of progress and civilization, the wilderness is being laid to waste despite the efforts of pioneering conservationists like Salim Ali, Billy Arjan Singh, M. Krishnan, Jim Corbett, Hugh Allen, and their present- day counterparts, all of whom come alive in the pages of the book. As our cities and towns reel under pollution, the groundwater everywhere is contaminated, and enormous tracts of the country are devastated by floods and fire, the writer shows us the importance of ecological awareness, and why the preservation of nature is key to our own survival. Throughout the book, he seeks to experience our fundamental connection to other species, so we are able to understand how we are inextricably linked to the larger natural world and why it is important for us to share the earth equitably with other life forms.

Timely and profound, The Cobra's Gaze is a work of enormous power. Even as it celebrates the incredible wildlife and wild places of India, it is an urgent call to save them before it is too late.

STEPHEN ALTER is the author of more than twenty books of fiction and non-fiction. Wild Himalaya: A Natural History of the Greatest Mountain Range on Earth, a work of non-fiction, received the 2020 Banff Mountain Book Award in the Mountain Environment and Natural History category. His memoir, Becoming a Mountain: Himalayan Journeys in Search of the Sacred and the Sublime, received the Kekoo Naoroji Award for Himalayan Literature. In the Jungles of the Night: A Novel About Jim Corbett was shortlisted for the DSC South Asian Literature Award. His latest work includes Death in Shambles and Birdwatching: A Novel which won the 2023 Green Lit Fest Book of the Year.

Alter has taught at the American University in Cairo, Egypt, where he was director of the writing program for seven years. Following this, he was writer-in- residence at MIT for ten years. Among the honours he has received are fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Fulbright Program, the East West Centre in Hawaii, and the Banff Centre for Mountain Culture. He is also the founding director of the Mussoorie Mountain Festival.

An irregular line of eroded sandstone crags surmounts the crest of a broad ridge. This low escarpment, fringed by jungle, rises only a hundred metres above the plain. From a distance, the rocks appear to be the ruined battlements of an abandoned fortress though their uneven profiles reveal the architecture of geology rather than the hand of man. Here, amongst these natural formations, in the foothills of the Vindhya Range, our ancestors sought refuge for many thousands of years.

In 1957, Dr Vishnu Shridhar Wakankar, sometimes referred to as the pitamaha or grandfather of Indian rock art studies, discovered Bhimbetka, while travelling by train from Bhopal to Itarsi Junction. Through the window of his railway carriage, he spotted the unusual outcroppings along the western horizon and his sixth sense told him that something significant lay nearby. Getting down at the next station, he made his way back to the ridge, which lies only a couple of kilometres from the railway tracks. Other than a few scattered villages, the area was mostly forest and he had to approach on foot, following game trails through the underbrush and up the boulder-strewn slopes. What Wakankar came upon is one of the most extensive archaeological sites in the world, as important as the cave complex in Lascaux, France, which contains similar prehistoric rock art. Bhimbetka became Wakankar's greatest find and he spent much of his career studying and documenting the paintings on the walls, as well as unearthing ancient dwellings and tombs.

In her book, India through Archaeology: Excavating History, Devika Cariapa writes that Bhimbetka provides a window into the world of stone age hunter- gatherers and their descendants:

Tools, bones and artefacts found at an excavation give us a lot of information about our ancestors. We know about their diet, their clothes, their houses, their lifestyle, even the size of their brains. But it is only with their art that we can finally see them as living, breathing people with hopes, fears, dreams and feelings, as well as a sense of humour. We finally get to see prehistoric people from their point of view.

The majority of images at Bhimbetka are of wild animals that lived in this region long before science assigned them names. Being hunter-gatherers, the early inhabitants acquired first-hand knowledge of the creatures they pursued. Though they had no written language, the visual record they left behind conveys a closely observed taxonomy by which they classified and differentiated the biology and behaviour of various mammals. Altogether, Cariapa notes that twenty-nine different species can be found on the walls at Bhimbetka, ranging from squirrels and porcupines to leopards and tigers. In some instances, the inner organs and bones of the animals are depicted, showing the anatomy of a species. In a few cases, a foetus appears within a pregnant mother. After they killed an animal, the hunters would have cut it open with stone knives, removed the skin, and butchered the meat, dividing it amongst their tribe. More than likely they also performed prayers and rituals to propitiate the spirit of their prey, as well as the life-giving forces of nature upon which their survival depended.

Some of these creatures, like Asian elephants, one-horned rhinoceroses, and wild buffaloes, are no longer found in this part of Central India because of the pressures of habitat loss and indiscriminate hunting. But others, including sloth bears, nilgai, wild pigs, and sambar still live in the forests of the Ratapani Wildlife Sanctuary where Bhimbetka is located. Their living presence underscores the significance of the paintings both as a record of the past as well as a point of comparison with wildlife distribution today. Naturalists, as much as archaeologists, can learn a great deal from the artworks, which are, in essence, the first field guides to Indian mammals.

The rock shelters show evidence of continuous habitation reaching back to the Palaeolithic Age, approximately 100,000 years ago, which makes them one of the oldest and most enduring settlements on earth. The caves lie empty now and the forest has closed in around them, reclaiming the landscape. The trees are typical of the dry deciduous forests of Central India-mostly sagun or teak, as well as tendu, saaj, khair, and ghiriya (bhirra). Each of these species would have served a purpose for the early inhabitants, providing firewood, tools, resins, and medicinal extracts. Many of the huge boulders are held in the clutches of gadasi trees, a tenacious lithophyte of the ficus family that germinates in the crevices of rocks and sends out serpentine roots to reach soil and moisture beneath. Its pale grey bark resembles the colour and texture of an elephant's trunk and looks as if it has the same pliable strength.

In 2003, Bhimbetka was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Unlike Wakankar, visitors can now drive to the top of the ridge, where the rock shelters are preserved and labelled with informative signage. Of the 700 shelters that have been identified, roughly 250 contain paintings but only fifteen of these are open to visitors.

Entering the complex, it feels as if the shelters were only recently abandoned and it is easy to imagine ancient communities living within the shallow cavities beneath these massive rocks. Some of the dwellings are narrow ledges tucked below an overhang, while others are deeper chambers, though none of them are completely enclosed. Open to the air, the living spaces offer protection from sun and rain but admit both wind and daylight. Trees grow in amongst the shelters and the paths between them are littered with leaves. Looking out over the plain below, from the terrace of one cave, I can picture men returning from a successful hunt, carrying the carcass of a boar while a gaggle of excited children scurry out to greet them.

Though the rock shelters are natural formations, the clustered settlement resembles a village, with narrow intersecting lanes and separate dwellings that would have been occupied by family groups. On some of the walls, I can see scenes of domestic activity, people holding utensils or carrying what look like baskets. Hides of animals are stretched and dried. At places, handprints decorate the walls. In the earliest paintings, human figures appear to be naked, while later on they are dressed in simple garments. Rituals of celebration are also evident, lines of dancers with their arms linked, moving to the rhythm of a drummer. Though the sounds and voices of these people have been silent for centuries they seem to echo amidst the stillness of the rocks, between the distant whistle of a passing train and birdcalls in the trees.

The largest shelter, which Wakankar dubbed "The Auditorium', has high ceilings and is open on both sides, more of a tunnel than a cave. Several beehives are suspended from an arched cornice 15 metres above the entrance. Further on, an image of honey gatherers harvesting the combs appears in one of the other shelters. Tribal people in Madhya Pradesh still collect wild honey that is sold primarily for medicinal purposes. In many ways, their lives remain remarkably similar to the foraging existence of the figures in the paintings. Indigenous communities of forest dwellers like Gonds, Bhils, and Korkus have taken up agriculture and animal husbandry but still retain a close connection to wild landscapes and wild creatures. Their religious ceremonies and rituals reflect an animistic tradition that has its roots in prehistory. Most significantly, the decorative murals on the walls of their homes are similar to the rock art-stylized paintings of peacocks, deer, and tigers. Scenes of drumming and dancing that adorn the shelters could easily be images from tribal festivals today.