Bikramkhol

Vikramkhol or Bikramkhol cave is a prehistoric archaeological site known for prehistoric inscriptions.

Location

Vikramkhol cave is located near Jharsuguda, Odisha, India and lies in Reserved Forest of Belpahar range, at a distance of 12 km from Belpahar.

Inscriptions

The inscriptions at Vikramkhol cave are written on an uneven rock surface in a natural rock shelter using red Ochre paint which is later incised into the rock. The inscriptions were discovered around the 1930s and first studied by Dr K P Jayaswal. who tentatively dates it 1500 BC. There are two theories regarding the inscription – one declares it a writing, while others doubt it as a rock art and nonliterate rock carvings

Theory of literate script

According to Jayaswal, the prehistoric scribblings at Vikramkhol represent a picto-syllabic writing system which represents a mixture of Harappan and Brahmi hence forming a connection between the two. The inscribed portion covers an area of 35 feet by 7 feet, The evidences which support it as a writing system are as follows;

* The characters are carefully painted and then inscribed which has parallels with Brahmi rock inscriptions
* The writings are in regular lines (not always regular due to rough rock surface)
* the symbols have set forms which disclose ‘writing habits in the phraseology of handwriting experts. The hand which first painted the letters was used to writing with a pen as evidenced from a certain portion of the inscription.
* The system knows the bindu, and also, probably, the visarga. Some letters have dots placed below them, while in some cases dots seem to give a discriminative value to the letters, as in Semitic writing.
* The right-hand corner top line on Plate 8, where the same symbol is repeated more than once, may point to the employment of numerals.
* It is evident that some of the letters disclose accentuation. Repetition of the same letter twice probably suggests consonantal duplication or conjuncts.
* The writing seems to have reached the syllabary (alphabetic) stage.

Other scholars such as Naresh Prasad Rastogi state that Its date of the Vikramkhol inscription is still debatable and its letters deserve a more searching scrutiny

Non literate system

Scholars such as Richard Salomon have completely dismissed the Vikramkhol cave inscriptions a