The Sitabinjhi Fresco of North Orissa

Ramakanta Samantaray and Sailen Routray

A Photograph of the Sitabinjhi Fresco Taken in 2010 

The Rabanachhaya fresco (17 ft*10 ft) is to be found in the ceiling of a rock shelter in Sitabinjhi in Keonjhar district in north Orissa. This site is located near DanguApAni village on the banks of River Sita and is of great archeological importance. The painting, done in the tempera technique, depicts a royal procession of a King named Disha Bhanja and proceeds from right to left.

The fresco consists of four infantry men, a cavalry man, the king and the mahout sitting on an elephant, and a handmaiden. The royal person holds a goad in his right hand and in his left hand something that looks like a flower. It is painted in a style reminiscent of the Ajanta frescoes. But the ground was not prepared like Ajanta here and the painting was created on a coating of lime. It is interesting to note here that the Sitabinjhi frescoes are very unlike those in Orissa that were painted later.   

By the time B.V. Lal, an official of Archeological Survey of India, started work on the site in 1950, the frescoes had already become quite faded. He chemically treated these and took photographs of the same. In the same year Odia artist Gopal Kanungo brought them to the notice of the then principal of Calcutta Art School and prepared a copy of the said fresco.

Artistic Impression by Gopal Kanungo of the RAbanachhAyA Fresco
(Plate between pages 42-43 of  'KalAra BichAra' by Gopal Kanungo)

The Brahmi script used in an inscription at the bottom of the fresco was deciphered by T. N. Ramachandran and according to him these can be dated to the fourth century AD. Other scholars opine differently and the time of the painting of these may be fixed between fourth and twelfth centuries of the Christian Era.