We started writing this book due to our immense love with the ancient, forgotten Rock arts which became part of human civilisation even before human settlement had arrived. We saw precious art withering away due to colossal neglect and the present book is a humble attempt to bring back into focus the treasure lying within the confines of these caves in India.

We wish to convey our deepest gratitude to Shri Ajay Maken, for his unstinted support, while I worked under him in the Government of India.

We are also grateful to Prof. J.N. Pal, University of Allahabad, for his precious suggestions and words of wisdom as ?Foreword?.

We are thankful to Prof. Makkhan Lal and Dr. Rakesh Tewari for their advice and guidance.

We are extremely grateful to Shri Abhijit Rai and Dr. Sanjib Kumar Singh for their constant support.

We are indebted to Dr. Ashok Kumar Sinha and Shri Arun Kumar Sinha for their support and help ranging from field work to the final stage of the book.

We pay our sincere gratitude to Dr. Narayan Vyas for his scholarly help and advice, during the field work.

From the field work to final stage of the book, we have received help and cooperation from many people and it may be difficult to list all of them.

We are thankful to Dr. Bharat Dahiya (UN-HABITAT) Dr. Sima Yadav, Dr. Brijesh Rawat, Dr. Kanwar Singh (ASI), Shri Sachin Tewari, Shri Praveen Sehwag, Shri S.K. Sharma (Chief Artist, ASI), Dr. Prabin Keshri (ASI),

Dr. Mukesh Kumar Mishra, Shri Anutosh Saxena, Shri K. Mahalingam and Shri Jasbeer Chopra, Shri Rahas Kumar Mohanty, Dr. Ranbeer Singh (IGNCA NEW DELHI), We are also grateful to villagers who helped us during our field work.

We are grateful to Pervinder Singh, who went through the manuscript and provided scholarly brilliant inputs.

We are also grateful to Archaeological Survey of India and IGNCA for their support.

However, we would like to express our deep gratitude to National Museum Library and Central Archaeological Library for help. We are extremely obliged to Wakankar Rock Art Heritage Welfare Society, Bhopal for being a part of us throughout our endeavour. We are delighted that Indo-American Press is publishing our work.

Finally we would like to pay our deepest respect to our parents and family members for their great support and their abiding faith in us.