I heard about the caves many years ago from someone who had forgotten the name, but remembered the caves. They had remained in her memory as she had thought the main cave resembled a King’s durbar hall where he sat on his splendorous throne discussing the kingdom’s affairs with his ministers. Ever since, I had been very curious to see these caves.
Monsoons meant rain, rain and more rain, but that was when we were visiting Pune in western India. I had no intention of missing the caves which I found out were called ‘Karla caves’. The hills we were driving past on the old highway from Pune to Mumbai, after leaving behind the traffic, had long ridges and I imagined people doing some good ridge walking.
As we turned into the arched gateway to go towards the Karla Caves, the water logged entrance stopped us. Children in school uniforms splashed by enjoying the water, but we did not know the road and we did not have the enthusiasm to test our car. Fields all around were overflowing with water. Parking on slightly higher ground, we made our way to the row of autos parked, canvas sides well tied down to keep the inside dry. We got into the auto. The arch we went under actually mentioned just the Ekvira temple. The auto steadily crossed the water with the autowallah weaving through it with the confidence of one who knows every inch of the road.
The road was asphalted, though narrow. Lined with small shops, there were people going about their daily business immune to tourists like us going up and down the rain-soaked road. The neighbouring fields were flooded with water and in spite of that we saw an odd farmer working on his field with the typical farmer’s umbrella: a plastic sheet wrapped on a light bamboo cape like covering which was placed over his head.
When we hit the base of the hill, I thought he auto would stop, but the autowallah just changed gears and started up the hill. I thought the steps would begin right here, but no. It was a steep road, with U-turns but the auto negotiated it with changes to lower gears and lots of revving. Every steep turn, I thought he would ask us to get off, but no: the auto just made its noisy way up the hill.
About 10 to 15 minutes into our trip, we were in a flat parking space. The autowallah offered to wait and take us back. With the steady drizzle and grey skies, this seemed reasonable. So he parked and we got out, zipped up our jackets and looked around. Everything around looked lush and beautiful.
As we climbed, we saw people huddled under their umbrellas on the wall lining the steps. We saw a spread of roots, seeds, twigs— traditional medicine for sale. The rain picked up, but this just made things more interesting. The water rushing down the steps looked beautiful. And then I heard it... the gush of water. To our right was a temporary waterfall— the run off from the hill cascading down. Looking further up the hill we saw the patches of brown with dark holes: the caves were close.
The fields far below looked like a beautiful quilt. Normally green, these quilts had patches of grey for all those water-logged fields. As we reached the top, we could see the caves we had seen from below. At the entrance, we bought our tickets and walked into an open clearing in front of the caves. Water was rushing from over the hill in a magnificent fall and this flowed on to form the waterfall we had seen earlier. The hillside covered by green tufts of grass towered over us. Caves openings some fronted by pillars, some with doorways and windows some on ground level and others at higher levels were visible. Temporary grilles had been placed to streamline entry to the caves.
The only bright colour to the clearing was added from the orange, blue and green of the Ekvira temple built at the entrance to the caves. The tall and ancient multi-faceted column on the left with the three lions on top was magnificent, in spite of one lion missing his head. In the high roofed vestibule between this column and the actual entrance to the main cave were huge carvings of elephants. There were also carvings of the Buddha and well-dressed couples.
A lone guard sat by the entranceway keeping an eye on the visitors. On crossing the threshold, we were taken aback by the huge pillar lined hall. It was hard to imagine that this was a rock-cut cave, not a natural high ceilinged one. Buddhists approximately 2300 years ago had decided this was an ideal spot for monks to stay and pray in seclusion. As it was on an important trade route in the Deccan region of those years for traders to cross from Amravathi (in present day Andhra Pradesh) in the east to Sopora in the west, the carving out of the cave got patronage from the traders of those eras. There are inscriptions which indicate donation of land to the cave temple from important people.
Workers were set to work. With simple tools of those ancient times, they started from the top of the mountainside and started hollowing out the rock. Slowly and laboriously this cave and many others next to it were carved out of the mountain face!
It took years. The rock had to be cut and moved out. This way of hollowing out avoided a rock fall and did away with the necessity of scaffolding. The pillars were big, rising and narrowing towards the high vaulted ceiling. No one could encircle one with their arms. Figures of well-dressed people gazing down seated on elephants were carved out towards the top of the pillar. The light from the entranceway and the window above it added warmth to this ‘chaitya-griha’ (hall) even on a rainy day and it also lighted up the mound-shaped ‘stupa’ with the ‘chaitya-chhatra’ (umbrella) at the end of the hall.
This was constructed in the years when the Hinayana form of Buddhism was in vogue. Therefore there were no depictions of the Buddha in the form of an idol inside this large chaitya-griha. But the vestibule mentioned earlier which had figures of the Buddha were added much later during the Mahayana period which did not frown upon depicting Buddha in idol form.
The ‘chaitya-griha’ was used to shelter people and also for them to gather and pray. The high vaulted ceiling’s arched ribs and the ‘chaitya-chhatra’ were made of wood. The wood used here is supposed to be one of the oldest surviving installations of wood in any building to be seen today.
The ‘chaitya-griha’ along with the associated caves, were carved out over a period of four hundred odd years. Together they were the ‘Karle caves’ which eventually got called ‘Karla caves’. Over this time period, other caves (numbering in the hundreds!) in the Deccan region (Bhedse, Kanheri, Ajanta and Ellora to name a few) were also carved out. But still, the ‘chaitya-griha’ at Karla is one of the finest examples of rock-cut caves anywhere at all.
