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PLACES
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Ba'ra'mati, north latitude 18° 10' and east longitude 74° 39', on the Karha about fifty miles south-east of Poona, is a municipal town and the head-quarters of a petty division, with in 1881 a population of 5272. The 1872 census showed a population of 4975, of whom 4445 were Hindus and 530 Musalmans. The 1881 census gave an increase of 297 or 5272 of whom 4773 were Hindus and 499 Musalmans. Besides the petty divisional revenue and police offices Baramati has a municipality, a dispensary, and a post-office. The municipality, which was established in 1865, had in 1882-83 an income of £584 (Rs.5840) and an expenditure of £466 (Rs. 4660). The dispensary was established in 1873. In 1882-88 it treated thirteen in-patients and 4081 out-patients at a cost of £106 6s. (Rs. 1063). In 1637 Baramati was included in the territory belonging to Shahaji the father of Shivaji. [Grant Duff's Marathas, 56.] Baramati was the residence of the Naik banker family which intermarried with the Peshwas and of the famous Marathi poet Moropant, a Karhada Brahman, who flourished in the eighteenth century (1729-1794). In 1792 Captain Moor, afterwards the author of the Hindu Pantheon, described Bararmati as a large respectable town with strong fortifications. The Karha river divided the town and the best part was protected by a high wall. About a mile to the east was a tract of rich garden land. [Moor's Narrative, 344 - 315.] In 1802 Fattehsing Mane the general of Yashvantrav Holkar attacked the Peshwa's camp at Baramati and routed his army taking all the artillery. [Grant Duff's Marathas, 557.] General Wellesley camped at Baramati on the 18th of April 1803 on his way from Seringapatam to Poona to seat Bajirav Peshwa on the throne. From Baramati, to save it from destruction, he made the famous march to Poona of sixty miles in thirty-two hours. [Despatches, I. 166.]
Bedsa, a small village of 220 people in Maval about five miles south-west of Khadkala station on the Peninsula railway, gives its name to a group of two caves of about the first century A.D. The caves lie in the Supati hills, which rise above Bedsa village, at a height of about 300 feet above the plain and 2250 feet above sea level.
Caves
he caves may be visited from Karle or Khadkala. From Karle the way to the caves leads south-east across the railway by a very rough rocky track about six miles east to Pimpalgaon and from Khadkala a walk round the west base of a spur leads about two miles to Pimpalgaon. From Pimpalgaon a footpath leads about 550
feet up a steep hill side to the crest of a ravine at a small temple of
Vaghoba. The smoothly topped hill on the right of the temple with
the peaked central head is Bhatras and the heavy ragged cliff on the
left is Khurva. From the temple the path leads along a rough
terrace across some stream beds and up a short steep climb to the
caves.
The two chief caves are a chapel or chaitya and a dwelling cave or layana both of them with very clear traces of being copied from wooden buildings. The chapel is approached by a narrow forty feet passage between two blocks of rock about eighteen feet high. [The long passage in front is left to get sufficiently back to get the necessary height for the front or facade. The blocks on either side hide the greater part of the front. Fergusson and Burgess' Cave Temples, 229.] A passage five feet wide has been cleared between the blocks and the front of two massive octagonal columns and two demi columns which-support the entablature at a height of about twenty-five feet. Their bases are of the lota or water-vessel pattern from which rise shafts slightly tapering and surmounted by an ogee or fluted capital of the Persepolitan type, [The pillar and pilaster to the west are much closer fluted and more like Ashok pillars than the pillar and pilaster to the east. The top of the pillar below the capital is clearly Assyrian.] grooved vertically and supporting a fluted torus in a square frame over which lie four thin square plates each projecting over the one below. On each face of the uppermost plate crouch elephants horses and bulls with beautiful and well proportioned groups of men and women riding over them. On the pilaster to the right of the entrance are two horses with a man and woman seated on them. The whole is finely carved especially the mouth and nostrils of the horses. The woman is seated astraddle on the horse, her left hand is raised and her right hand holds her hair. She has large square earrings, a bracelet near the wrist and another near the elbow, and a double anklet, the lower with bells. The man has a globe-shaped ornament on his head. The pillar to the right of the entrance has, on the east face of the capital, two seated or kneeling horses back to back. On the south horse sits a woman, her left hand on the horse's neck, her right fist closed and shaken at the man. The woman wears a square earring a necklace and an anklet. The man faces east and has his left hand turned back clutching a curl of the woman's hair. His right hand is on the horse's neck. He wears a necklace, which is a row of octagonal stones, and on his right arm are four bracelets and on his left two. His waistcloth is folded in bands which hang down the side of the horse. The horse has neither saddle nor bridle. The left pillar has, on the east face, two seated elephants with a woman on the north and a man on the south, The woman is seated on the elephant and is pulled back by the man who draws her by the wrist. The left arm is bent, the hand resting on the elephant's head. The man's left hand drags the woman's right hand and his right hand is broken. The man has no hair on his face. The elephants are very finely carved. They have no tusks which were either of wood or ivory which has dropped away leaving holes. The left or south pilaster has a horse on the east and;
a bull on the west. On the bull, which is finely carved, is a seated woman with her left hand on the bull's neck and her right hand on the man's shoulder. The man looks east; his left hand is on his left thigh and his right hand on the horse's neck.
The west or inner face of the right pillar has two elephants. On the north elephant is a woman seated bare to the waist. She weans heavy square earrings, a large folded necklace hanging to the breasts, a waistband, and an anklet. Her right hand rests on the elephant's temple and her left hand clutches the man's turban. On the south, that is the left, elephant, to one looking out of the cave, is a woman in front and a man behind, both looking west that is facing the relic-shrine. The woman has her left hand near the elephant's ear and her right hand on the man's neck. The man's right hand holds the woman's left arm to keep her from dragging off his turban. His left hand is near the waist of the woman.
The west or inner face of the left pillar has two horses. A woman is seated on the north horse and a man on the south horse. The woman's left hand rests on her hip and her right hand is raised above the horse's neck. The man's left hand is on the horse's neck; his right hand catches the woman's hair. Comparing the inner faces of the two pillars, on the left pillar the man tries to carry away the woman and on the right pillar the woman tries to take away the man.
The veranda or porch within the pillars is nearly twelve feet wide and in front 30 '2" long with two benched cells projecting somewhat into it from the back corners and one in the right end in front, with, over the door, an inscription in one line recording:
Insciption 1.
' The gift of Pushyanaka, son of A'nanda Sethi, from Na'sik.'
The corresponding cell in the opposite end is only begun. Along the base of the walls and from the levels of the lintels of the cell-doors upwards the porch walls are covered with the rail pattern on flat and curved surfaces, intermixed with the chaitya window ornaments but without any animal or human representations. This and the entire absence of any figure of Buddha show the early or Hinayana style of the caves, probably of about the first century after Christ.
The door jambs slant slightly inwards as do also the inside pillars, another mark of its early age. The interior is 45' 4" long by 21' wide. The gallery in the sill of the great window extends 3'
7" into the cave, which, besides the two irregular pillars in front, has twenty-four octagonal shafts, 10' 3" high, separating the nave from the side aisles 3' 6" wide. Over the pillars is a fillet 4" deep and then the triforium about four feet high. All the wood work has disappeared though the pegs that kept it in its place may still be seen. [The wood work would seem to have disappeared within the last twenty years. In 1844 (Jour. Bom. Br. Roy.
As. Soc. I. 438) Westergaard describes the cave as ribbed, and about 1861 a writer in the Oriental Christian Spectator (X. 17-18) found fragments of timber lying on the floor.] On the pillars, as late as 1861, could be clearly traced portions of old painting chiefly of Buddha with attendants; but the caves have since been
whitewashed and no trace of the painting is left. [About 1861 the roof had traces of indistinct paintings. The pillars were richly and elaborately painted on a ground apparently of lime. The proportions and expression of the figures was admirable. On one side of the pillars was a figure holding a sword and on an her a figure with a square white fan. On another pillar was traceable part
of a cornice very minutely painted with flowers and birds, one of the birds as fresh and perfect as if fresh painted. Oriental Christian Spectator, 111. 17.] On five of the right pillars are carved Buddhist symbols. The sixth pillar from the entrance has, about ten feet from the ground, a central and two side lotus symbols. The seventh pillar has a central wheel of the law and side flowers. The eighth pillar has a central svmbol with, above it, a Buddhist trident and below two lotuses. The ninth pillar has two taurus signs above and two lotus signs below. The tenth pillar has a sun-like circle for the wheel and trident and a lotus.
The daghoba or relic shrine has a broad fillet of rail ornament at the base and top of the cylinder from which rises a second and shorter cylinder also surrounded above with the rail ornament. The box of the capital is small and is surmounted by a very heavy capital in which, out of a lotus bud, stands the wooden shaft of the umbrella. The top of the umbrella has disappeared. The relic shrine is daubed in front with redlead and worshipped as Dharmaraj's dhera or resting-place.
Leaving the chapel and passing a well near the entrance about
twenty paces off is a large unfinished cell with in its back a water
cistern. Over the water cistern is an inscription in three lines of
tolerably clear letters which records :
Inscription 2.
"The religious gift of Maha'bhoja's daughter Sa'madinika, the Maha'devi
Maha'rathini and wife of A'padevanaka.'
Close by the unfinished cell is cave II. a vihara or dwelling cave but unique in design with an arched roof and round at the back like a chapel. Outside, one on each side of the entrance, are two benched cells. The entrance is 17' 3" wide with a thin pilaster 3' 5 broad on each side. Within the entrance the cave is 18' 2" wide and 32' 5" deep to the back of the apse and has eleven cells all with benches or beds. The cell doors have arches joined by a string course of rail pattern and, in a line with the finiale of the arches, is another similar course. The doors have plain architraves and outside each architrave a pilaster. In the walls between the doors are carved false-grated windows. The whole cave has been plastered and was probably painted, but it is now overlaid with a coating of smoke. In the back wall of the cave in a niche is a figure of the goddess Yemmai thickly covered with red paint. A sati stone lies against the wall, a little to the right.
Beyond this and under steps leading up to the left is a small cell and in the stream beyond is a small open cistern (7' x 3' 6") with sockets cut in the rock. About thirty feet beyond is another plain room about 14' 8" square with a door seven feet wide.
On the rock behind a relic shrine or daghoba a short distance from Cave 1. is a weather worn inscription in two lines which records:
Inscription 3.
The stupa of Gobhuti, native of Ma'rakuda, an A'ranaka (and) Pedapa'tika. Caused to be made by Asa'lamita Bhata, inhabitant of...........
Belhe, twenty-one miles south-east of Junnar, is a large village
with in 1881 a population of 2816 and a weekly market on Mondays. Belhe belongs to a Moghal family who held a high position in
Junnar in the seventeenth century and who still enjoy the title
of Nawabs of Belhe. They have married with the Nawabs of Surat and the present proprietor is the son-in-law of Jafar Ali the late Nawab of Surat. They have a large mansion in Junnar town which is entered by a fine gateway.[Details are given below under Junnar,] To the south-east of Belhe, near the Musalman burial-ground, is a Hemadpanti well. The well is about twenty yards square and is entered by two opposite flights of ten steps each. The walls have eighteen canopied niches four each on the sides with steps and five each on the other two sides. The niches (3' x 1' 6" x 1) are square headed with carved side pillars and a finial consisting of a canopy knobbed at the top. The south wall has a worn-out inscription. Close by the well is a Pir's tomb where a yearly fair or urus, attended by about 1000 people, is held on the second day of the bright half of Chaitra or March-April.
Caves.
Bha'ja, a small village of 291 people in Maval about seven miles
south-west of Khadkala and about two miles south of Karle railway
station, has a group of about eighteen early Buddhist caves of about the second and first century B.C. A rough road leads about two miles south of the Karle rest-house to Bhaja. The caves are about 400 feet above the village in the west face of a steep hill.
Beginning from the north the first is apparently a natural cavern thirty feet long and slightly enlarged. The next ten are plain cells. Cave VI. is an irregular cell much ruined and half filled up. The hall is irregular about fourteen feet square with two cells on each side and three in the back wall with chaitya window ornaments over all the cell doors. Over the right side cell door in the back wall is inscription one recording:
Inscription 1.
' The gift of Ba'dha' (Bodhi) a ploughman's wife."
On the back wall of cave IX. is a frieze projecting 2' 2" with, four
chaitya arches joined by the rail pattern. In front of the cave was a veranda which seems to have had pillars with animal capitals. A fragment of the base of a pillar is left as also a broken capital with animal figures upon it.
Cave XII.
Cave XII. the chaitya or chapel is the best in the group, one of the most interesting in India, and, according to Dr. Burgess, one of the most important to be found anywhere for the history of cave architecture. The cave is fifty-nine feet long by about twenty-nine feet wide with a semicircular apse at the back and having an aisle 3' 5" wide separated from the nave by twenty-seven plain octagonal shafts 11' 4" high. The pillars rake inwards about 5" on each side, so that the nave is 15' 6" wide at the tops of the pillars and 16' 4" at their bases. The daghoba or relic shrine is eleven feet in diameter at the floor and the cylinder or drum is four feet high. The dome is six feet high and the box upon it is two storeyed, the upper box being hewn out 1' 7" square inside with a hole in the bottom 1' 8" deep and 7" in diameter. The upper part of the box or capital is of a separate stone and hewn out, showing clearly that it held some relic. On four
of the pillars are carved in low relief seven ornaments or Buddhist
symbols. On the left of the seventh pillar is a symbol formed of
four tridents round a centre which perhaps contained a fan with buds
and leaves at the corners. On the eighth pillar, on the right side are
two flowers and what looks like a fan and on the left side a posy of holy flowers.
Cave X V.
The roof is arched, the arch rising from a narrow ledge over the triforium 7' 5" above the tops of the pillars and 26' 5" high from the floor. The roof is ribbed inside with teak girders the first four of which, and parts of some of the others, have given way or been pulled down. The front must have been entirely of wood and four holes are made in the floor showing the position of the chief uprights. There are also mortices cut in the rock showing where one of the chief cross beams must have been placed, probably to secure the lattice work in the upper part of the window. The front of the great arch is full of pin holes in three rows, about 170 in all, showing beyond doubt that some wooden, probably ornamental, facing covered the whole of the front. The figures on the front are a female figure high up on the left much weatherworn but with a beaded belt about the lions; two half figures looking out at a window in the projecting side to the right of the great arch and on the same side the heads of two others in two small compartments and on a level with the top of the arch. By the side of Cave XII, but with the line of its front coming out to the south at a small angle, is Cave XIII the front quite gone and probably of wood. The cave (30' X 14' 6") has a cell in each of the back corners and three in the back wall. Each cell has a latticed window. The left cell has a fastening on the door as if for a lock or bolt. The right cell has an arched door and a stone bench. Of the back wall cells two on the sides have a single bench, and the middle cell has two with a small recess under each. Over the doors of all the cells is the chaitya arch joined by a frieze of rail pattern. Over the front of the cave are ornamental arches and a double course of rail pattern. Close to Cave XIII., and facing a little more to the north, is cave XIV. (6' 8" x 25' 6") with one cell at the back and three on each side. The front cells have double beds with a recess under each; the second on the left has no bed but a square window and the third on the right has no bed but leads into an inner cell with a stone bench.
Cave XV is above Cave XIII and with Cave XVI is reached by a stair
to the south of Cave XIV. It is a small dwelling cave (12' 6" x 10') with a bench on the right and two semicircular niches 2' 8" wide with arched tops surmounted by the chaitya arch. At the back are two benched cells. The front wall is gone; the terrace in front was about five feet wide and probably, as shown by holes in the roof, framed in wood work and projecting forwards. The front above this cave and cave XVI is carved with thin chaitya arches and the rail pattern. Cave XVII reached by a descent from caves XV and XVI is a small dwelling cave (18' 6" x 12' 6") with three cells at the back and two at the right, one of them with a bench. There is also a bench in the left end of the hall and an irregular recess or cell. On the right, near the door of the second cell, is inscription two in two lines
which records:
Inscription 2.
' The gift of a cell from Na'dasava, a Na'ya of Bhogavati.'
Near the cave are two wells in a recess and over them is inscription three in two lines which records:
' The religious gift of a cistern by Vinhudata, son of Kosiki a great warrior.'
At some distance along; the scarp is a large excavation containing a group of fourteen relic shrines or daghobas of various sizes cut in the rock. As their inscriptions show, they are the tombs or thupos of monks. All have the Buddhist rail pattern round the upper part of the drum. Five of them are under the rock and vary in diameter from 6' 3" to 4' 8" and of these two in front have the relic box only on the dome while the three behind them have also, heavy capitals, the largest on the left joined to the roof by the stone shaft of the umbrella, while, over the other two, the circle of the umbrella is carved on the roof with a hole in the centre over a corresponding hole in the capital, evidently to insert a wooden rod. Of the nine daghobas outside the rock roof, the first to the north has a handsome capital 3' 8" high and very elaborately carved. As most of the other daghobas are broken, it cannot be said how they were finished except that the eighth and possibly others were of the plain box form without any cornice. In four of the capitals under the roof are holes on the upper surface as if for placing relics and two have a depression round the edge of the hole as if for a closely fitting cover.
Inscriptions 4-8.
On the second daghoba, going from north-east to south-west, in the
front row is a weather-worn inscription in one line recording:
'The Thupo of the venerable reverend Dhamagiri.'
On the base of the third daghoba is inscription five in one line recording.
'The Thupo of the venerable reverend Ainpikinaka.'
On the base of the fourth daghoba is inscription six in one very indistinct line recording:
'The Thupo of the venerable reverend Sanghadina.'
On the capital of one of the daghobas under the rock is inscription seven in one line recording:
' The venerable reverend.'
There is an eighth inscription much weather-worn and difficult to read on the dome of the large relic shrine which stands first in the front row.
Farther along the hill scarp is a small chamber, with a cell at the right end, much filled up but with a frieze, ornamented by female figures and relic shrines in high relief, supporting a moulding with relic shrines in half relief and with an arched roof only half of which remains. On the wall are some curious sculptures. Farther along the hill scarp, under the first waterfall, is a small empty round cell; under the second is a large square room with three cells at each side, partly filled and much ruined; under the third waterfall is a small round cell with a relic shrine.
In 1879 a very old and most interesting cave was discovered in the Bhaja scarp further to the east. When first found the cave was filled nearly to the roof of the veranda with mud and earth. The veranda pillars and the sides of the entrance doors are broken away. The cave faces north and is a small dwelling cave with a somewhat irregular hall (16' 6" X 17' 6"). There are two cells in the inner wall one
of them with a stone bed and two in the east wall. The cave has three other cells, a large cell with a stone bed at one end of the veranda and two smaller with benches at the other end. At one end is a pillar and pilaster with bell and pot-shaped capitals. The pillar and pilaster are surmounted by fabulous animals, human female busts with the bodies of cows. The cave has some remarkable sculptures in the hall and veranda.
On the left wall of the cave is a standing male figure (5' 9" x 2' 8")
with lips compressed, no face hair, and feet carved as if walking
towards the right. The legs are crossed, the right leg brought
behind the left leg. The left hand holds the hilt of a heavy thick
dagger that is tied on the left hip. The right hand grasps a spear.
The headdress is curious and heavy. The hair is rolled into a big
dome. There are heavy earrings with five rings and a heavy double
necklace. On the upper arms is a broad belt with pointed side
plaits. On the lower arm are five bracelets. The figure wears a
waistcloth. Over the right shoulder is the sacred thread. The feet
are bare. The dagger on the left hip is heavy and broad-bladed;
the spear has a head like a modern spear, and a knobbed head on
the ground like a mace. The other figure (3' 7" x 1' 6") on the left
wall is also standing. It holds a spear in the right hand and the
left hand rests on the waistband. A shoulder cloth is thrown over
the left shoulder. The hair is tied in a dome which is not properly
finished. In the back wall of the cave below is a small figure
holding up the seat and on the right side is another small figure.
Veranda Sculptures.
In the left end of the veranda the small central pillar has a capital
carved into figures, a horse below and a woman from the waist up.
The right hand holds up the roof. The figure has a curious head
dress as if the hair was done up with wreaths of pearl, and big
earrings, double necklace, and hanging stomacher. The right corner
of the capital is another female centaur with triple and fivefold
bracelets. Between the earrings is a female head. The figures at
the side of the capitals are like the sphinx in the Karle chapel cave.
In the corner are more centaurs male and female with different head-dresses and not holding up the roof.
In the front wall on the left is a standing male figure with the hair tied into
a great domed headdress. He holds a double spear in his left hand which is held
to his breast and his right hand rests on the handle of a broadbladed kukari like dagger. Below the sheath of the dagger show the ends of the double spear. The case of the dagger is tied on with a cloth. On his upper arms great ornaments stretch from near the elbow to the shoulder, In the cars are huge earrings and round the neck is an elaborately carved necklace. Many threads are gathered together with a plate or madalia. Above is a double necklace one of them with plates, the upper with beads like an amulet. The earrings are very heavy like a snake with seven coils. The face is broken. The figure wears elaborate bracelets in four sets of four rows each fastened into plates. A shoulder cloth is drawn over the left shoulder and round the waist is a thick waistcloth with many folds. There seem to be other skirts like a kilt.
The middle figure is a man with much bushy headdress different from the last. He wears a necklace of big beads and below at the
breast a double necklace. He wears a shoulder cloth or perhaps a sacred thread. His right hand held a dagger of which the case remains. Below a waistcloth falls nearly to the right ankle and to the left knee. His left hand held two spears of which the lower ends remain.
On the right are three figures; a standing male with a headdress
like the first figure, the hair seeming to fall down the right shoulder. The figure wears a big hanging necklace; the earrings are different from the first figure but broken. There is a third necklace like a rich band, one side shown on the right chest and the other aide showing on the left. Behind the back is a quiver stocked with arrows. In his right hand is a bow and his left hand is on a dagger tied to his left hip. His feet are bare. His waistcloth hangs in heavy full folds. To the right of this figure is a window of stone lattice work and below the window to the right are a male (1' 7" x 1' 2") and a female demon (2'
2" x 1 2"). The female demon is big and fat with staring eyes and a tremendous mouthful of teeth; in her raised right hand is a hammer. The male demon to the right is smaller and in trouble, his right hand being eaten by some large animal with crocodile-like jaws. Above the male demon is a man riding a horse, his feet in stirrups. He wears a necklace of great rows of beads. The horse has a jaunty or chhoga headdress. The rider holds the reins in his right hand and a spear in the left. His right foot is in a stirrup. A demon holds up the left hind and front feet of the horse. Below the horse's belly is a man like a king. The group seems to represent a demon carrying off a king. On the right a king stands in a chariot like a Greek car drawn by four horses. He wears a double necklace like flowers, and a handsome headdress. With him in the chariot are two women, one behind him holds an umbrella the other in front has a flywhisk. They have rich ornaments and waistbands. The horses are treading the female demon who lies facedown. In the back ground is a chief. To the right is another curious group. Below, near the lower left corner, is a chief seated one leg on the seat, the other hanging down: and close by on the very left is a sacred tree hung with garlands and rail at the foot. Close to the king's left a woman brings a spittoon and a water-pot; behind is a woman with a flywhisk and a man. Below is a group, a man playing a stringed instrument and a woman dancing. To the right of the tree is some wild animal perhaps a hippopotamus and below is a fallen bullock and further to the right a great crocodile's head. Above a woman with a horse's head clutches the shoulder cloth of a man on the left and is carrying him off. A little above are two small elephant-like heads, a tiger eating a deer or a cow, and a small elephant gnawing at the foot of a big elephant, the central figure in the group. Above a small elephant kills a tiger and over it is a tree perhaps the Acacia cirisa. Higher to the left, above the seated king, is a sacred tree with many male and female figures on it, the men with headdresses like peaked nightcaps. Above, on the left, a male figure floats down, and from the right comes up a man with a dagger in his right hand. On the large elephant which forms the central figure in the group rides a great king. Round his neck great garlands have been hung, which
fall to his feet, and his arms, nearly up to the elbow, are encircled with bracelets of flowers. His right hand holds the elephant goad and his left hand is raised to his chest and grasps the flower garland. Behind him sits a small male figure with a coat and a striped waistcloth and a cloth wound round his face under the chin. In his hands he holds a double stick and a flag with a Buddhist trident above it. There is a man behind the elephant and something else like a tree. The elephant moves along carrying in his trunk an acacia tree torn up by the root.
Proposed Moral.
The group on the end wall are the demons attacking the king
and beating him. Then on the side wall comes Lord Buddha
in his chariot and crushes, the demons. The big group seems to show the state of things before Buddha taught. The kings enjoy themselves with playing-men and dancing-women and all the animal kingdom is at strife one beast preying on another. Above, Buddha, the peaceful conqueror, unarmed and adorned with flowers, brings all to order. [Compare Fergusson and Burgess' Cave Temples, 513 523.]
On the inner wall above the door is a frieze of alternate topes and figures holding up the roof. The topes are somewhat like the Amravati tope. On the left side walls under the centaurs is a frieze close to the ground. In the left corner is a bullock, then a winged horse or bullock, next a standing man with his hands raised above his head. Then comes a chief-like or important personage well dressed on a horse his bare feet in stirrups. Then follow three men one above the other, then a man with both his hands raised over his head. Then two bulls goring a fallen male figure. The headdresses in the cave are like those in the Bharhut Stupa in the Central Provinces about a hundred miles north-east of Jabalpur, though the ornaments of the Stupa are not so old.
From the position of the cave in a place not nearly so well suited for a cave as the big one (XII) it looks as if Cave XII was first made.
Bhavsari or Bhosari, also known as Bhojpur, is the first stage on
the Nasik road about eight miles north of Poona. It stands on slightly rising ground in a bare rocky upland, perhaps about a hundred feet above the level of Poona. The village is of considerable size with small houses and to the north a large pond. The Poona-Nasik road passes north and south about a hundred yards to the east of the village. The place is remarkable for a number of large rude stone enclosures to the east south and west of the village.
Rude Stone Enclosures.
In the space between the Poona-Nasik road and the village, the foundations of a wall of large rough stones enclose a large plot of
ground. According to the villagers this was the village kot or citadel, but the example of Khandoba's enclosure, about 300 yards to the south-east, and of other enclosures to the south and the south-west of the village shows that the space enclosed by this wall was set apart for funeral or other religious purposes. Inside of the line of the enclosing wall are the remains of three mounds from three or four to about seven feet high. The mound to the east, close' to the road, is known as Kalkai's temple. It is about three or four feet high and about twelve paces square and is covered with stones most or them
rough but one hollowed as if for a conduit or water-pipe. In the south-west of the enclosure is a mound about six feet high which is known as the mosque and seems to have traces of modern building; and a few paces to the north is a lower mound, two or three feet high, which looks like an old burial mound.
A few paces to the south-west of the mosque heap, leaning against a Wall, is a fairly preserved battle or hero stone. It has a funeral urn at the top and below five panels of carved figures. In the lowest panel at the foot a man lies dead and above his body are three cows showing that the hero of the stone lost his life in a cattle raid. In the next panel on the visitor's left a man with a spear fights two men on the right with shields and swords. In the panel above is Shiv's heaven with the hero in the centre and apsaras or heavenly damsels dancing at the sides. In the top panel the hero in heaven worships the ling. To the west of a rest-house, a little further to the south-west, are two standing stones one of them 8' 6" x 3', and about twenty-five paces further west are two more about seven feet high. Passing northwards by the east of the village and along the south bank are several small shrines some of them of large rough stones. On a bank in the north-west corner of the pond are three battle or hero stones. The stone to the east, which measures 3' 10" x 1' 7" X 1', is covered with redlead. It has an urn on the top and three panels of carving below. On a band of stone about two inches broad, below the urn, are letters of the tenth century but too worn to be read. Below the figures are clearly cut and well proportioned. In the lowest panel are four cones and a prostrate human figure; in the panels above a man on foot with bow and arrows fights three footmen armed with spears and bows and arrows and three horsemen behind. In the top panel on the left a man and woman worship something like a water-pot and on the right another man worships. The carvings on the two other battle-stones are too broken to make out. To the west of the pond and on the northern bank are some patches of ground thickly strewn with boulders. But as far as they were examined they showed no signs of artificial arrangement. Returning along the south bank of the pond and passing about 150 yards along the road on the right close to the road a complete wall or row of rough stones, several of them measuring about four feet by three feet and six inches thick, encloses a plot of ground about thirty-five feet square, the ground within the enclosure being no higher than on the outside of it. Near the centre is a grave of dressed stones apparently more modern than the enclosing wall. About two hundred yards to the southeast is a small whitewashed shrine of Kandoba, a form of Krishna who, on the dark eighth of Shravan in August-September, enters into his worshippers and makes them dance. To the east is a line of rude graves belonging to Kandoba's worshippers most of whom seem to be Chambhars and Mhars. The ground to the south of this shrine and west nearly to the road is strewn with lines and enclosing walls of big stones, sometimes a small circle surrounded by a large square and with an occasionally solitary standing stone, and here and there a small built shrine. Close to Kandoba's temple, a little to the south, is a small shrine made of four big stones, two side, a back, and a roof. It is open to the east and measures 5' 7" long by 3' 6" broad and
6' high. At the back are about twelve small round stones sacred to the goddess Satvai. The shrine is apparently modem but is interesting from its likeness to some of the rude stone tombs and shrines which have been found in the South Deccan and on the Malabar coast. A few paces to the south is an upright pillar-like stone 4' 3" out of the ground and with faces about eighteen inches broad. Close to this standing stone seven large blocks of trap enclose a circle about twelve feet in diameter. Another of the enclosures is about thirty-eight feet square. Passing several more enclosures, some of them with small modern shrines to Mariai or Ghoda Satvai, about 200 yards to the southeast, is one of the best preserved of the enclosures. It measures about 170 feet east and west by 110 feet north and south. The wall is about four feet broad of undressed stones, many of them roughly round and a foot or two in diameter, and at intervals larger stones about three or four feet high and three feet broad. Near the middle of the east face is a gate with the large stones as pillars. They are about five feet apart and stand about six feet out of the ground with four faces varying in breadth from a foot to a foot and a half. About six yards to the west of this door and about sixteen feet apart are two low mounds with plinths of great rough stones (4' x 3' and 3' 6" X 2') piled in three or four layers raised inside two or three feet above the outside level. The mound on the right is roughly fifteen feet square with stones as much as 4' 5" by 3'9" and heaped inside with earth and a few stones about two feet higher on the outer level. The centre of this mound was opened and dug about four feet deep, two through earth and two through hard yellow murum mixed with lime nodules to rock. Near the level of the ground there was a piece of teakwood about 18" long, rough and
like a large tent peg. A fragment of a green glass bracelet, appearing the same as the present glass bracelets, was the only article found. The left-hand mound was also opened and dug about five feet deep. The part above the surface of the ground was full of large stones. Below the surface, for about 18" in the centre, it was soft earth and murum an if it had been dug into before. There were also several lime nodules the same as in the right-hand mound. Among the murum and lime nodules were found pieces of bones some of the teeth. There were no traces of pottery. Another foot deeper was rock. About three paces to the north of the right-hand mound there seem to be traces of a mound but the middle has been removed and in its place a roughly square building is set up as a tomb. About four paces towards the north wall is a small square about five feet of stones with a big stone in the centre like a rough tomb. About nine paces west of the two mounds, near the centre of the enclosure, is the base of a mound or grave about eight feet square. The base stones are still in their place, the rest are piled into a cairn. The top of the cairn is hollow and in the hollow is a slab about 18" by 6" with a human figure roughly carved on it and covered with red lead. It is a spirit or vir who comes into men. About a yard further west, on a raised platform about five feet square, is a stone carved with two pair of feet. There is also a seated image with the legs crossed and the hands in front of the chest as if in the teaching position. This is Hegadi Pradhan, the minister of Khandoba, whose: platform stands to the east of Khandoba's temple as the Nandi
platform stands to the east of Mahadev's temple. About six paces to the south is a small tomb about six feet square. About nine paces to the south is another square (44'x 15'), an outside line of stones about four feet broad and the inside level with the ground and bare. The centre was opened and dug about two feet below ground level but nothing was found. It seems to be the site of a temple or shrine rather than a burial mound. About fourteen paces west of the central pair of tombs is a shrine of Khandoba about twelve feet square with, in front to the east, a space about fifteen feet square enclosed by a wall of rough stones about three feet high. The shrine is built on an old mound which seems to have been round or oval. On each side of the shrine-door are fragments of two old carved pillars. The lintel and side posts of the door are also old and carved with two or three rows of elegant but much worn tracing. The dome of the shrine, though modern, is in the cross-corner style. Near the centre of the floor is a small ling and near it a small bull. In the back wall is a centre figure of Khandoba with Banai on the visitor's right and Mhalsa on the visitor's left. There are a few other figures of attendants. Passing across the main road to the south of the village stretch low rolling hillocks blackened with large boulders. A large number of the boulders have been broken by Beldars and carried away, but many remain. The arrangement is confused and the lines are irregular and with many gaps, but there is enough to show that almost all of them are arranged in walls enclosing large spaces, in many cases with inner enclosures, and in a few of the inner enclosures some large pointed standing stones and low mounds inside. One of these mounds was opened and dug through earth and murum about three feet below the surface to rock but nothing was found. Still these stones are in great numbers and of large size (3' x 3' or 4' x 2') and almost all the lines of stones bear traces of arrangement and apparently belong to some old burial monuments. Low mounds stretch to the westmost of them, topped with a thick cluster of boulders generally with one or two large pointed stones. Fresh earth-marks on some of these stones show that the circles have been lately repaired or completed and that they are used as cattle-pens or stack-yards. Others seem to be old and are arranged round a shrine or a rude painted stone. On the top of one hillock is an enclosure of big stones thirteen paces by ten, with an inner enclosure of smaller stones (12' x 7') with a long low stone at the west end smeared with redlead and worshipped as Mhasoba. About fifty paces to the north is one of the quaint shrines made of four stones, side and back stones and a flat roof resting on them. Inside is a stone about 18'' high daubed with red paint, roughly shaped as the home of Chedoba. About a quarter of a mile further west beyond a belt of rich lowland are more boulder-strewn knolls. The stones are arranged in large enclosures containing small circles or squares many of them marked by some specially large standing stones. They stretch to the west and to the northwest for many hundred yards. According to one of the villagers they are the sites of the houses when the village was a city in the times of the Gavli kings. But they are too irregular and the enclosures intersect each other too much to be either the sites of
houses or cattle-pens. On another knoll about 200 yards north, with an enclosing circle, is a small stone temple of Mahadev with a fragment of a pillar near the gate of the enclosure wall and inside of the enclosure an old well-carved but broken bull. A few paces east of the temple enclosure among some tombs is a curious shrine, a large flat stone resting on three large pointed stones. It is said to be a tomb. About half a mile to the north-east of the village are several low hillocks strewn with boulders. At a distance they look much like the boulder-covered hillocks near the village, but examination shows that the stones are in their natural position, apparently the ruins of a weatherworn knoll. Though the stones are of much the same form and size as those nearer the village, unlike them they show no signs of being picked out, arranged, or set in the ground.
As far as they have been examined none of the stones in these mounds, lines, or walls have any writing or any other sign of the chisel. The discovery of pieces of bones in one of the mounds supports the view that these circles and heaps of stones and the solitary standing stones are funeral monuments. Without letters or the discovery of further relics it is impossible, even within wide limits, to fix the age of these monuments. There seems no reason to doubt that they are old, certainly older than the Musalmans, and probably older than the Silaharas or the Yadavs (850- 1310) because the carving of battle-stones was the form of monument which was then in fashion. These monuments were almost certainly raised by rude people in honour of the dead. From the great number of the enclosures this would seem to have been a favourite place for commemorating the dead. And the absence of any signs of a mound in many cases and the want of any relics in several of the mounds suggest that some of these monuments are empty tombs raised to people whose bodies were buried or burnt in some other place. The carved battle-stones show that till Musalman times Bhavsari continued a favourite place for commemorating the dead, and the number of shrines to Satvai, Khandoba, Mhasoba, Chedoba, Vir, and other spirits seems to show that the village is still specially haunted by the dead.
An inscription on a rough stone attached to a wide burial mound in Sopara near Bassein showed that the mound was raised about B.C. 200 in honour of a person of the Khond tribe. Khond is the same as, Ghond and apparently as Kol. It remains as Kod a surname among Thana and other Kunbis and Marathas. As far as is at present known the name does not occur in the North Deccan. The mention of Kods in the Sopara stones, and the reverence for the dead which is so marked a characteristic of the Bengal Kols and the Godavari Kois, suggest that these rude monuments belong to the Kol or Kolarian underlayer or base of the Deccan population. Stone monuments like those at Bhavsari have not yet been made the subject of special search. When looked for they will probably be found and scattered over most of the Deccan. One standing stone or ubha dhonda, 5' 6" high, has lately (December 1882) been noticed in the village of Rajur about ten miles west of Junnar, and in the same village are traces of circles and heaps of large undressed stones. These and remains of several carved battle-pillars suggest that Rajur, like Bhavsari, down to
nearly Musalman times was believed to have some special sacredness or fitness for memorials to the dead.
According to General Haig, R. E., who has lately been living among them, [Church Missionary Intelligence and Record, VII. 82, 618.] the Kois of the lower Godavari are a cheery half-naked people who burn the dead, bury the ashes, cover them with a slab of stone, and at the head set another stone of great size. Occasionally in forest tracts are rows of stones five or ten or even fifteen or twenty feet high and weighing several tons. Smaller stones mark the graves of children. In countries where stone is difficult to get the custom ceases. The Kois of the plains have given up raising tomb-stones.
These rude enclosures, circles, mounds, and open-air flat-topped tombs or shrines have a double interest. They seem to be the original of the Buddhist stupa or burial-mound and its encircling rail, and they have a more curious but less certain connection with the rude stone monuments of North Africa and West Europe. In the Deccan the fondness for tombs is still strong among Marathas and other classes, and the enclosure wall or rail seems to survive and to have its origin in the rude circles that surround the shrines of Vetal, Chedoba, and other spirits whose worship forms so large a part of the religious observances of the lower classes of Deccan Hindus. The original object of the circle of stones, to keep evil from passing in to annoy the central object of worship, lives in the circle of shipais or guardians who live in the stones which surround the central Vetal.
Bhigvan, a small village twenty four miles north-west of Indapur, within 1881 a population of 1418, has a weekly market on Sunday.
Bhima'shankar, [The eleven other great lings are Amareshvar near Ujjain; Gautameshvar unknown; Kedareshvar in the Himalayas; Mahakal in Ujjain ; Mallikarjun on the Shrishail hill in Teliugan; Omkar on the Narbada; Rameshvar in Rameshvar island near Cape Comorin;; Someshvar in Somnath Patan in Kathiawar; Trimbakeshvar at Trimbak in Nasik; Vaidyanath at Devgad
in the Santhal district of Bengal and Vishveshvar at Benaras.] in the village limits of Bhovargiri, at the source of the Bhima river about thirty miles north-west of Khed, has a famous temple of Mahadev said to be one of the twelve great lings of India. [The late Mr. G H. Johns. C. S.: Bombay Gazette, 15th March 1884,] Bhimashankar is at the crest of the Sahyadris 3448 feet above sea level. Here, in a dip in the hill top 3090 feet above sea level, and surrounded by three or four wooded heights, is the holy source from which the Bhima trickles in a tiny stream into a small built cistern. After" it reaches the plain, the Bhima receives the Bhama, Indrayani, Mutha-Mula and Nira from the right, and the Ghod and Sina from the left. It passes east through Poona and Sholapur, and, after touching the north-east border of Bijapur, flows through the Nizam's territories where it meets the Krishna near Raichur about 400 miles south-east of Bhimashankar.
Portugvese Bell.
Close to the cistern which receives the infant flow of the Bhima are two temples of Mahadev one old and out of repair and the other modern built by the famous Poona minister Nana Fadnavis
(1764- 1800) and finished by his widow. The old temple is a plain solid structure built of dark stone, with a vaulted roof much like the Norman crypts often found under English cathedrals and abbeys. In the hall or mandap is a rough stone Nandi and in the shrine a metal cast with five heads representing the god Bhimashankar. Hung on an iron bar supported between two strong stone pillars, to
the east of the old temple, is a large bell weighing three to four
hundredweights. [Trigonometrical Survey Report for 1877-78, 130,] Embossed on the face of the bell is a minute human figure perhaps the Virgin Mary with a Maltese cross above and the figures 1729 below, showing the year in which the bell was cast. The bell is worshipped by the people, and the cross, the human figure, and the date are painted with redlead. According to the temple priest the bell was brought from Vasind near Kalyan in Thana probably from some Portuguese church or convent about 1739 when Bassem was taken by the Marathas. The old temple was originally much larger than it now is as its size was greatly reduced to make room for the new temple of Nana Fadnavis. The new temple is also built of dark stone and the spire rises in the form of a cone surmounted by a pinnacle. All round the outer wall of the lower part of the temple runs a row of small figures and gods in niches. The east front of the temple has much ornamental work. The rain dripping from the cement over the door has formed fringes of stalactites which harmonise with the fretwork, effectively combining nature and art in the decoration of the temple front. [Bombay Gazette, 15th March 1884.] The temple enjoys a yearly Government grant of £96 8s. (Us. 964) in cash and land assessed at about £20 (Rs. 200). The affairs of the temple are managed by six hereditary vahivatdars who receive the endowments. A yearly fair, attended by about 20,000 pilgrims from all parts of the Deccan and the Konkan, is held on Mahashivratra in February-March and lasts for two or three days.
Legend.
Two legends are told of the origin of the holiness of Bhimashankar. According to one, while Mahadev was resting after a successful but fatiguing contest with a demon named Tripurasur, Bhimak, a mythic king of Oudh of the sun line, came to do penance before the god and ask forgiveness for wounding, during a hunt, two seers in the form of deer. Shiv pardoned Bhimak and offered to grant him any boon he desired. Bhimak asked that the sweat which was still fresh on Shiv's brow might be changed into a river for the good of mankind. According to the other legend, the place first came into repute about the middle of the fourteenth century after Christ. When cutting timber in the Bhimashankar valley one Bhatirav found blood gushing out of one of the trees. Bhatirav brought his cow to the tree and dropped her milk on the stump and the wound healed in one night. A ling of Mahadev came out of the tree and Bhatirav built a shrine on the spot.
From the temples a side path leads to a shrine on rising ground which gives a wide view of the sacred Bhimashankar valley with many hue trees on the surrounding hills and a luxuriant growth of
evergreen bushes. Though from the Konkan side the top of Bhimashankar looks bare it really is well wooded. From the crest, in the morning light, the Konkan looks spread out like a map. Matheran from Panorama to Garb at point stands boldly out straight in front.
Boribyal, a village of 543 people on the Mula a feeder of the Bhima about twenty miles north of Baramati, has a station on the Peninsula railway 53¼ miles south-east of Poona. The 1880 railway returns showed 5115 passengers and no goods. [For the minor stations of Boribyal, Chinchvad, Karle, Khadkala, Khandala, Khedgaon, Loni, Patas, Shelarvadi, Uruli, Vadgaon, and Yevat, the railway returns give no details after 1880. The figures are grouped under the head Minor Stations.] |