Indian Antiquary Vol 02

SR No.: 032494
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 428
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 20 MB

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44
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
dhist caves that abound in the hills all round the present city, and at about an equal distance from it. This looks as if there had been somewhere near its site an object serving as a centre to them all-e. g. a bazâr where the monks could beg.
The best-known is the group called the Ganesa Lenâ, situated south of the Kûkrî, and about three miles from the city, in the steep face of a hill which the Hindus call Ganesa Pahar, and the Musalmâns Takht-îSulaiman. The Sulaiman in question was not the son of David, but a fakir who lived on the top in former days. This hill is the northeast point of the Hattakeswar range, to be hereafter described. The caves are cut in a ledge of hard rock on its north face, and are in two groups, altogether about a dozen in number, The chief group contains one large vihâra about the size of a three-table billiard-room, one end of which is now occupied by an image of Ganapatí, or, as a pert young Brâhman once put it in my hearing "Yes; we have set up our Apollo there"! This Apollo-not of Belvedere, nor yet of Delos-gives to the hill and the caves the name of Ganesa Pahâr and Ganesa Lenâ respectively, and to the neighbouring campingground that of Ganesa Mal. He is rather a fashionable deity in Junnar, and in my time used to be an object of pilgrimage from considerable distances. East of the large vihara is a beautiful little chaitya, having pillars carved in the Kârlé style, but with more spirit and execution. The figures are elephants and tigers. The roof has horse-shoe ribs of stone, cut in the living rock; and this, with the superiority of the carving, indicates, I should think, a later date than that of Kârlé. The other caves are not in any way specially remarkable, unless that one of them contains a spring of very good water, which the pujâris of Ganapati try to prevent chance visitors from drinking. There is a good flight of steps part of the way up to this group, and a rough path the rest of it. The other half of the Ganesa Lenâ lies about half a mile further east, in a gorge, and is remarkable for the carving of one doorway (in a chaitya), and for the utter inaccessibility of some of the caves. Whether they were originally approached by means of ropes and ladders, or whether the steps have been destroyed by time, I cannot say. At any rate they are a great comfort to birds and bees. There are some inscriptions in these and the other caves, but they
[FEBRUARY, 1873.
have all, I believe, been recorded by Dr. Bhâu Dâji, and most of them by other people too. The next group of caves is called the Tulsi Lenâ, and is situated about three miles south-west of the town. They are, as far as I understand the matter, rather inferior to the Ganesa Lenâ, but in much the same style, and worth seeing in any case. The third group however, in the south-western face of the fort of Siwner, presents something new, For whereas the pillars of the Ganesa and Tulsi caves were of stone, and hewn, as far as possible, out of the rock, generally with a lotus-head, those of this group appear to have been either of wood or of stone deliberately built up; for they are quite gone, and nothing remains but the capitals in each case carved downwards from the lintel of living rock, and having a hole about one inch in diameter in the centre of the inferior face, as if to receive a point or rivet. The shape, too, of the capitals differs, for these are carved in (so to speak) concentric squares. The remains of a similar pattern in red, yellow, black, and white fresco still remained in 1871 on the ceiling of the largest cavea vihara, not quite so big as that in the Ganesa Pahár, The native legend, as usual, is that the five Pândus hewed out the caves in a night in pursuance of some bargain, that they parcelled out the work among them, and that he to whom this part of it fell was overtaken by morning, and left the pillars unmade, Who the lazy hero was, they cannot tell, but it was not Bhims, for we shall meet with his handiwork further on, In the northeast face of the fort are two more groups of caves, none of which are of any size. They are mostly small viharas, with their fronts supported by lotus-headed stone pillars; and the pendant capital which I have described is not found, as far as I recollect, in any of them. In one, however, the same frescoed ceiling-pattern was in existence in my time,
The last of the cave-hills is the Mân Môri, a long ridge lying east of the fort, and separated from it by a gap called the Bârao Khind. There are three small groups of caves in it, the chief being that attributed to the hero Bhima, and called after him Bhima Sankar, These are not. to be confused with the famous temple of Bhima Sankar built by Nana Fadnavis at the source of the river of that name. The top of this Man Môri hill is the site of a fakir's shrine, with a cistern, said never to run dry; and the same is the case with a similar shrine and eistern on an