________________
PABHOSA INSCRIPTIONS.
241
this dragon, Tathagata left here his shadow; but, though this is a tradition of the people there is no vestige of the shadow visible." Hiuen Tsiang's statement that the cave is 8 or 9 li to the south-west of Kausâmbi, is erroneous, as the hill bears north-west from the fort of Kosâm. According to the popular belief of the villagers there is a Någa inside the cave, of which everybody has heard, but which no one has seen. The serpent is believed to have his head in the Jamnå while his tail remains in the cave, which is more than a quarter of a mile from the river. The Nâga is said to be seen once a year at the time of the Divali festival. Not a little surprised were the people, therefore, to find that no Naga was encountered when I entered and examined the cave during the night of the 25th March 1887.
At the back of the village a flight of about one hundred and ten steps leads up to a platform, formed of a mere mass of débris, the refuse of former quarries, on which stands a small modern Jaina temple. Close by are three small standing figures of naked Jinas cut in the rock. About 150 feet from the north-east corner of the temple rises the rock perpendicularly about 47 feet in height, in the highest scarp of which the cave is situated. Above the solid rock, in which the cavern is hewn, several large boulders of hard grey quartzite are lying, one upon another, in a sloping position. No doubt, the access to this cave from below was removed by the quarrymen, as it would seem, shortly after the eighth century A.D. In order to effect an entrance into the cave and to copy its inscription outside (Facsimile No. I), which is visible to the naked eye from below, I intended first to erect a staging from the temple below up to the cave and inscription; but finding this to be extremely dangerous on account of the locality and its surroundings, I had a wooden crib made to let down by means of strong ropes from above the cave. As, however, the neighbourhood of the cavern was infested by numerous swarms of wild bees, the cave had to be entered by night and the inscriptions to be copied by the light of a lantern, which added much to the difficulty of the undertaking
The cave is entirely hewn in the solid rock, the marks of the chisel being apparent throughout; the left side is occupied by a stone couch and pillow, or sej, for the hermit's use. The roof is of very curious formation, being cut into vaulted shelves or cupboards, on each side of the centre; these shelves occupy about half of the roof, and the remainder is plain. The main entrance, a door measuring 2 2" by 1' 9', has a stone lintel and plain pilaster of red-coloured sandstone on each side, with square holes above and below, seemingly to bar up the entrance. The lintel of the door is 10 feet from the upper edge of the precipice. To the left of the door, at a distance of 2' 3" are two small windows of irregular shape, one with a diameter of 1' 5" and the other of 1 7". The thickness of this wall is only 9 inches. About 1' 3" above the left top corner of the entrance door, there is an inscription (Facsimile I) of eight lines, in characters of the second or first century B.C., carved on the rough surface of the natural rock. Inside, the cave measures 9 feet on the left and 8' 6" on the right in length, by 74" in width and 3' 3" in height. The stone bed, or sej, is 9 feet in length, 1'8" in
Compare, however, Sung-Yun's rccount of Buddha's Shadow Cave, or the Cave of Gopala, Beal, L.c., vol. I, page evii.
Cunningham, Archaological Survey Reports, vol. XXI, p. 2. Sir A. Cunningham, although speaking of the cave, does not mention its rock-cut inscription.
21
