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AUGUST, 1910.]
GAZETTEER GLEANINGS IN CENTRAL INDIA.
GAZETTEER GLEANINGS IN CENTRAL INDIA. BY MAJOR. C. E. LUARD, M.A., L.A.
The Buddhist Caves of Central India.
era.
225
Introductory Remarks.
THE HE Buddhist Caves of Central India, the relics of the last refuge of Buddhism, are met with in two districts of Central India, in Northern Malwa, where there are several groups of caves and in the Vindhya hills at Bagh.
The caves belonging to the Malwa series lie at Dhamnar and Poladungad in Indore State, Rāmāgaon and Hategaon in Tonk, and Kholvi, Awar and Benaiga in Jhalawar. Hategaon is said to be near Ramägaon, but is not given in the Survey Maps (see infra Map of the Malwa Caves). The caves at Dhamnar and Kholvi are described by Cunningham in Vol. II of his series of Reports and will not be dealt with here, though some views of the former will be given at the end of this article. Bagh and Poladungad will be described in detail. The caves at the other places mentioned lie outside the Central India Agency and have not been visited by me. From all accounts, however, they appear to be similar to those at Dhamnar. All these caves are comparatively late, and fall between the seventh and ninth centuries of the Christian
The southern series of caves at Bagh have already formed the subject of two papers, one by Lt. Dangerfield in Vol. II, p. 194, of the Transactions of the Literary Society of Bombay, and the other by Dr. E. Impey in the Journal of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. V, p. 543. The latter is very fall, but is not accompanied by illustrations, and I have, therefore, to all intents, re-produced it here, with such modifications as have appeared necessary.
Buddhism in Central India.
The Brahmanism, which was established over most of India north of the Narbada river by the eighth and seventh centuries B.C., appears to have given place to Buddhism in the sixth and fifth centuries. The early Buddhist books actually mention a king Pajjota of Ujjain, and various tales are narrated of his relations with other rulers. Even if he was not a genuine historical personage, the inference may be made that Buddhist princes then ruled in these parts. In the third century B.C., the vigorous Buddhist propagandism of the Mauryan Emperor Asoka brought this form of religion to the front, and all the stupas round Bhilsa, including the famous Sanchi Tope and the similar tops which once stood at Barhut besides numerous remains at Udayagiri and Beshnagar, prove the influence exerted by this faith throughout the tract now included in the Central India Agency. Epigraphic records shew, moreover, how generally the faith was followed, as they record gifts from every class of society. Not only royal personages, but great merchants, trade guilds, simple shopkeepers, scribes, private householders, and even labouring men, record their gifts at the shrines1.
With Asoka's death, Buddhism rapidly decayed and by the middle of the first or the commencement of the second century A.D. it exerted very little influence, its followers being chiefly monks or nuns living in retirement. This decay, once set in, continued and was no doubt hastened by the foreign Kshatrapas, who held Malwa from 120 A.D. to 400 A.D. If not actually very strict
1 See J. F. Fleet-Gupta inscriptions in Corpus Inscriptorum Indicarum, Vol. III. Epigraphia Indica, Vol. II., 87, 366. Indian Antiquary, Vol. XIV, 138; Vol. XXI, 225.
