Karla Caves

Listen first. The air inside the great hall is cool, even when the hillside outside is warm. Footsteps echo off the stone and come back softer, rounder, as if the room is holding them for a moment. Light enters from one direction only, through a tall horseshoe-shaped window behind you. It falls in a pale column across the floor. Somewhere above, you can see dark wooden ribs curving through the gloom. You are standing inside a mountain, in a room that was cut, not built.

These are the Karla Caves, in the hills of Pune district in western India, close to the town of Lonavala. They are a group of Buddhist rock-cut shrines and monastic cells, carved into a basalt cliff about two thousand years ago. Basalt is hard volcanic rock, the dark stone that forms much of the Deccan plateau. The monks and craftsmen who worked here did not stack blocks. They started at the top of the cliff and cut downward, removing everything that was not the finished room.

Think about what that means. There was no room for error. A builder can replace a cracked stone. A carver who cuts one pillar too thin cannot add rock back. Every column, every arch and every curve of the ceiling around you was planned before the first chisel struck. Then the rock was taken away in thousands of small pieces, carried out by hand, over many years of patient work.

The hall you are in is the Great Chaitya. A chaitya is a Buddhist prayer hall, built around a stupa, which is a rounded mound that holds relics or marks a sacred memory. Scholars generally date this hall to around the first century before the Common Era or a little later. It is widely described as the largest and finest early rock-cut chaitya hall in India. Many visitors arrive expecting a small cave. Few expect a space this tall and this deep.

Look along the length of the hall. Two rows of pillars run from the entrance toward the far end and curve around the stupa, like the inside of a horseshoe. This shape is not decoration only. Worshippers walked clockwise around the stupa, between the pillars and the outer wall. The aisle was made for that slow, circling walk. If you follow it now, you are tracing the same path that pilgrims and monks followed for centuries.

Now look up, and here is the first surprise. The curved ribs across the vaulted ceiling are real wood. Most of the timber in this hall is believed to be original, and it has survived in this sheltered space for a very long time. The rock ceiling did not need any wooden support. The ribs copy the shape of older timber halls, which the builders knew and wanted to remember. Stone and wood sit together here, the new style still carrying the habits of the old.

Walk closer to the pillars and study their tops. Each capital, the carved block at the top of a column, holds a pair of kneeling elephants. On their backs ride human figures, often a man and a woman together. These couples are called mithuna, a word for paired figures that suggest harmony and good fortune. The detail is fine. Look at the folds of cloth, the jewellery and the way the riders sit. It is a crowd of quiet figures, high above your head.

At the far end stands the stupa itself, a solid drum of stone with a rounded dome. Above it, look for a wooden parasol shape. In early Buddhist art, an umbrella like this marks honour and protection. Notice what is missing here. There is no large statue of the Buddha at the centre. In this early phase of Indian Buddhism, the Buddha was often shown through symbols, such as the stupa, rather than in human form. The empty space is part of the message.

Turn back toward the entrance and the great window. Its horseshoe arch is sometimes called a sun window. It lets light flow down the central nave and onto the stupa. The rest of the hall stays dim. The effect changes through the day as the light moves. Below and around it, the entrance screen carries carved couples and figures, and parts of the facade show elephants in a row. Some sculptures, including figures of the Buddha, appear to be later additions made by a later generation of patrons.

The walls also carry writing. Inscriptions in Brahmi, an ancient Indian script, are cut into the stone in several places. Most are donor records. They name the people who paid for pillars, carvings or parts of the hall. One inscription credits a merchant from a city called Vaijayanti with establishing this rock mansion, and it praises the hall as the finest in the land. Other records mention donors described as Yavanas, a term used for foreigners from the west, often people of Greek background.

That is the second surprise. This was not a remote retreat cut off from the world. The caves sit near an old trade route that linked ports on the western coast with markets on the Deccan plateau. Merchants, travellers and their money moved through these hills. Monasteries along the route gave shelter and blessing, and traders gave back through gifts. The pillars around you are, in a sense, ancient receipts, carved in stone by people who wanted their generosity to be remembered.

Outside, the site has more to show. Near the entrance stands a tall pillar topped with lions, an old symbol of royal power and of the Buddha's teaching. Further along the cliff are smaller caves with plain cells, where monks slept, studied and meditated. Just in front of the great hall is the temple of Ekvira Devi, a goddess honoured especially by the Koli fishing communities of the coast. On festival days, the steps fill with families, flowers, drums and colour.

Getting here takes some effort. The path climbs a long flight of steps up the hillside, past stalls selling flowers, snacks and offerings for the temple. Monkeys watch from the walls and the trees, and they are quick to grab food from careless hands. In the monsoon season, the hills turn deep green and mist can drift across the valley. Nearby, two other early Buddhist cave groups, Bhaja and Bedsa, show related work on a smaller scale.

Before you leave, stand still in the hall one more time. Listen to the echo of voices, and watch how the light rests on the stupa. Look at the ribs above you, the elephants on the pillars, and the worn floor under your feet. Thousands of people have stood where you stand. When you walk back out into the daylight, turn and look at the cliff. From outside, it is only a rock face... with a whole hall hidden inside.