Breathtaking Cave Temples In India: By Ayan The Cave Temples of Bombay and beyond email: [email protected] Ayan There are many other depictions of Shiva in this cave of grandeur – there is the exuberant mutli-armed depiction of Nataraja, the divine dancer; then there is the graceful Ardhanarishwar - the androgynous version of Shiva that conjoins male and female, worshipper and worshipped, black and white – an almost anthropomorphic version of Hindu Yin-Yang, reclining on the Nandi; Mahadeva is also depicted as the Gangadhar Shiva, where he receives Ganga from the heavens on Earth to cleanse and redeem the sons of Bhagiratha. There are perhaps very few places in the subcontinent where the stories of Shiva are brought to life in this grandeur in a rock-cut montage. It must have been a great pilgrimage centre in the revival of Hinduism in the first millennium, and while a lot has been destroyed on this island of ingenuity by the occupying forces of the Portuguese, a lot remains - preserved, and restored by the British the Archaeological Survey of India. A day spent in Elephanta will surely rekindle your interest in the Puranic stories, if not in the wider realm of Indian rock-cut architecture where this small island undoubtedly joins the likes of Ellora and Mahabaleshwar. Dwarfed by these immense statues laced with metaphors, and hidden in dark brooding caves, I definitely felt like Indiana Jones and had a great learning experience, in a rediscovery of Indian mysticism. The ferry journey back to the city towards dusk was the icing on the cake – in the backdrop of the orange candied skies of an Arabian sunset, it seemed almost like a journey in both space and time, bringing history-pilgrims like myself back to the present day, after 1500 years that only amplified the magnificence of all I had seen. If in Bombay, Bollywood can wait – but a visit to Elephanta should definitely be on your cards! The Kanheri Caves: The Kanheri Caves were perhaps Buddhism’s reply to Elephanta and is today located near Borivalli in the western part of Mumbai within the Sanjay Gandhi National Park – one of the largest urban national parks (housed within a city) in the world. Today the urban sprawl that is Mumbai has swallowed the forests around the National Park but centuries back, the pilgrimage to these caves at the top of the Krishnagiri (or Kanhagiri, thereby Kanheri) would have been as big an adventure as sailing over to Elephanta. On the crest of a volcanic hill, crossing dense forests, criss-crossing rivers and waterfalls is part of the excitement in reaching this time-bubble that has thankfully been preserved quite well. Lasting over a millennium from the 1st century to the 10th century AD, the precinct has over 100 caves, the scale a representation of the importance of Kanheri as a Buddhist centre in medieval India – apparently also visited by Chinese traveller Hieun Tsang in his Buddhist pilgrimage across India. Developed over three hills, Kanheri is enormous – and if you go with the curiosity of an explorer, every inch of the carved caves will fill you with excitement and amazement – series of steps carved onto a bald red hill leading to the caves here, channels scoured atop the caves to collect rainwater there, a modest hidden cave with just a rock-cut plinth to show the level of austerity of the monks’ everyday life – extant signs of a bygone time that will fill you with wonder on one hand, and melancholy on the other - that you were not there to see the sober splendour that was Kanheri. A TO Z INDIA ● JANUARY 2022 ● PAGE 27