Me Sahyadri April 2019

As the economic development has taken the center stage, the balance between the environmental sustenance and socio economic development will be under the scanner. As most experts with balanced views have proclaimed, Indian wildlife and ecological system sustenance will be under threat, unless precautions are taken with the help of appropriate research and long term national interests. As we encounter the economic development, many habitats which indirectly or directly help sustainable development will be damaged. The awareness to gauge the success by sustainable development and not by year to year growth is a distant dream any environmentalist will assume in current scenario.
Western ghats, or Sahyadri as we all call it as, is a treasure trove of spectacular landscapes, biodiversity, flora, fauna, some amazing geological wonders and man made monuments. With the increasing pressure from human encroachment, all these elements are under stress and in turn are under depletion. Western ghats should be left untouched by human beings, to protect their future generations from getting short of resources, such as water, energy and clean air. The important elements of western ghats, which need protection are highlighted in the new version of Photo journal, Me Sahyadri Magazine.

About the Koyna Valley Cave exploration :
For last few years we have been exploring the MAVAL region od Pune district in search of ancient rock cut caves. Most of the caves are known and studied in depth by several researchers. While revisitng some of the lesser known rock cut caves we observed many new aspects of these caves which have been overlooked. At few places new rock cut caves were noticed which are not recorded in academic literature. We explored and found few beautiful places. The very concept of creating a hermit cave somewhere high up in the hills is fascinating. These places often are full of tranquility and nothing else. With very little architectural evidences and clues, the academicians have obviously ignored these places. It was James Fergusson and James Burgess, during their exhaustive study of “Cave temples of India, 1880” mentioned few of these hermits in Maharashtra.
With the little clues and exhaustive investigation, team of five members, Saprakash Belsare, Amey Joshi, Ninad Bartakke, Jitendra Bankapure and Vivek Kale started the exploration. The journey to locate, trek and analyse these hermit caves itself was fascinating. We met many villagers who were unaware of these places, but also met few shephards who were precisely aware of the hermits and gave us tentaive guidance. In line with Maval cave exploration, we visited Koyna valley for its recorded but less known rock cut caves. There is a very brief mention about the misceleneous caves of Maharashtra by James Fergusson and James Burgess in their work. Based on available information we decided to search these caves and monuments. The activities were planned. The food, travel , track exploration in difficult and routes full of foliage, enquiring the villagers about the caves, drawing skecthes and maps, photography, GPS data collection, making notes and analysing the information, observing the minor details of the caves etc activites were distributed amongst the team members.
We met many bats, owls, geckos, lizards, large spiders, martins, honeybees during the treks. Often we felt sad that we disturbed them to see the caves. Most of these places are hazardous due to pitch darkness, bats, dust, thorny plants, honeybees, low oxygen level in caves and rock patches etc. The high intensity torches, GPS tool, measuring tapes and measuring laser tool, Honeybee protection caps, maps, google maps, photographs etc were useful during the mission. In this photoessay, I have compiled the information and photographs of Rudreshwar caves, in Koyna Valley. cave complex.

Koyna river originates at Mahabaleshwar. It has very large dam built on it at koynanagar in Patan tehsil of Satara district. After Koynanagar the river flows towards east before it reaches Karad. This region of Koyananagar to Karad is here considered as Koyna valley. The river flows through a flat basin flanked by hill ranges on either side of it. In this photoessay, one of the caves on the northern side hill range is discussed. Out of six lesser known caves in this northern hill range facing Koyna, Rudreshwar is one of the facinating rock cut cave of this region. The caves are located near the villages Yeradwadi and Navsarwadi. In ancient India about 2000 years back India used to trade with other western civilisations such Persia, Greece and Egypt. The trade used to be carried out by road from Deccan plateay through a trade center till the ports on west coast. The goodswere then transported through sea route to Egypt, Greece etc. The land route from deccan plateu to west coast was decided based on the convenience. Karad was important trade center on the deccan plateau. The goods were transported from Karad to Chiplun and other Konkan ports through Koyna valley and the pass through the wetsern ghats. Hence many buddhist caves can be seen around the Koyna valley due to this trade route from Karad to Chiplun.

Yeradwadi and Navsarwadi are two adjascent villages on the Karad-Patan highway. The caves are located at about 50 meter altitude above the surrounding plateaue. After scrambling through the village small roads, we could reach very close to the base of the hill range on a rough road. There is step way to reach the caves. From here it took hardly 20 minutes to reach the caves. The cave can not be seen from distance due to foliage. One can approcah cave from the left side of the stream, using the steps. The caves are hidden up in the hill. This cave complex can be divided in to 3 sections. The main chaityagriha in the left side. The vihar cave consisting of 8 cells and a hall is adjascent to Chaityagriha (east side). Other excavations here include couple of water cisterns. One is located on the left side near a waterfall and the other one is located little away from the caves on the east side close to another waterfall. There is also a incomplete cavern on the right side of the vihar.

The main chaityagriha has a apsidal curved roof, with vertical side walls. The width, length and height of the chaityagriha is 5.8 m, 11.3 m, 4.75 m respectively. The stupa is missing. There is a Mahadev Pindi in Chaityagriha. The chaityagriha has octagonal pillars around the missing stupa. There are about 19 pillars with octagonal crosssection and there are 2 hexagonal cross sectional pillars in front. Total 21 pillars are present in this chaityagriha creating a separate pasaage for the Pradakshina (circumnavigation) around the Stupa. However the floor level behind the pillars is lifted up by masonary work making It thus difficult to circumnavigate the missing Stupa. The chaityagriha has interesting façade most of which has collapsed. The upper section of the façade is still hanging from the roof and has one incomplete rectangular window and a semicircular upper part of the entrance doorway. Geologically most of this region one can see rocks which are nothing but volcanic breccia. In this structure, the hard substance is left behind in the rocks with soft material erosion over the time period. The lumps of stones clubber together structure can be seen in the stupa of this cave. The structure hence is fragile in nature. Most of the pillars and thin front façade have partially collapsed. As mentioned above the masonary work on the floor has reduced the vertical height of the circumnaviation path. Similarly the masonary floor work has reduced the vertical height of the main hall in chaityagriha. The drain for Abhishek water adjascent to MAHADEV pindi indicates that the height by which the chaityagriha flooring has been lifted up by masonary work. Around 0.35 meter depth of the drain indicates that atleast 0.3 meter high masonary work has been done on the flooring of main hall. Similarly behind the pillars about 0.35 + 0.4 = 0.75 meter masonary work has been added to the flooring. Hence the actual height of the chaityagriha which is currently 4.75 meter must be about 5.1-5.2 meter. And the circumnavation path height which is now about 1.2 meter (less than height of average human being) must have been atleast 2.0 meter.

On the right side of main chaityagriha, there is a cave with 8 cells and a hall (Mandapam). The hall infront seems to have lost it front wall partially. The hall is of about 5 x 6 x 2 meter in width, length and height respectively. There are 2 cells on left (west),3 cells in back wall and 3 cells on right side (east). The cells have sockets for wooden frames. Almost all the cells have a bench inside the cell. Though all the cells are not exactly same in dimenions the The cells are of about 1.65 x 2 x 2 meter in width, length and height respectively. The cells have lot of objects of usage kept by the Rudreshwar temple. Adjascent to the Vihar, there is a small cavern on the right side which is about 3.7 m x 2.2 meter in size with height of about 1.3 meter. The water cistern immediately next to Chaityagriha is about 3 meter x 3meter in size with height of about 1.6 meter. The water cistern which is away from the Vihar on the right isde is about 2 meter x 2 meter in size with about equal in depth.