On Friday, my friends and I met at the railway station after leaving office at 5 pm. Since Saturday and Sunday were holidays, we planned to visit Karla Caves for two days. We had already booked a hotel there. The cave of the hotel was under the mountain. So we set out on Saturday morning to go to the top of Cave Mountain.
After climbing for forty minutes we reached the cave. The Karle Caves are a complex of ancient Buddhist Indian rock-cut caves at Karle near Lonavala near Mumbai. It is just 11 km away from Lonavala. Other caves in the region are Bhaja Caves, Patan Buddhist Caves, Bedse Caves and Nasik Caves. The Satavahana rulers gave grants for the construction of these caves. The caves are historically associated with the Mahasanghika sect of Buddhism. In the cave, there is a Buddhist place of worship, called a matha, which dates back to the 2nd century BCE.
The monastery once had two grand pillars of 15 meters each outside the chaitya. Now only one of these remains, and the rest is occupied by a temple dedicated to the goddess Ekvira, who is especially worshiped by the agricultural and Koli communities of Mumbai. The landscape is very beautiful.
In ancient times, despite the absence of any modern tools, how could the saddle stone have been cut so finely and how could such beautiful idols, palaces, etc. have been made? This is very surprising. Large windows were made by cutting stones to bring air and light inside the cave. We could not take pictures as there was no permission for photography. Permission was granted to take photos of all the pictures that were outside. We took photos of him. Got a glimpse of a good ancient culture.