Me Sahyadri December 2018

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 Digewadi 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, Digewadi is the most less visited rock cut cave. The caves are located near the village Kalewadi near Digewadi. 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.

Kalewadi near Digewadi is a village on the Karad-Patan highway. The caves are located at about 50-60 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. 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 right side of the stream. The caves are hidden up th hill and are south facing. This cave complex can be divided in to 3 sections. The main chaityagriha in the center. The vihar cave consisting of 2 cells with verandah are on the left (west side) of chaityagriha. Another larger Vihara cave consisting of 7 cells is on the right (east side) of chaityagriha. There is a opening in Chaityagriha wall through which one can access east side vihara cells. There is about 1 to 1.5 meter deep rubble in the entire cave complex. So one can see only the upper half of the caves which are still above the rubble. There is a waterfall outside the cave complex and the rubble with rain water must have got entered the cave complex over many years. Most of the walls in vihar caves are damaged due to the erosion over the years. The quality of rock here is brittle as is not as compact as one can see in Maval region caves such as Karle, Bedse etc. Based on the architecture it is evident that this is a early Hinayan Cave.

The main chaityagriha has a apsidal curved roof, with vertical side walls. The height of the chaityagriha is very less. Also the Stupa is covered with rubble and only top part of stupa is visible. Atop stupa a Shivalingam is kept and is being worshipped by the local villagers. Based on some observations in this cave and other caves it is clear that the chaityagriha is filled with about 1.5 to 2 m rubble. The stupa is submerged in this rubbble. Refer Image 23 to see the tentative sketch of this submergence. The chaityagriha is about 3.2 meter wide and is about 2.2 meter (visible). The stupa must be about 1 to 1.5 meter in diameter, but as it is under rubble exact dimensions can not be realised. There are no side pillars in this chaityagriha. As this stupa has apsidal roof, it indicates the early date for this cave.

On the left side of main chaityagriha, there is a cave with 2 cells at its back and a verandah infront of these 2 cells. Similar to the main chaityagriha, this cave also is filled with about 1 to 1.2 meter rubble. Benches in these cave cells are not visible due to rubble. The ceiling of this cave matches with the current level of the Chaityagriha floor. Assuming that the typical height of the caves in this region is about 2 to 2.4 meter, one can say that Chaityagriha is further 2.4 meter below the rubble, making the total height of Chaityagriha as 2.2 meter (visible) + 2.4 meter (under rubble) = 4.6 meter. The wooden sockets to fix the door frames can be seen in the door ways of these 2 cells.

On the right side (East) of main chaityagriha, there is a cave with 7 cells. Two cells are on left, two on the back side and 3 on right side. Similar to the main chaityagriha, this cave also is filled with about 1 to 1.2 meter rubble. Benches in these cave cells are not visible due to rubble. The cave cell sizes are non uniform. There is a opening in the cahityagriha wall to enter this cave. There is a small passage through which one can reach the caves once entered through the chaityagriha opening. Due to rubble it is difficult to identify if the cave complex also had front entrance or not. There are no indications of water cistern nearby. But there is a likely hood that water cisterns are under the rubble. This east cave ceiling is above the current floor level of Chaityagriha by about 1 meter. It indicates that the floor level of Cave (west) and floor level of Cave (East) differs by about 1 meter. The wooden sockets to fix the door frames can be seen in the door ways of these 7 cells. The cave is being overlooked by Govt agencies. The restoration of such important ancient heritage should have been done by Govt.