1895.] Alexander E. Caddy — At^ohi Inscriptions in India. 157 



Here, over the dome-like tops of an outcrop of granite, has been 

 cut a stepped-patli which leads to the caves which were at one time an 

 important centre of Buddhist devotion. Long granite rocks with domed 

 roofs run north-east and south-west. In one of them three chambers 

 of some size have been excavated, each with its own door, which is 

 recessed considerably into the rock, to allow the perpendicular walls of 

 the cave to be a safe distance from the outer contour of the mass. I had 

 to bring away moulds of the dedicatory tablets to each of these caves 

 and to make photographs of them. This was soon done. Of the 

 caves, the one with the most imposing exterior is least finished inside. 

 The work here seems to have been abandoned on the workmen comino* 

 on a fissure of more than usual dimensions, but the other two caves and 

 the entrance to the third, and a good part of the Lomas Bishi cave too 

 have their walls and roofs highly polished. The glass-like polish o-iven 

 to these surfaces has been the admiration and wonder of ao>es. 



17. The doorway of the Lomas Rishi cave represents the entrance 

 to a handsome hnt-chapel, the arch being enriched by a frieze of elephants 

 the space surrounding it being filled with an elaborate wainscottint^' 

 The door has sloping jambs, Egyptian-like. The rock is a quartzose 

 gneiss, and where the elephants are carved, a whiter stone makes the 

 ornament very effective. 



18. The Sudama cave, called also Nyagrodha* or Banian tree has a 

 perfect chamber terminating in a Chaitya chapel, the whole circular 

 dome being carefully made and highly polished. 



19. The third cave in this rock is on its other face. The Kama- 

 chopar is a single chamber. It bears a very much worn tablet outside 

 on which 1 was able to trace the representation of a fish which does not 

 seem to have been observed before. In the doorway, too, there is some 

 fine lettering (comparatively modern), and a word or two in the still 

 undeciphered shell character. Another cave in this range of hills lies 

 east of this group and opens southward. A small vestibule of polished 

 gneiss or granite (as it is commonly called) leads to an unfinished 

 inner Chaihja—^ very small one. The inscription, being in the polished 

 recess, is in excellent preservation except where viciously chiselled out 



20. On either side of this rocky ridge there is a plain which 

 would hold a large assembly. To the north-east there is a shallow tank 

 beyond which is an extensive field from which the hills rise up a few 

 hundred feet, and which is crowned with a Hindu temple of the Siddhes- 

 loara linga referred to in a later inscription in the Vapiya cave. 



*''Nigoha Khubha " — Baninn tree cave, according to General Cnnningham. It 



. seems that caves were often named after some tree growing near by e. g. Nyagrodha 



the Banian tree; Pippali, the Pipal tree ; Saptaparna, a septafid tree. ' 



