Karli

 

The Karli Caves, located near Lonavala in Maharashtra, are ancient Buddhist rock-cut caves dating back to around the 2nd century BCE. They are best known for the Great Chaitya (prayer hall), one of the largest and best-preserved examples of early Buddhist architecture in India, featuring a massive horseshoe-shaped entrance and a towering stupa inside. The cave complex showcases finely carved pillars, intricate wooden-style rock carvings, and inscriptions donated by traders and rulers, reflecting the strong link between Buddhism and ancient trade routes. The Karli Caves highlight the artistic skill and religious life of early Buddhist communities in western India.

The Great Chaitya’s pillars still bear carvings of couples and donors, showing that lay people, including merchants and women, played a major role in its construction—unusual for that period. Another remarkable detail is the survival of original wooden beams on the ceiling and a wooden umbrella symbolising Buddha, making Karli one of the rare ancient sites in India where wood from over 2,000 years ago still exists. The caves also reveal cultural exchange, as some inscriptions mention donors from distant regions, proving Karli was an important stop on ancient trade networks. In ancient Indian sources, the Karli–Lonavala area belonged to Aparanta (western coastal region) and more broadly to the Konkan region. In ancient times, these hills were crucial for trade and travel, which is why many Buddhist caves—like Karli, Bhaja, Bedse, and Kondane—were carved into them. The Sahyadri hills provided natural rock faces ideal for cave-cut architecture and also offered seclusion suitable for monastic life.

 

I

The faces here look timeless now,

Basalt-carved, their ancient hearts

Capsule of time, millennia old

Hid somewhere in the Konkan Ghats

 

Maidens, merchants, monks alike

Dance to a life, lost long ago

Trading Yavans, swelling satraps

All entrapped in Karli’s flow

 

Beyond the faces, the chaitya looms

Like a cetacean stuck in a sea of greens

Under its ribs, a stupa prays

A brolly, of wood, where Buddha reigns

II

 

Sometimes though, on a cloudy day

With no more tourists on the scene,

You may wonder life on the other side

And all the truths they would have seen

 

The yakshas’ stare, the mithuns’ love

The kings and queens, jailed in stone

Forced to see the world pass by,

While stranded here, all alone

 

Would they approve, this changing world?

Would they be proud of our asphalt rise?

Or would they pine for a simpler past?

Our world, for them, a hall of lies

 

Or perhaps they know, this is the way,

Their saving grace, the monsoon grey

Like them, eternal, unwearied

As time rolls on, yet another day…

 

20^th December 2025