Barabar Caves
The Barabar Hill Caves are the oldest surviving rock-cut caves in India, dating from the Maurya Empire, some with Ashokan inscriptions, located in the Makhdumpur region of Jehanabad district, Bihar, India, north of Gaya.
These caves are situated in the twin hills of Barabar and Nagarjuni ; caves of the -distant Nagarjuni Hill are sometimes singled out as the Nagarjuni Caves. These rock-cut chambers bear dedicatory inscriptions in the name of "King Piyadasi" for the Barabar group, and "Devanampiya Dasaratha" for the Nagarjuni group, thought to date back to the 3rd century BCE during the Maurya period, and to correspond respectively to Ashoka and his grandson, Dasharatha Maurya.
The sculptured surround to the entrance to the Lomas Rishi Cave is the earliest survival of the ogee shaped "chaitya arch" or chandrashala that was to be an important feature of Indian rock-cut architecture and sculptural decoration for centuries. The form was a reproduction in stone of buildings in wood and other plant materials.
The caves were used by ascetics from the Ajivika sect, founded by Makkhali Gosala, a contemporary of Gautama Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, and of Mahavira, the last and 24th Tirthankara of Jainism. The Ajivikas had many similarities with Buddhism as well as Jainism. Also present at the site are several rock-cut Buddhist and Hindu sculptures and inscriptions from later periods.
Most caves at Barabar consist of two chambers, carved entirely out of granite, with a highly polished internal surface, the "Mauryan polish" also found on sculptures, and exciting echo effects.
The caves were featured – located in a fictitious Marabar – in the book A Passage to India by English author E. M. Forster.
Caves at Barabar Hill
Barabar Hill contains four caves: Karan Chaupar, Lomas Rishi, Sudama, and Visvakarma. Sudama and Lomas Rishi are the earliest examples of rock-cut architecture in India, with architectural detailing made in the Mauryan period. Similar examples include the Buddhist chaitya found in the Ajanta and Karla Caves of Maharashtra. The Barabar caves greatly influenced the tradition of rock-cut architecture in the Indian subcontinent.- Lomas Rishi Cave has an arch-like facade that imitates contemporary timber architecture. On the doorway, carved elephants proceed in a row along the curved architrave towards stupa emblems.
- Sudama Cave was dedicated by Mauryan Emperor Ashoka in 261 BCE. The arches of Sudama cave have a bow shape. The cave consists of a circular vaulted chamber with a rectangular mandapa.
- Karan Chaupar contains a single rectangular room with polished surfaces, and an inscription which could be dated to 245 BCE.
- Visvakarma Cave, reachable by Ashoka steps hewn in the cliff, consists of two rectangular rooms.
Lomas Rishi Cave
This cave has an arched facade that probably imitates contemporary wooden architecture. On the periphery of the door, along the curve of the architrave, a line of elephants advance in the direction of stupa emblems. This is the characteristic form of the "chaitya arch" or chandrashala, an important feature of rock architecture and sculpture for many centuries, and long considered a stone reproduction of wooden buildings and other plant materials. According to historian S. P. Gupta, Lomas Rishi's immediate successors are the Kondivite and Guntupalli caves.
Lomas Rishi has no Ashoka inscription, perhaps because it has never been completed due to structural rock slide problems.
File:Ajivika Monk in a Gandhara sculpture of the Mahaparinirvana.jpg|thumb|upright|Most of the Barabar Caves were explicitly dedicated by Mauryan rulers to the sect of the Ājīvikas through inscriptions. Depiction of an Ājīvika ascetic in a Gandhara sculpture of the Mahaparinirvana, circa 2nd-3rd century CE
According to Gupta, the theory that Lomas Rishi would not have received Ashoka's inscription because it was in a state of incompleteness, is undermined by the fact that the cave of Vivaskarma, another cave of Barabar, although it is not finished, was nevertheless consecrated by Ashoka. The consecration of a cave could therefore be done in the course of work. This could imply that Lomas Rishi, with its bas-reliefs, actually post-dates Ashoka's reign.
Gupta actually believes that Lomas Rishi post-dates both Ashoka and his grandson Dasaratha, and would have been built at the end of the Maurya Empire, under the reign of its last Emperor Brihadratha, and abruptly halted in 185 BC with the assassination of Brihadratha and the coup d'état of Pushyamitra Sunga, founder of the Sunga dynasty. Pushyamitra Sunga is known to have persecuted Buddhists and Ajivikas, which could explain the immediate cessation of work. According to Gupta, the abrupt interruption of the works is suggested by the lack of finishing, even approximate, of the ground: for example, the abandonment in state of some rock pikes, which would have required only a few minutes of chipping to be removed in order to obtain a fairly regular floor.
Questions of date and religious affiliation
dedicated the caves of Sudama and Visvakarma to the ascetics called "Ajivikas" in the 12th year of his reign, when his religious evolution towards Buddhism was not yet fully completed. The precise identity of the Ajivikas is not well known, and it is even unclear if they were a divergent sect of the Buddhists or the Jains.Later, Ashoka built the caves of Lomas Rishi and Karna Chopar at a time when he had become a firm advocate of Buddhism, as known from his Edicts of Ashoka. It was initially thought that Karna Chopar may have been dedicated to the Buddhists, based on a former reading of the inscription at the entrance of the cave. However, in 2007, Indologist Harry Falk gave a new reading of the inscription indicating that Karna Chopar had been dedicated to the Ajivikas. Lomas Rishi has no dedicatory inscription, but it has been suggested that it may had been dedicated to the Buddhists, based on the fact that the architecture of the gate of Lomas Rishi became a reference for the development of the chaitya arch in Buddhist cave architecture for the following centuries, whereas the Hindus or the Jains caves essentially did not follow this architectural example. This implies that the decorated gate of Lomas Rishi was a Buddhist invention, emulated in Buddhist architecture in the following centuries. After the Barabar caves, the earliest known rock-cut Buddhist monasteries date to the 1st century BCE Kondivite Caves in the Western Ghats of India, and the Guntupalli Caves the in Eastern Ghats.
Sudama Cave
The Sudama Cave is located on the southern side of Barabar granite hill, close and to the left of Lomas Rishi. Sudama consists of two rooms: a rectangular space measuring 9.98 x 5.94m, and a semi-hemispherical chamber 6m in diameter, accessed from the rectangular room by a narrow rectangular passage. This is probably the first cave in the group to have been dug. This cave was dedicated by Emperor Ashoka in 257 BCE as evidenced by an inscription in Brahmi using his protocol name found in the entrance of the cave, whereas the cave of Lomas Rishi did not receive a dedicatory inscription.The ceiling of the Sudama Cave is arched. The cave is composed of a circular vaulted chamber and a vaulted room with the rectangular form of mandapa. The interior walls of the cave represent a technical feat: they are perfectly flat with polished granite surfaces that create a mirrored effect. The flat, mirror-plane surfaces reverberate sound, creating a very pronounced echo phenomenon, amplifying vibrations and harmonies, and may have been favorable to the songs or chanting of the monks.
All Barabar's caves share this polished interior to a greater or lesser extent, with the exception of Lomas Rishi Cave, whose interior, although designed on the same model as the others, is only half-finished.
Karan Chaupar Cave
Karan Chaupar, also known as Karna Chaupar, is on the northern side of the Barabar granite hill. It consists of a single rectangular room with polished surfaces, 10.2 x 4.27m. An inscription by Ashoka dating from the 19th year of his reign, about 250 BCE, is located outside and immediately to the right of the entrance. Initially, it was thought from E. Hultzsch's 1925 translation that Ashoka's inscription from Karna Chopar Cave does not mention the Ajivikas, and seems rather to refer to the Buddhist practice of retirement during the rainy season. In addition, the inverted swastika with upward arrow at the end of the inscription would be more of a Buddhist character. All this suggested that this cave was planned for Buddhist monks. However, in 2007, Indologist Harry Falk showed with a new reading of the inscription that the cave was indeed dedicated to the Ajivikas.Traditional reading of the inscription:
This reading of the inscription has been corrected by Harry Falk, who, after cleaning the stone and inspecting it, read:
In particular, Falk reconstructs the last line as ????????????????????, which means "Supriyekṣā was given to the Ājivikas".
The cave has a rock-cut bench at one end, probably to sit or sleep upon.
In the entrance hall an inscription from the Gupta period mentions "Daridra Kantara". A mound decorated with later Buddhist sculptures is also near the entrance, another element which suggested the belonging of this cave to the Buddhists.
Visvakarma Cave
The Visvakarma Cave, also called Viswa Mitra, is accessible by the "steps of Ashoka" carved into the cliff. The cave sits a hundred meters and a little east of the main granite hill. It consists of a rectangular room entirely open to the outside, a sort of elongated porch, and an unfinished semi-hemispherical room. The rectangular space measures 4.27 x 2.54m, and the circular room, entered through a narrow trapezoidal passage, is 2.8m in diameter. On the floor of the porch, four holes were made, which are thought to allow the cave to be closed with a wooden picket fence.The cave of Visvakarma was offered by Ashoka to the Ajivikas in the year 12 of his reign, about 261 BCE:
Visvakarma Cave was consecrated by Ashoka despite the fact that it was unfinished. This somewhat questions the theory that the Lomas Rishi cave did not receive Ashoka's inscription because it was incomplete. This could support the notion that Lomas Rishi, with its bas-reliefs, is post-Ashoka, as late as 185 BCE. This does not explain, however, why work on Visvakarma cave, consecrated in 260 BCE, was interrupted in the absence of a significant problem in the rock, and why Ashoka dedicated Karan Chaupar cave, perfectly finished and only a short distance away, 7 years later. Visvakarma is also the only cave that does not have "historical" inscriptions after Ashoka.