Monday, October 10, 2016
There are around 200 Buddhist caves in the
hills of Junnar. The largest collection of caves at a single place in the whole
of India. These caves belong to the Hinayana (Theravada) phase of Buddhism. They were built between 3rd century BC to 3rd century AD. The Junnar Caves are further divided on the hill ranges. The
Tulja Caves, The Shivneri Caves are located on the Shivneri Fort, The Manmodi Hills
(comprising of Amba Ambika Caves, Bhimashankar Caves and Bhutalinga Caves) and
Lenyadri Caves aka Ganesh Caves.
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| Amba Ambika Caves |
Junnar is around 200 KM away from Mumbai.
That is roughly around a 5 hour drive after taking into consideration the
traffic and breaks). As we were not sure as to how much time it would take to
visit the 200 caves we decided to make it a 2 day trip.
Aashish, Neha and Manohar joined me in
exploring the Junnar Caves.
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| Stupa at Amba Ambika Caves |
We decided to meet at 5 AM at Ghatkopar
Railway station (E). Due to a little delay we kick started the road trip at 5:15
AM. We were greeted by early morning rains. I was hoping to have clear skies else
l would get dull photos. Junnar is tagged on google maps, we decided to take the
Mumbai Pune Expressway,exit at Talegaon, head over to Chakan to refill the CNG
and then head to Junnar via Rajgurunagar, Manchar and Narayangaon.
The caves are located around the Junnar
ST bus depot.
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| Vihara at Amba Ambika Caves |
As we were approaching Junnar, I noticed a
set of caves in the hills. I quickly informed Aashish about the same. We
decided to visit the caves first. I checked google maps, these were the Amba
Ambika Caves. We quickly exited the Narayangaon-Junnar Road and traveled on
the Junnar-Vadaj Road. There are no signboards on this road. So one has to rely
on the locals for directions to visit the caves. We asked a couple of locals
and they guided us via a small muddy road which goes uphill and leads straight
to Amba Ambika Caves.
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| Vihara at Amba Ambika Caves |
We trekked up the jungle for around 20
minutes to reach the Amba Ambika Caves. A couple of caves have been converted
into a temple dedicated to Amba Ambika (painted white). A couple of people were
reciting kirtans there, so we didn't want to disturb them. We decided to go explore the remaining caves.
As per Manohar the Amba Ambika comprised of around 40 caves. The caves on the
top were not accessible to us. Maybe in the past there was way to reach them. The
caves are not in very good condition, except for the temple.
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| Inscription at Amba Ambika Caves |
One of the caves had nicely carved pillars
on them, We didn't go in the cave premises as the floor was covered in moss. There
was a Stupa too in it. There is also a inscription on one of the cave walls.
Not sure what it meant, as we didn't know the language it was written in.
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| Amba Ambika Caves |
It took us around 15 minutes to explore the
caves. We then asked the priest who had just arrived about the other caves. He
informed us that the caves to the left of Amba Ambika are the Bhutalinga Caves
and the once in far right are the Bhimashankar Caves.
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