The setting
The Western Ghats of Maharashtra are cut by passes that carried trade between the ports of the Konkan coast, such as Kalyan and Sopara, and the cities of the Deccan plateau. From the second century BCE Buddhist communities cut monasteries into the basalt cliffs along these routes, supported by merchants, craftsmen and rulers. Karla, overlooking the route through the Bor Ghat, is the grandest of them, with Bhaja and Bedsa close by.
The great hall
The chaitya hall is cut deep into the hill behind a screen wall and a broad porch. Its plan is the classic one: a long nave ending in an apse that holds a rock-cut stupa, with aisles separated from the nave by rows of pillars, so that worshippers could walk round the stupa. The roof is a high barrel vault, and wooden ribs of teak, original to the hall, still follow its curve, imitating the timber buildings from which the form derived. Light enters through a great horseshoe-shaped window above the entrance.
The pillars of the nave stand on pot-shaped bases and carry bell capitals topped by sculptured groups of kneeling elephants and horses, each with a pair of riders, men and women. On the porch walls are large figures of couples, mithunas, among the finest sculpture of the period. A tall pillar crowned with lions stands in front of the entrance; a second has disappeared.
Inscriptions and donors
Inscriptions on the hall record its donors. The most famous says that the rock mansion, the finest in Jambudvipa, was established by Bhutapala, a merchant from Vaijayanti. Others record gifts of individual pillars by monks, nuns, householders and several men described as Yavanas, generally taken to mean Greeks or other westerners living in the region, which shows the cosmopolitan population of the trade routes. Inscriptions of Ushavadata, son-in-law of the Western Satrap ruler Nahapana, and of the Satavahana king Vasishthiputra Pulumavi record grants of villages to the monks, reflecting the contest of the two dynasties for the western Deccan.
The date of the hall is debated. It was once placed in the first century BCE; many scholars now favour the first century CE, on the evidence of the inscriptions and style. Smaller caves for living and later Mahayana additions surround it.
Later history
The caves remained in use for centuries. Today the entrance court is dominated by the temple of Ekvira, a goddess worshipped especially by the Koli fishing communities of the coast, and pilgrims to her shrine pass the Buddhist hall. The site is protected by the Archaeological Survey of India.
Further reading
- Dehejia, Vidya. Early Buddhist Rock Temples. Cornell University Press, 1972
- Huntington, Susan L. The Art of Ancient India. Weatherhill, 1985
- Ray, Himanshu Prabha. The Winds of Change: Buddhism and the Maritime Links of Early South Asia. Oxford University Press, 1994
See also
- Buddhist rock-cut architecture — Buddhist rock-cut architecture comprises the chaitya halls and viharas excavated into the basalt of western India from the second century BCE, the earliest surviving Indian architecture of any tradition.
- Sātavāhana Empire — The Sātavāhanas were the first great power of the Deccan, ruling from the Konkan to the Andhra coast for some three centuries, and the dynasty under which peninsular India entered the Indian Ocean trade on a large scale.
- Western Satraps — The Western Satraps, or Kṣatrapas, were a series of Indo-Scythian (Śaka) ruling houses that governed parts of Gujarat, Malwa, and the northwestern Deccan from the late first century CE to the early fifth century CE.
- Ajanta Caves — The Ajanta Caves are a complex of some thirty Buddhist rock-cut monasteries and prayer halls carved into a horseshoe-shaped cliff above the Waghora River in Maharashtra between roughly the 2nd century BCE and the late 5th century CE.
This entry was last revised on 12 November 2026.