Me Sahyadri Feb 2019

As the economic development has taken the center stage, the balance between the environmental sustenance and socio economic development will be under the scanner. As most experts with balanced views have proclaimed, Indian wildlife and ecological system sustenance will be under threat, unless precautions are taken with the help of appropriate research and long term national interests. As we encounter the economic development, many habitats which indirectly or directly help sustainable development will be damaged. The awareness to gauge the success by sustainable development and not by year to year growth is a distant dream any environmentalist will assume in current scenario.
Western ghats, or Sahyadri as we all call it as, is a treasure trove of spectacular landscapes, biodiversity, flora, fauna, some amazing geological wonders and man made monuments. With the increasing pressure from human encroachment, all these elements are under stress and in turn are under depletion. Western ghats should be left untouched by human beings, to protect their future generations from getting short of resources, such as water, energy and clean air. The important elements of western ghats, which need protection are highlighted in the new version of Photo journal, Me Sahyadri Magazine.

About the Koyna Valley Cave exploration :
For last few years we have been exploring the MAVAL region od Pune district in search of ancient rock cut caves. Most of the caves are known and studied in depth by several researchers. While revisitng some of the lesser known rock cut caves we observed many new aspects of these caves which have been overlooked. At few places new rock cut caves were noticed which are not recorded in academic literature. We explored and found few beautiful places. The very concept of creating a hermit cave somewhere high up in the hills is fascinating. These places often are full of tranquility and nothing else. With very little architectural evidences and clues, the academicians have obviously ignored these places. It was James Fergusson and James Burgess, during their exhaustive study of “Cave temples of India, 1880” mentioned few of these hermits in Maharashtra.
With the little clues and exhaustive investigation, team of five members, Saprakash Belsare, Amey Joshi, Ninad Bartakke, Jitendra Bankapure and Vivek Kale started the exploration. The journey to locate, trek and analyse these hermit caves itself was fascinating. We met many villagers who were unaware of these places, but also met few shephards who were precisely aware of the hermits and gave us tentaive guidance. In line with Maval cave exploration, we visited Koyna valley for its recorded but less known rock cut caves. There is a very brief mention about the misceleneous caves of Maharashtra by James Fergusson and James Burgess in their work. Based on available information we decided to search these caves and monuments. The activities were planned. The food, travel , track exploration in difficult and routes full of foliage, enquiring the villagers about the caves, drawing skecthes and maps, photography, GPS data collection, making notes and analysing the information, observing the minor details of the caves etc activites were distributed amongst the team members.
We met many bats, owls, geckos, lizards, large spiders, martins, honeybees during the treks. Often we felt sad that we disturbed them to see the caves. Most of these places are hazardous due to pitch darkness, bats, dust, thorny plants, honeybees, low oxygen level in caves and rock patches etc. The high intensity torches, GPS tool, measuring tapes and measuring laser tool, Honeybee protection caps, maps, google maps, photographs etc were useful during the mission. In this photoessay, I have compiled the information and photographs of Yerphal caves, in Koyna Valley. cave complex.

Koyna river originates at Mahabaleshwar. It has very large dam built on it at koynanagar in Patan tehsil of Satara district. After Koynanagar the river flows towards east before it reaches Karad. This region of Koyananagar to Karad is here considered as Koyna valley. The river flows through a flat basin flanked by hill ranges on either side of it. In this photoessay, one of the caves on the northern side hill range is discussed. Out of six lesser known caves in this northern hill range facing Koyna, Yerphal is the most less visited rock cut cave. The caves are located near the village Yerphal. In ancient India about 2000 years back India used to trade with other western civilisations such Persia, Greece and Egypt. The trade used to be carried out by road from Deccan plateay through a trade center till the ports on west coast. The goodswere then transported through sea route to Egypt, Greece etc. The land route from deccan plateu to west coast was decided based on the convenience. Karad was important trade center on the deccan plateau. The goods were transported from Karad to Chiplun and other Konkan ports through Koyna valley and the pass through the wetsern ghats. Hence many buddhist caves can be seen around the Koyna valley due to this trade route from Karad to Chiplun.

Yerphal is a village on the Karad-Patan highway. The caves are located at about 30-50 meter altitude above the surrounding plateaue. After scrambling through the village small roads, we could reach very close to the base of the hill range on a rough road. From here it took hardly 20 minutes to reach the caves. The cave can not be seen from distance due to foliage. One can approcah cave from the right side of the stream. The caves are hidden up th hill. This cave complex can be divided in to 4 sections. The main chaityagriha in the left side. The vihar cave consisting of 2 cells and a hall is adjascent to Chaityagriha (east side). Another larger cave consisting of bench and Mahadevlingam on the right (east side) of vihar. On the other side of this cave complex beyond the waterfall there are two water cisterns.

The main chaityagriha has a apsidal curved roof, with vertical side walls. The width, length and height of the chaityagriha is 2.6 m, 4 m, 4.15 m respectively. The stupa is in dilapitated condition and is about 1.4 meter in diameter and 2.4 meter in height. The local Sadhu who stays in this cave collected lot of wood and stored it in this Chaityagriha. It is thus difficult to circumnavigate the Stupa. The chaityagriha has interesting façade most of which has collapsed. The upper section of the façade is still hanging from the roof and has one broken rectangular window. There are no side pillars in this chaityagriha. Geologically most of this region one can see rocks which are nothing but volcanic breccia. In this structure, the hard substance is left behind in the rocks with soft material erosion over the time period. The lumps of stones clubber together structure can be seen in the stupa of this cave. The structure hence is fragile in nature. This is the reason why the Stupa has partially broken over the years.

On the right side of main chaityagriha, there is a cave with 2 cells at its back and a hall infront of these 2 cells. The hall infront seems to have lost it front wall. The hall is of about 2.5 x 7 x 2.2 meter in width, length and height respectively.the back wall of the hall there are 2 small cellls. The cells doors are located at two ends of the wall. The cells have wooden frames fitted recently. The local Sadhu who stays in this cave complex has locked the rooms. Sadhu opened the cells for use to invetigate the interiors. One of the cells (west side) has a bench on its side. The cell is of about 1.4 x 2 x 2 meter in width, length and height respectively. The other cell (east side) does not have bench in side. The cell is of about 1.9 x 1.7 x 2 meter in width, length and height respectively. Both these cells have wooden frames and doors (recently fitted) and are normally locked. The cells have lot of objects of daily usage kept by the local Sadhu. One of the cell also has a small wood cooking stove (Chulha) in it. As the monks in the ancient times hardly had any material belongings, the cells those days were probabaly never used as storage rooms or may be were used in some cases.

On the right (east) side of the Vihar, there is a another small long cave. The front wall of the cave is missing and is replaced by a wall partially made out of rocks masonary. The cave has a long bench. Many loose sculptures are kept on this bench. The ceiling of the cave has heavy leakage and water falls on a Mahadev Linga right below the leakage point. The sculptures include godess scultures, Ganesh, several herostones etc. Geologically most of this region one can see rocks which are nothing but volcanic breccia. In this structure, the hard substance is left behind in the rocks with soft material erosion over the time period. The lumps of stones clubber together structure can be seen in the ceiling of this cave. The structure hence is fragile in nature.