Place · rock-cut vihara & chaitya · India
Bhājā Caves
Also known as Bhaja, Bhaje
Among the earliest rock-cut Buddhist excavations anywhere, from the second century BCE, with an apsidal chaitya whose vault held wooden ribs, a row of fourteen stupas cut in a side cutting, and relief panels of a horseman and of dancing figures that are the oldest secular carving in western Indian rock-cut work.
- Function
- Religious institution & practice
- Patron dynasty
- Satavahana
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 18.728, 73.480
Worth knowing
Bhaja sits on the same Bhor Ghat trade route as Karla and Bedsa within a few kilometres, and its musicians' panel — a woman playing a harp and another on a drum — is the earliest depiction of the Indian harp, the vina of the period, anywhere in India.
Connections (1)
- Companion in the same setKārlā Caves
Kārla, Bhājā and Bedsē are within a few kilometres of each other above the Bhor Ghat and span about two centuries of rock-cutting. Bhājā is the earliest and still imitates timber construction; Kārla is the largest chaitya hall in India and has stopped pretending to be made of wood. Bhājā still carries the sockets and fragments of the wooden façade its masons were imitating, which is why the sequence between the three caves can be read as a technique learning to trust stone.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Bhaja Caves”. The Nasik and Naneghat cave inscriptions in Epigraphia Indica and in Senart’s corpus; Himanshu Ray, Monastery and Guild (1986).
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