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PLACES |
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PANDAV
DARAH CAVES
The Pandav Darah Caves (Panhala Peta)
apparently of Buddhist origin, are cut in a semi-circular
scarp about twenty-five feet high overlooking about a thousand feet
of thickly wooded hill-sides above the plains six miles west of
Panhala and eighteen miles north-west of Kolhapur. The group of
caves includes a large cistern running into the hill-side, eight
dwelling cells, and two large caves, a chapel and a school. In front
of the caves are traces of a pillared verandah most of which has
fallen into the ravine twenty feet below. Each of the two largest
caves has a verandah, a hall divided into three sections or rooms
with remains of pillars along the side walls, and an inner cell or
shrine each with what is described as a carved elevation probably a
daghoba or relic-shrine in the centre. The verandah of the
chapel is fifteen feet long and seven feet wide. The sections of the
chapel hill are said to measure 27' x 12', 28' x10', and 29' x 3½'.
The roof is flat and the height of the hill eight feet. In the back
wall of the hall a door (6½' x 2½') opens into an inner room or
shrine (10' x 7' x 8') with a carved central elevation apparently a
relic-shrine. The school hall which has a flat roof 7½ feet high is
divided into three parts the outer 32' x 6½', the central 15' x 9',
and the inner 12' x 9', the cell of which the measurements are not
given, has like the chapel shrine a carved central elevation
apparently a relic-shrine.
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