ME SAHYADRI JAN 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 six members, Saprakash Belsare, Amey Joshi, Ninad Bartakke, Jitendra Bankapure, Milind Limaye 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 Mhavashi 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, Mhavashi is one of the most less visited rock cut cave. The caves are located near the village Peth Mhavashi. 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.

Mhavashi Peth is a village on the Karad-Patan highway. The Mhavashi Peth village is long Peth kind of village which is established in a long narrow strip format. We reached the village early in the morning. The narrow road passing through the village was dug up. So we decided to park the vehicle on the way in a open area. Though I was aware of the location of the cave, we still enquired about the whereabouts of the cave. This helps in having a dialogue with locals. After the enquiry we proceeded to the back side of the village on foot. One can not see the caves from here. There is a hill in between. We crossed some barren fields to reach a well in which we were forced to envy the bull frogs who were enjoying their floating on the water. Afer a while we reached a Kateswar tree which was in full bloom in its red flowers. The caves are located at about 60-70 meter altitude above the surrounding plateaue. After scrambling through the village long road, we could reach very close to the base of the hill range on a rough road. From here it took hardly 30 minutes to reach the base of the hill. The cave can not be seen from distance due to a intermediate hillock. Once you reach top of the hillock, the cave can be seen from distance. One can approcah cave from the right side. This is a single cave. The cave is incomplete due to a large defect in the rock which can be seen inside the cave. The hall is large and is about 4.5 meter by 3.5 meter in size. There is a verandah outside the cave. The cave verandah is typical verandah one can see in the caves at Gandhar Pale caves. There are 2 full and 2 semi pillars in the front architecture of verandah. One of the full pillar is broken. There is a place to seat between pillars and semipillars on either side. The pillars are having rectangular cross section. This cave must be from the same era or later era as that of Gandhar Pale caves. (3rd or 4th century AD). The cave hall is typically called as”matapa” or Mandapa which was mainlyusedfor rituals and activities involving congragations. Though not usable in rainy season due to defect inside, itmay have been used in other dry seasons. As this cave does not have any sculptures, it is a late Hinayana Cave. There is also a water cistern on the east side of the cave. The cistern is incompletely carved.