Barabar caves

Topic: Early Indian Art and Architecture: Stupas, Rock-cut Caves, Temples · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 4 "Thinkers, Beliefs and Buildings"

Meaning

The Barabar caves are rooms cut into the solid rock of the Barabar hills in Bihar. They were made in the 3rd century BCE on Asoka's orders and given to the Ajivika sect, and they are the earliest artificial caves in India.

They matter for two reasons. First, they begin India's rock-cut tradition, which ran for about a thousand years and ended with Kailashnatha at Ellora. Second, they show a Buddhist emperor giving gifts to a group that was not Buddhist.

Explanation

Background: what "rock-cut" means and why Barabar came first

• Rock-cut means the building was not put together from blocks. Workers cut into a hill and took away stone until only a hall was left.

• So the whole cave is one piece of rock, with no joints, no mortar and no bricks.

• Before this, Indian buildings were made of wood and bamboo. Barabar is the first place where this skill was used to make artificial caves.

• Asoka ruled c. 265–238 BCE [2]. Like his rock edicts (messages cut into cliffs, pillars and caves across India) [2], these caves show a Mauryan state that could carry out big projects in stone.

Patron and purpose: caves for the Ajivikas

• The caves were cut on Asoka's orders and given to the Ajivikas.
• The Ajivikas were renouncers: people who gave up home and family life.

• They were rivals of the Buddhists and the Jainas.

• Point to note: Asoka was a Buddhist, but he gave caves to a non-Buddhist sect.

• This shows that a king's gifts could go to more than one sect.
• Later kings followed the same pattern. The Satavahanas gave land to Vedic scholars, Jainas and Buddhists. Kharavela called himself "respector of every sect."

Main features: the Lomas Rishi cave

• The best-known cave in the group is the Lomas Rishi cave [2].
• Chaitya arch over the door: a curved arch shaped like a horseshoe [2].
• Elephant frieze: above the arch runs a carved band of elephants in high relief, meaning the figures stand well out from the stone [2].
• The doorway copies a barrel-vault roof (a roof shaped like half a cylinder) resting on raked pillars (pillars that slant inward) [2].
• The interiors are highly polished. The early rock-cut cell was a plain room with polished walls.

Results: stone copies of wooden buildings

• The stone copies wooden forms.
• Early India built in wood and bamboo.
• That wood has rotted away.

• So stone copies like the Lomas Rishi doorway are our only picture of those wooden buildings.

• The tradition grew from here:

• Satavahana caves at Karla and Pitalkhora (Maharashtra)
• Jain caves at Udayagiri-Khandagiri (Odisha)
• Painted caves at Ajanta (Maharashtra)

• Finally, a whole temple cut from one rock, Kailashnatha at Ellora, in the 8th century

• Centuries later, Ajanta's stone roof still copies wooden beams. That is the same idea as the Lomas Rishi doorway.

Time, place and evidence

• Period: 3rd century BCE, Mauryan age, under Asoka (c. 265–238 BCE) [2].
• Place: the Barabar hills, near Makhdumpur, about 25 km south of Jehanabad, Bihar [2].
• People: Asoka (the patron) and the Ajivika renouncers (the people who received the caves).
• How we know:
• NCERT (Class 12, Ch 4) dates the caves to the 3rd century BCE under Asoka.
• The caves themselves survive, with their polished interiors and the carved Lomas Rishi doorway [2].

• One page on the ASI portal says "3rd century A.D." for the Barabar group [2]. This is a slip on that page. The Asokan date of the 3rd century BCE stands.

• Heritage status: the caves are centrally protected monuments under the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) [2].

Don't confuse with

• Lomas Rishi cave: this is one cave inside the Barabar group, not a separate site. It is the one with the chaitya arch and the elephant frieze [2].
• Udayagiri-Khandagiri (near Bhubaneswar, Odisha): these are Jain caves made for the Chedi king Kharavela (2nd century BCE onward), not Asoka's caves for the Ajivikas. There are 33 caves (18 + 15) [3].
• Karla chaitya (near Lonavala, Maharashtra): a Satavahana-period Buddhist prayer hall with a rock-cut stupa inside. Barabar has plain polished cells for Ajivikas and no stupa.
• Kailashnatha, Ellora (Cave 16): an 8th-century Rashtrakuta temple cut downward from the top of the slope, standing in open air [5]. Barabar caves were cut sideways into the hill, like rooms.

Prelims Hooks

• Barabar caves are in Bihar. They are the earliest artificial caves in India.
• Barabar caves were cut on Asoka's orders and given to the Ajivikas. Trap: they were not given to Buddhists or Jainas.
• Lomas Rishi cave: a chaitya arch door, an elephant frieze, and a copy of a barrel-vault wooden roof on raked pillars [2].
• Location: near Makhdumpur, about 25 km south of Jehanabad [2]. They are ASI centrally protected monuments [2].
• Chronological order of rock-cut sites: Barabar (3rd century BCE, Asoka) → Karla / Udayagiri-Khandagiri (Satavahana / Kharavela) → Ajanta (2nd phase, Vakataka, 5th–6th centuries CE) [4] → Kailashnatha, Ellora (8th century, Rashtrakuta Krishna I) [5].
• Date trap: Barabar belongs to the 3rd century BCE, not the "3rd century A.D." printed on one ASI-portal page [2].

Mains Points

• Royal gifts in early India went to many sects, not one.
• Asoka, a Buddhist, gave the Barabar caves to the Ajivikas.
• Later, the Satavahanas gave tax-free land to Vedic scholars, Jainas and Buddhists alike, and Kharavela called himself "respector of every sect and repairer of every temple."

• Use Barabar as the earliest proof against the idea that ancient Indian states supported only one religion.

• The caves are our record of lost wooden buildings.

• The Lomas Rishi doorway copies a barrel-vault roof on slanting pillars in stone [2].
• The wooden buildings it copied have rotted away, so the rock-cut copy is the evidence.

• The same habit shows at Ajanta, where the stone roof copies timber beams. This is a clear case of a building tradition carrying on over centuries.

• Barabar is the start of a thousand-year change.

• Who is served: Ajivikas → Buddhists and Jainas → Hindus (Ellora).
• Who pays: an emperor (Asoka) → traders, craftsmen and local kings → regional dynasties (Vakatakas, Rashtrakutas).
• What is cut: a plain polished cell → a prayer hall with a stupa → a whole free-standing temple cut from one rock at Ellora.

Related concepts

• Rock-cut architecture
• Lomas Rishi cave
• Nagarjuni caves
• Rock-cut monasteries
• Chaitya and vihara
• Bhaja caves
• Karla caves
• Kanheri caves
• Nasik caves
• Guntupalli caves

Read more

• The rock-cut tradition