Karla caves

Also called: Karla chaitya, Karle caves · Topic: Early Indian Art and Architecture: Stupas, Rock-cut Caves, Temples · NCERT: Class 7, Ch 6 "The Age of Reorganisation"

Meaning

The Karla caves (also called the Karla chaitya or Karle caves) are a group of Buddhist rock-cut caves near Lonavala in Maharashtra. Their main cave is a large chaitya (a prayer hall for Buddhist monks), cut into the hill in the Satavahana period. It has grand pillars and a stupa carved out of the living rock at the far end.

Karla shows the rock-cut tradition at its peak in the western Deccan. It also shows that trade money paid for religious buildings in early India, as well as kings.

Explanation

Background: why caves were cut here

• Rock-cut means the hall was not built from blocks. Workers cut into a hill and removed stone until a hall was left. The whole hall is one piece of rock, with no joints, no mortar and no bricks.
• The tradition began at Barabar in Bihar. Those caves were cut in the 3rd century BCE on Asoka's orders for the Ajivika sect.
• It then spread to the western Deccan under the Satavahanas. Karla belongs to this stage.
• Location mattered:
• Karla lies on the trade routes that ran from the Konkan coast, up through the Western Ghats, to the Deccan plateau.
• Traders and craft groups travelled these routes and helped pay for the caves.
• Monks and traders were useful to each other. Traders gave gifts to earn religious merit, and the monasteries became resting points along the road.

Main features of the chaitya

• Purpose: a chaitya, a hall where Buddhist monks gathered for worship.
• Rock-cut stupa replica: at the far end stands a stupa (a dome-shaped mound that stands for the Buddha and his nirvana).
• It was carved out of the hill's own rock. It was not built and then placed there.

• Monks walked around it inside the hall. This walk is part of stupa worship.

• Magnificent pillars: rows of carved pillars run along the hall.

• Scale: Karla's main hall is generally described as the largest rock-cut chaitya hall of early India. This is why it is the standard example in textbooks.
• Copying wood in stone: early Indian buildings were made of wood and bamboo. Rock-cut halls copied those wooden forms in stone. The same idea is first seen at Lomas Rishi (Barabar) and later at Ajanta.

Change over time: where Karla fits

• Stage 1, Barabar (3rd century BCE): plain polished cells for Ajivika renouncers.
• Stage 2, Karla (Satavahana period): a large prayer hall with a rock-cut stupa. The stupa is still a symbol, with no Buddha figure on it.
• Stage 3, Ajanta (Vakataka phase, 5th–6th centuries CE): a seated Buddha comes out of the stupa, and the walls are painted. This is the move from symbol worship to image worship. [5]
• Stage 4, Ellora Kailasa (8th century): a whole temple is cut from a single rock. [6]

Results and significance

• Sharing patronage: the Satavahanas gave tax-free land to Vedic scholars, Jaina monks and Buddhist monks alike. They did not support only one sect.
• Wider funding: money came from traders and craft groups as well as from kings. Karla shows art funding spreading from one emperor to a broad base of donors.
• Lasting record: the wooden halls of the period have rotted away. Stone halls like Karla are our evidence for how they looked.

Time, place and evidence

• Period: the Satavahana period, inside the long rock-cut tradition of c. 200 BCE – 700 CE.
• Dynasty: the Satavahanas of the Deccan, who gave tax-free land to monks and scholars of different sects.
• Place: near Lonavala, Maharashtra, in the Western Ghats, on the trade routes between the Konkan coast and the Deccan plateau.
• Who used it: Buddhist monks.
• Who paid: Satavahana-era donors, including traders and craft groups using the trade routes.
• Heritage status: Karla is a protected site listed by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI). [3]
• How we know: from the surviving cave itself (its plan, pillars and rock-cut stupa), the ASI listing [3], and NCERT (Class 7, Ch 6 "The Age of Reorganisation").

Don't confuse with

• Lomas Rishi cave, Barabar (Bihar): cut in the 3rd century BCE under Asoka for the Ajivikas, not for Buddhists. It is famous for its chaitya arch doorway with an elephant frieze (a carved band of elephants). [2] Karla is a later Satavahana Buddhist hall.
• Pitalkhora (Maharashtra): also Satavahana-period. It is known for a yaksha (nature spirit) figure signed by the goldsmith Kanhadasa, not for a great chaitya hall.
• Ajanta chaitya caves (9, 10, 19, 26, 29): in Ajanta's Vakataka phase, the stupa has a seated Buddha coming out of it, and the walls are painted in tempera (paint mixed with a binder and applied to dry plaster). [5] Karla's stupa is a plain symbol with no Buddha image.
• Udayagiri-Khandagiri (near Bhubaneswar): Jain caves of the Chedi king Kharavela. They are small dwelling cells for monks to live in, not a large prayer hall. [4]

Prelims Hooks

• Karla caves: near Lonavala, Maharashtra. A Buddhist chaitya of the Satavahana period.
• Karla's key feature: a rock-cut stupa replica at the end of the hall, plus magnificent pillars.
• Karla is an ASI-protected site. [3]
• Match the pair: Karla – Buddhist (Satavahana); Barabar – Ajivika (Asoka); Udayagiri-Khandagiri – Jaina (Kharavela); Kailasa, Ellora – Shiva (Rashtrakuta Krishna I). [6][7]
• Chronological order: Barabar (3rd century BCE) → Karla (Satavahana) → Ajanta's Vakataka phase (5th–6th centuries CE) → Kailasa, Ellora (8th century). [5][6]
• Trap: the "stupa with a Buddha emerging from it" is Ajanta, not Karla. The Satavahana yaksha signed by Kanhadasa is at Pitalkhora, not Karla.

Mains Points

• Trade paid for faith.
• Karla sits on the route from the Konkan coast through the Western Ghats to the Deccan.
• Traders and craft groups funded the caves, and the monasteries served travellers on the road.

• Use Karla to show the link between trade, towns and Buddhism in the Satavahana Deccan.

• Kings supported more than one sect.

• The Satavahanas gave tax-free land to Vedic scholars, Jainas and Buddhists together.
• The same pattern runs from Asoka (Barabar caves for Ajivikas) to Kharavela ("respector of every sect"). [4]

• This argues against the view that early Indian states favoured only one religion.

• Continuity and change in sacred architecture.

• Karla's rock-cut stupa is still a symbol with no Buddha figure.
• At Ajanta, the Buddha comes out of the stupa [5]. At Ellora, a whole temple stands cut from one rock [6].
• Karla is the middle step in the move from plain cells to image worship to free-standing rock temples.

Related concepts

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

Read more

• The rock-cut tradition