Me Sahyadri MARCH 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 of 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 Nathachi Paga caves, in Koyna Valley.

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, Nathachi Paga is one of the most less visited rock cut caves. The caves are located near the village Nathachi Paga. 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.

Nathachi Paga is a village up on the hill little further to Ker which is near to Patan town on the way to Chalkewadi. The Nathachi Paga village is a small village located high up on the hill. The cave is at the lower level just below the village. One can reach there after a horizontal walk from the main road. The cave is located under a waterfall. There is a large vihar with two cells carved out in its back wall. There is a large hall of this vihar has 2 niches and 1 bench. The cells do not have any benches in it. The façade of the vihar is collapsed. There are indications in the roof that the façade had two large pillars and windows and a doorway to enter. On the right side (north) side of the vihar there is a Chaityagriha which has a stupa. The chaityagriha has flat ceiling and its façade also is broken. There are indications that there was a large doorway to enter the Chaityagriha from the front. These caves are also known as Tamkane caves.

The cave has on its left side (South side) a large vihar with two cells carved out in its back wall. There is a large hall of this vihar has 2 niches and 1 bench. The cells do not have any benches in it. The façade of the vihar is collapsed. There are indications in the roof that the façade had two large pillars and windows and a doorway to enter. The hall is about 6 m wide, 5.5 m in length and 2.2 m in height. The left (south) side cell and the right (north) side cell are about 2 m wide, 2 m in length and 2 m in height.

The chaityagriha is located immediately to right (north east) of the Vihar. The chaityagriha is about 3.4 m wide and 4 m in length. It is 2.7 m high. The cieing of this chaityagriha is flat unlike the apsidal roof of Digewadi, Yerphal and Rudreshwar caves. This indicates that this is a later cave as compared to the Digewadi, Yerphal and Rudreshwar caves. The stupa in this chaityagriha is about 1.4 meter in diameter and is 2.7 meter in height. The hermika or the capital of Stupa is intact and is attached to the roof. A circular umbrella is carved in the ceiling above the Hermika. Hermika and this umbrella are attached. This feature of attaching the hermika with roof has lead to the4 conservation of the Hermika here unlike other caves such as Digewadi, Yerphal and Rudreshwar caves. At these other caves the Hermika was not attached to roof and hence collapsed over the time period due to poor quality of rock (volcanic breccia). The chaityagriha had rectangular door way as eminent from the remains of the façade attached to the roof.