In front of the caves runs a long narrow flat ledge of rock which is tolerably even, and 25 or 30 feet wide; the outer edge of it has partially fallen. I did not examine the vertical face B C; it was not easily to be got at on account of dense undergrowth and overhanging branches, and creepers and lichen completely hide the face of the rock from view; but had I at the time I explored the cave been aware of the importance of a thorough examination of this wall rock, I should have waited and cleared it all out. The ledge runs on in a direction nearly due west from the month of the cave for about 150 feet; there is then a large natural boulder beyond which the ledge continues, but the distance from the cave to the boulder is greater than the distance on the other side, so far as I could judge, actual measurement being impossible through the dense jangal.
The cave is situated in the middle third of the hill; there is about one-third of the hill above the cave, and two-thirds or somewhat less below; it is quite inaccessible from the top.
A long winding path led up from the bottom of the hill to a point near the great isolated boulder on the ledge; the path had three turns; it was once paved with brick throughout, but the path which running obliquely up the hill was necessarily formed by cutting into the side of the hill, has long ago become the water-course, and no portion of the pavement exists entire, although the entire distance along this line is marked by brickbats of various sizes from pieces 6 inches square to the size of coarse gravel. At the centre bend in the path was a platform about 15 feet square, remains of which still exist; possibly a chaitya once existed here, but no remains of it are to be found, and I only infer its existence from the roughness of the middle portion compared to the evenness of the edge portions.[1] Of course a good deal of the platform has crumbled down, but enough exists to distinctly show that it was meant to be a sort of half-way resting place, and is not an accidental adjunct to the steps.
I infer the road that led up the hill to have been in steps, from the circumstance of bricks alone having been used, the smallness of whose dimensions and weakness would have made them less suitable for a ramp than for evenly-laid steps.
- ↑ General Cunningham tells me that Hwen Thsang states distinctly the existence of a tope situated to westward of the cave and close to it. The position of the chaitya, which I here notice, occupies the precise position required by Hwen Thsang’s account.
