Barabar Caves: India's Oldest Surviving Rock-Cut Caves

The Barabar Caves are a group of chambers cut into granite hills in Bihar, India, during the 3rd century BC. Created under the Mauryan emperor Ashoka and his grandson Dasharatha for the Ajivika ascetics, they are the oldest surviving rock-cut caves in India. Their mirror-polished walls and the carved doorway of the Lomas Rishi cave set the pattern for more than a thousand years of Indian cave architecture.

Location and layout

The caves lie in two neighbouring groups of rocky hills north of Gaya, in today’s Jehanabad district. The Barabar hills hold four caves: Lomas Rishi, Sudama, Karan Chaupar and Visvakarma (also called Visva Zopri). The nearby Nagarjuni hills hold three more: Gopika, Vadathika and Vapiyaka.

The plans are simple. Most consist of one long rectangular hall with a vaulted ceiling. In Sudama and Lomas Rishi, an inner circular or oval chamber opens off the hall, perhaps imitating the round thatched huts used by ascetics. All were cut into a single mass of extremely hard granite gneiss.

Ashoka and the Ajivikas

Short inscriptions in Brahmi script record who gave the caves and to whom. In Sudama and Visvakarma, the donor is “King Piyadasi”, the name Ashoka used in his edicts, in the 12th year after his coronation, roughly 257 BC on the usual chronology. Karan Chaupar was given in his 19th year. The three Nagarjuni caves were dedicated by Dasharatha, who came to the throne soon after Ashoka’s death in about 232 BC.

The recipients were the Ajivikas, an ascetic movement linked with Makkhali Gosala, a contemporary of the Buddha. The Ajivikas believed that all events are fixed by fate, or niyati, and practised severe austerities. They were rivals of the Buddhists and Jains, so the gifts show that Mauryan rulers supported several religious groups, not only Buddhism.

The caves would have served as shelters during the monsoon, when wandering ascetics stopped travelling. Later, someone attempted to chisel the word “Ajivikas” out of several inscriptions, perhaps a sign of hostility as the movement declined.

The Lomas Rishi doorway

Lomas Rishi carries no Ashokan inscription and its interior was never finished, but its style places it in the same Mauryan period. Its entrance is the most famous feature of the site. The sculptors carved the rock to look like the front of a wooden or thatched building, with sloping posts, a curved horseshoe-shaped gable and a lattice band.

Inside the gable runs a frieze of elephants approaching stupa-like emblems. This is the earliest surviving example of the chaitya arch, the form that dominates later Buddhist halls such as those at Ajanta. It shows that stone architecture in India grew directly out of building in timber.

Mauryan polish

The inner walls of the finished caves are polished to a glassy sheen that still reflects light. The same finish appears on Ashoka’s sandstone pillars, including the Lion Capital at Sarnath, and is often called Mauryan polish. Achieving it on granite, using only hand tools and abrasives, must have taken immense labour.

The smooth, curved surfaces produce a long, powerful echo. Visitors have long noticed that a single sound can ring around the chambers for many seconds.

How the polish was produced is still discussed. Most specialists think craftsmen ground the surface with progressively finer abrasives, such as sand and emery, and then burnished it, rather than applying any coating. The technique seems to have been largely abandoned after the Mauryan period, which makes these caves a valuable record of a lost skill.

Later history and rediscovery

The caves remained in use after the Mauryas. In about the 6th century AD the Maukhari ruler Anantavarman added Sanskrit inscriptions in the Lomas Rishi and Nagarjuni caves dedicating images to Hindu deities, showing that the site had passed into Hindu use.

British officials recorded the inscriptions in the late 18th century, and Alexander Cunningham surveyed the caves in the 1860s for the Archaeological Survey of India. They became widely known in the West through E. M. Forster’s 1924 novel A Passage to India, whose fictional Marabar Caves are modelled on them. The site is now protected as a national monument.

Timeline

• c. 268 BC: Ashoka becomes Mauryan emperor (date approximate).
• c. 257 BC: In his 12th regnal year Ashoka gives the Sudama and Visvakarma caves to the Ajivikas.
• c. 250 BC: In his 19th regnal year Ashoka dedicates the Karan Chaupar cave.
• c. 230–220 BC: Dasharatha dedicates the three Nagarjuni caves to the Ajivikas.
• c. AD 6th century: Maukhari king Anantavarman adds Hindu dedicatory inscriptions.
• 1860s: Alexander Cunningham surveys the caves.
• 1924: E. M. Forster publishes A Passage to India, inspired by the site.

Why it matters

The Barabar Caves mark the beginning of rock-cut architecture in India, a tradition that culminated at Ajanta, Ellora and Elephanta. They preserve rare first-hand evidence of the Ajivikas, a movement otherwise known mostly through its opponents. They also show the technical skill and religious openness of the Mauryan state in the age of Ashoka.