Visit to Kanheri Caves, Mumbai

Location: Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

Attractions: Buddhist caves
Entry fees: Rs. 36/- for National Park, Rs. 5/- for Kanheri Caves
Visiting time: 9 am to 6 pm
Best time to visit: Monsoon

Route: 
Kanheri caves are in Sanjay Gandhi National Park. This national park is situated right at the Borivali junction beside the National Highway (NH-8). It takes 10-15 minutes of walk to reach the national park entrance from Borivali railway station.

Once you get in the national park you can opt for sharing vans which will take you to the base of the hill, which is at the approximate distance of 8-9 Km. Van fare was Rs. 36/- per person for one way. There was a bus service which had the same fare but had very limited frequency. Personal vehicles are allowed inside national park after paying additional fees.

Kanheri Caves:

It was 26^th July 2014, Saturday when me and my wife thought of spending day at Sanjay Gandhi National Park, more famous as Borivali National Park. We left late from home but Borivali being near to Mira road we reached there in less than an hour. We reached base of the caves by 12.45 pm.  

After having few slices of raw green mango, we started climbing steps towards Kanheri through the bright green trees.

Steps to Kanheri caves

School kids on picnic

This place seemed to be a popular picnic spot for the school kids, I saw school kids enjoying in group around the rocks and they were least bothered to listen to their teachers :) . Also the groups of wandering monkeys were adding more fun to the overall scene.  

We got our entry pass and stopped by a small canteen just before the ramp to caves starts. While having the tea I could see the huge rocks on the hill with cutouts in them. Those were the basalt rocks which are believed to be formed thousands of years ago from the lava. The entire black hill of basalt was formerly known as "Kanha-giri" (Kanha means black and giri means hill) from which the current name "Kanheri" got derived. These caves have witnessed the time since 1st century B.C. and got gradually developed and shaped to marvelous architecture till 11th century A.D. These ancient caves are protected by the Archaeological survey of India.

All these caves were mainly used by buddhist monks as residence or place to worship. Also the traders used to halt here during their journey.
 

Cave-1

We came across the first cave which looked like a two floored construction. I did not see any great thing inside but it was just a huge cell with two massive pillars standing like guards.

Cave-2 Chaityagriha with Stupa

Cave-2 Chaityagriha with Stupa and wall carvings

Wall carvings in Cave-2

As we moved further, we could see a cave-2 which had four separate sections. First section with a structure called Stupa. This place was used by monks for worshiping hence called as Chaityagriha. There was a broken stupa in the second section and third section had a stupa and walls with beautiful carvings on them.

Carvings of Buddha on the walls of Cave-2

Fourth section was like an open cave with wall having door to cells. This section was used as residences by monks and called as Vihara. We too had to take shelter there in the Vihara for sometime until it stopped raining outside.

Cave-2 Vihara, seen from the extreme end of cave

We moved further towards the next cave, Cave-3. It looked amazing with giant pillars and steps to enter the courtyard protected by the guards. The guards must have lost their heads fighting and standing against the flow of time.

Cave-3

We entered the courtyard and were looking at the carvings made all around us on the walls. I got pleasant surprise when saw the huge statue of Buddha on the right wall just before the main door to the cave. When I turned back to see the opposite wall, one more huge statue of Buddha surprised me. They were really huge and must be somewhere around close to 7m in height. Everybody who passed from there definitely got stuck for few seconds to check these huge master pieces.

Cave-3, huge statues of Budhhas on side walls before main door

Cave-3 was a Chaitya (worshiping/prayer hall used by monks). It had a huge stupa and several pillars with carvings on them. It reminded me of the Bhaje caves just near Lohgadh fort which I visited in June 2013. Bhaje caves had a wooden arcs on the ceiling, There was no wooden structure here in this cave-3 but traces of such structures were clearly visible on the ceiling.

Cave-3, Chaitya with stupa and pillars

Inscription

Cave-4

We spent some 15 to 20 minutes in cave-3 taking pictures and finally came out. There was a pillar in courtyard which showed some inscriptions on it which was missed by me when I was entering.

Just adjacent to the huge Cav-3 there existed a smaller cave with steps going inside the cave. Inside a cave there was a stupa with carvings on it. This must be some private chaitya.

These first four caves were at the same level. And now we were going up towards the ramp. There were a steps carved on the hills to climb up. While walking up the green view of forest was really refreshing.

View of green forest while climbing up further after cave-4

Steps carved on hill

After Cave-4, the caves were dispersed all over the hills. There were steps carved in hills itself to climb up the hill. The long trail of steps on hill surface looked amazing. There were boards guiding towards different caves. We reached the cave which looked different from all the caves that we had seen. It was a large hall with bench like structures in the middle area. This must have been used by monks for their meetings.

We later came across couple of caves which had some carvings of Buddhas and other creatures. I was not familiar with all those sculptures but after googaling about Kanheri caves, I came to know that each sculpture can be categorized (one such known sculpture is of Avlokiteshvara). It needs lot of knowledge about Buddhism and its history to understand these sculptures.

Sculptures carved in caves.

Water tank

Small water fall

We walked further and there seemed to be an interesting structure with stored water and small canals ending in the tank. This must be some system used by monks for storing water. 

It was a rainy season so came across water falls as well while walking towards the top. The view of beautiful tree and small water fall between two hills looked amazing.

We did not have time to explore all the caves. So instead of goin on the other side of hill we decided to walk on the same side and reach the top of the hill. On the way we came across many similar looking caves which looked very simple in structure. Most of them had a small courtyard with pillars and a door to enter the cave.

Caves with small courtyard and pillars, seen on the way while climbing up the hill

Finally we reached the point were there was a flat area and no more steps to climb up. The people were sitting on the small rocks and enjoying the cool breeze. We too decided to sit and relax for sometime. Green forest and tall building were contradicting to each other in the view from the top. After staring for couple of minutes I found that even the Pagoda was visible from the top. We spent some 15 minutes there at the top and decided to start down journey.

People enjoying the contradicting view of city and forest

During monsoon this is a very popular place for people staying around Borivali and Dahisar. There were many families enjoying under water fall along with their kids. People were busy and desperate to click their solo and group pictures around the caves and water falls. We enjoyed all these views and in no time we reached the main entrance of the cave, where we took a halt to have some tea and snacks. By 5.30 pm we were at the base and got our van which took us to the entrance of National park from where we caught bus to our home.

At the end my wife could not resist staying away from the water fall

I had a wonderful day clicking ancient caves and sculptures. There were more than 100 caves (110) carved on the hills. We could not see all the caves but hats off to the people who took lot of efforts ages ago to construct such a magnificent structure.

More pictures on Facebook and Panoramio