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PLACES
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AMBIVALI CAVE
Ambivali Cave (Karjat taluka; 18° 25' N, 73° 15' E; RS. Neral, 16 m.) half a mile from the village of the same name near Jambrug and about sixteen miles north-east of Karjat, lies under and to the north of the hill fort of Kotaligad. The cave, which is a Buddhist work, according to Dr. Burgess between B. C. 250 and A. D. 100, is cut in a long low hill in a curve in the bank of a branch of the Ulhas. It is approached by a sloping rock, and overlooks the river from a height of about twenty feet.
It is a hall about forty-two feet by thirty-nine and ten high with four cells opening from each of its three sides. Round these same three sides runs a low rockcut bench like the bench in Kanheri Cave XXXV. A central and a right hand doorway lead into a verandah, thirty-one feet long by about five feet ten inches deep, its eaves supported by four pillars, and, at the ends, by three feet nine inches of return wall. Except at the central entrance, between each pair of pillars and the end pillars and pilasters, runs a low seat, backed by a parapet wall along the outer side. Of the outer face of the wall enough remains to show that it was ornamented with festoons and rosettes in the style of Nasik Cave VI, The pillars of the same pattern as the Nasik pillars, pot capitals topped by flat roughly finished plates. The shafts that spring from the back of the stone bench have no bases. The central pair of pillars have eight-sided shafts, the remaining two are sixteen-sided. The doorways have been fitted with carved doors with built basements, and on six cells at the back are some built basements on which figures are carved. The cave has been changed into a Brahmanic temple, and was for some time in the past used by a devotee the smoke of whose fire has blackened the whole of the hall and the verandah. The second pillar of the verandah, to the left of the entrance, has a Pali inscription in one vertical line reading downwards. Some dim letters can also be traced on each of the central pair of pillars. The cave is not inhabited at present.
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