page_title: Kondana Caves
section_title: Cave No1: Chaitya
hierarchical_section_title: Kondana Caves / Description / Cave No1: Chaitya
caption_attribution_description: English: Kondana Chaitya dagoba
context_page_description: The Kondana Caves are located in the small village of Kondana, 33 km north of Lonavala and 16 km northwest of Karla Caves. This cave group has 16 Buddhist caves. The caves were excavated in first century B.C. The construction on wooden pattern is notable. One can reach the cave by descending from Rajmachi village.
  The cave only one inscription on the front of the Chaitya, which gives information about donors.
context_section_description: They face north-west, and the first to the south-west is a Chaitya-cave of very considerable dimensions, being 66.5 feet from the line of the front pillars to the extremity of the apse, 26 feet 8 inches wide, and 28 feet 5 inches high to the crown of the arch. The nave in front of the dagoba is 49 feet in length by 14 feet 8 inches, and the dagoba 9.5 feet in diameter, with a capital of more than usual height, the neck representing the relic casket being, as at Bhaja, of double the ordinary height, and representing two coffers, one 
  above the other, carved on the sides with the Buddhist rail pattern. The fillets that covered this are decayed, as is also the whole of the lower part of the dagoba. 
  
  The bases with the lower parts of all the thirty columns that surrounded the nave, as well as that of one of the two irregular columns that once ornamented the front, have also decayed, and positions only of most of them can now be ascertained. Between these two latter pillars a wooden screen or front originally filled the opening to a height of about 10 or 12 feet, in which were the doorways leading to the interior and it was fixed to them, as seems to have been the case with all the earlier caves. The Chaitya Cave at Bhaja and that at Kondane had similar fronts constructed in wood. The caves at Bedsa and Karla are apparently among the earliest, where these screens were carved in the rock instead of being erected in the more perishable material.
  There are still, however, remains of seven pillars on the left side of the cave, and six on the south, which rake inwards, as do also those at Bhaja and Bedsa, a proof of the early 
  date of the work; those behind the dagoba and six near the front on the right side have disappeared entirely. On the upper portion of one column on the left is a symbol or device somewhat resembling a dagoba, with a rude canopy over it. The arched roof has had wooden rafters as at Karle and elsewhere, but they are gone, and the only remains of the woodwork is a portion of the latticed screen in the front arch. The façade bears a strong family likeness to that at Bhaja. On the left side is a fragment of sculpture in high-relief part of the head of a single figure about twice life-size. The features are destroyed, but the details of the headdress show the most careful attention to finish of detail. Over the 
  left shoulder is an inscription in one line in Brahmi characters which reads: Kanvasa antevasina Balakena katam ("Made by Balakena, the pupil of Kanha (Krishna)"). 
  Over this head, at the level of the spring of the great arch in the facade, is a broad projecting belt of sculpture: the lower portion of it is carved with the rail pattern ; the central portion is divided into seven compartments, filled alternately, three with a lattice pattern and five with human figures, one male in the first, a male and female in each of the third and fifth, and a male with a bow and two females in the seventh. Over these is a band with the representations of the ends of tie-beams or bars projecting through it, and then four fillets, each projecting over the one below, and the upper half of the last serrated. The corresponding belt of carving on the right side of the facade is much damaged by the falling away of the rock at the end next the arch.
caption: Chaitya dagoba.
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