Nasik Caves
— — twenty-four rooms cut into the basalt.
Not only on a wall.
“Twenty-four Buddhist caves cut by hand into the basalt face of Trivashmi Hill, eight kilometres southwest of Nashik. The earliest chambers date to the first century before the common era; the latest were carved into the third century of the common era. Donor inscriptions from Satavahana queens and Kshaharata satraps line the entrance walls. Locally the complex is called Pandavleni, the Pandava caves, though the Mahabharata story attached to the name came long after the monks.
Nasik Caves, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
The Nasik Caves — locally Pandavleni — are a group of twenty-four rock-cut Buddhist caves on the north flank of Trivashmi Hill, about eight kilometres southwest of the city of Nashik in Maharashtra. The earliest excavations date to roughly the first century BCE under the Satavahana dynasty; the latest extend into the third century CE. The complex belongs primarily to the Hinayana tradition, with a single early chaitya hall and a series of viharas — monastic residences with cells around a central court. The Archaeological Survey of India administers the site.
The rock is Deccan Trap basalt, a hard volcanic stone the artisans worked with iron chisels, cutting top-down so that ceilings and architraves were finished before the floors below were lowered. Cave 18 is the chaitya hall, a barrel-vaulted prayer chamber with a stupa at the apse and a great horseshoe window above the entrance. Cave 3 holds the longest inscription on the hill, in which the Satavahana queen Gautami Balasri records the deeds of her son Gautamiputra Satakarni in the early second century CE.
The caves sit roughly a hundred metres above the road, reached by a paved stairway of about two hundred steps from the parking area at the foot of Trivashmi Hill. The site is open daily from sunrise to sunset and is administered by the Archaeological Survey of India with a modest entry fee. The hill commands a wide view north over the Godavari plain and the spread of Nashik city. The dry months from October through February carry the most settled weather; the monsoon arrives in June.