The Antiquities of Orissa v2.c16.s2.61

v2.c16.s2.61

**Urdha-bahu and minor caves :—To the north of the Tiger cave, there are several excavations, with one exception, more like the lairs of wild beasts than human habitations, whose regular angles and corners alone attest their being the handiwork of man, and not natural caverns. They are shaped like cubes, each with a small entrance, in which a man can sit up in a painful position, but not lie down, or stretch himself. They are utterly devoid of all architectural embellishment, and call for no remark. Two or three of them have short Pāli inscriptions in the Lāṭ character, but in a miserable state of preservation and largely blotted. The exception refers to the Urdha Bāhu cave,—(Plate I. N.) a one-storeyed chamber, twelve feet by six feet with a verandah of corresponding size, faced by a line of three pillars having lion capitals and brackets projecting in front, and carved like female figures. It has an inscription in the Lāṭ character ; but so mutilated, that I could make nothing of it.**