Early India and Pakistan to Ashoka c9.23

c9.23

Much nonsense has been written about these caves, but the suggestion that, as tombs, they may represent the huts, or even the umbrellas, of the living is not necessarily extravagant. What their relationship may be to the cists with circular or rectangular port-hole is less certain. It has more than once been postulated in Europe that megalithic tombs are in some measure simulated caves; and the question may be asked whether the Kerala caves with their small but obviously functional entrances are parental to the port-holed cists of south India. After all, cave-cutting was a widespread Indian accomplishment, whether amongst the Buddhists, the Jainas, or the Hindus. Nevertheless, it would seem more likely that the reverse relationship was the case. The Buddhists, Jainas and Hindus imitated free-standing structures in cutting their cave-temples and monasteries, and it would appear more likely than not that the Kērala caves, with their limited distribution, followed a parallel course, and were in fact quarried adaptations of the free-standing cists in the viable laterite of the Kerala lowlands.