History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c16.s3.67

c16.s3.67

The large cave chambers of Nāgārjunī were excavated, as the inscriptions proclaim, as shelters for Ājīvika ascetics during the rainy season. The caves of Lomas Ṛṣi, Sudāma, and Viśvâmitra, of the Barābar group, apparently served a different purpose, for all possess a circular inner chamber, which seems to have been a sanctuary of some sort. This inner chamber is in the spot which, in Buddhist cave temples, is occupied by the *stūpa*, or symbolic mound, hewn out of the living rock.¹ Only two caves of the Lomas Ṛṣi type are known, other than those of Barābar. Of these one, at Guntupaḷḷi in the Kistna District of Madras Province, which contains a *stūpa*, is thought to be a little later in date than those of Barābar.²