The caves are twenty-six in number and consist mainly of dwellings and cells, with three water-cisterns two of which bear inscriptions, and a chapel.  The cells are all hewn into somewhat similar pattern and shape, containing on one and sometimes two sides long stone benches, which served doubtless as the resting-place of their Buddhist occupants.  The “Chaitya Vihara” or chapel cave alone is worth a visit.  Pillars and pilasters with eight-sided shafts and waterpot-bases, which scholars attribute to the period B. C. 90 to A. D. 300, stand sentinel over verandahs stretching away into darkness on either side of the main aisle.  Their capitals are surmounted with crouching animals, twin elephants, a sphinx and lion, twin tigers, all beautifully carved through in places broken; while above them the main walls of the cave rise steep into a pointed vault, the centre of which is some twenty-four feet from the ground-floor.  The relic-shrine or “Daghoba” at the far end of the chapel stands upon a high plinth, and is crowned by a rounded dome, similar to the “Daghoba” at Vyaravali which overlooks the dead city of Pratappur in Salsette.  One of the members of our party struck the plinth with a dhotar to awaken the echoes which eddy loudly round the vault and rouse the wild birds that have built their nests in the holes and cornices.  The birds as well as the bats which lurk in the darker recesses of the chapel are said to be responsible for the very pungent and unpleasant odour which greets one on entering and forces one to cut short one’s visit.  And what of him who built the shrine?  Deep in the back wall of the verandah is graven, in characters long since obsolete, an inscription interpreted some time ago by scholars, which tells how Sulasadata, the illustrious son of Heranika of Kalyana, presented the chapel to the monastery, to the glory of God and his own lasting merit.  The rock-hewn words are headed and ended with the “Swastika” or symbol of good fortune, which appears in so many messages from Buddhist ages.

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On the left of the chapel at a slightly higher level stands the largest of this group of caves, a large hall with a verandah and twenty cells around it.  Later ages have converted the whole cave into a temple of Ganpati, whence the caves obtain their name of Ganesh Lena; and the once plain walls, whose very austerity reflected perhaps the life of the monks dwelling within them, have been rudely plastered, white-washed and covered with inferior representations of incidents in the lives of Devi, Krishna, Shiv and Ganpati.  In the centre of the back wall, between two ancient stone seats, glowers a rude “eidolon,” aflame with red lead and ghi, so thickly smeared indeed that the original features and form of the god have well-nigh disappeared.  Yet this is Ganesh, the kindly Ganesh, who turns not a deaf ear to the prayers of his servants and in whose honour the stone steps were hewn and laid.  Two pujaris of