of level land which divides the highway from the foot of the easternmost of the triad of hills.  “Trirashmi” or Triple Sunbeam is the name by which the hill is known in seven of the cave-inscriptions, and is held by the learned Pundit who wrote the Gazetter account to refer to its pyramidal or triple fire-tongue shape.  But is it not conceivable that the hand which carved the earliest of those priceless inscriptions desired to designate the triad of contiguous hills as “the tripla ray,” and not the eastern hill alone in which the caves have been hewn?  Who can tell?  When we recall the almost unbroken chain of caves,—­the Shivner, the Ganesh, the Manmoda and the Tulja,—­which surround Junner, we suspect that the original intention of those primeval devotees was to carve dwellings and chapels in all three hills, which thus would have surely formed a triple beam of light in honour of the great Master, whom an English missionary has characterized as “one of the grandest examples of self-denial and love to humanity which the world has ever produced.”  A narrow and devious path, worn by the feet of worshipers, leads upward to the broad terrace which fronts the caves.  Here you are sheltered from the wind, and peace inviolate broods upon these dwellings of a vanished people; but turn your steps round the western corner and the boisterous breeze will quickly chase you back behind the sheltering bulwarks of the hill.

Of the twenty-four caves all except the eighteenth or chapel-cave were originally layanas or monastic dwellings and contained no images when first their makers gazed upon their work and found it good.  But long after their earliest inmates had conquered Desire and had gained Nirvana for their souls the followers of the Mahayana school from Northern India took the dwellings for their own use and carved out of the austere walls of their precursors’ cells those images and idols which are now the chief feature of the caves.  Buddha seated upon the lion-throne and the figures of his Bodhisattvas with their fly-whisks are symbols of a later and more idolatrous form of Buddhism and are several centuries later than the days (b. c. 110) when the great monk (Sramana) fashioned the nineteenth cave in the reign of Krishna the Satakarni.  Nor has Vandalism in the guise of the Mahayana school been alone at work here.  The tenth cave once contained a relic-shrine or dagoba similar to the relic-shrines at Karli, Shivner and Ganesh Lena; but in its place now stands a hideous figure of Bhairav aflame with red-lead, and nought remains to testify to the former presence of the shrine save the Buddhist T capital, the umbrellas and the flags which surmounted it.  The eleventh cave bears traces of Jain sacrilege in the blue figure of the Tirthankar or hierach who sits cross-legged in the back wall and in the figure of Ambika on the right.  But the most conspicuous example of the alteration of ancient monuments to suit the needs of late comers is the twentieth cave, where