Bava Pyara Caves

The Bava Pyara, or Baba Pyara, caves are part of the Junagadh cave groups in the east of Junagadh city. They are cut in three rows: one facing south, a second running south from its eastern end, and a third behind that. The second row has an early flat-roofed chaitya cave with simple cells on either side.

The archaeologist James Burgess concluded that Buddhist monks first used the caves and Jain ascetics occupied them later. A broken inscription uses the term kevalgyan, a word specific to Jainism, and H.D. Sankalia noted auspicious Jain symbols such as the swastika, mirror, paired fish and full vase over a doorway. Small carvings of mythical vyala beasts at one entrance led Madhusudan Dhaky to date the caves to the 2nd or 3rd century AD, while Sankalia placed the chaitya cave as early as the 2nd century BC.