Kuda Caves

The Kuda Caves lie in the small village of Kuda in south Konkan, on the eastern side of the northern shore near Murud-Janjira. There are fifteen of them, simple and small in scale, excavated by Buddhist monks in the first century BCE. Some five or six centuries later, Mahayana Buddhists took them over and added more sculpture.

The verandah of the chaitya hall carries reliefs of the Buddha with lotus, wheel and naga motifs, the first cave has early writing on its wall, and elephants frame the entrance to the sixth. About thirty inscriptions record gifts from monks and lay followers, and they offer a glimpse of the local society of the time, naming among the donors an ironmonger, a banker, a gardener, a writer, a physician, a flower seller and a minister.