RAJPURI CAVES, Panchgani

Herbert Daniel Gebauer - 06/01/2018

A horizontal row of man-made rock chambers in the back of an artificial, level terrace are excavated from the base of a south-east (135°) facing cliff (estimated 80 m wide and 10 or 12 m high) exposing an about 2.5 m thick band of small grained kind of -conglomerate- (or so) beneath a circa 10 m thick caprock of columnar Deccan Trap Basalt. SITUATION: Some 20 vertical metres below (south-east) the lower edge of the rural village of Rajpuri, which lies about 7 km along a small road (busses and shared taxis are plying) from Panchgani (N17°55': E073°49'), the -little twin- of the hill station –>Mahabaleshwar (N17°55': E073°40'). CAVE DESCRIPTION: About six, generally man-sized and approximately south-east facing cave entrances give access to partly walled-off and, in cases, interconnected rock chambers on average 3 to 4 m wide (squarish in ground plan) and about 2 m high. The very first rock chamber (upon descending from the village the flight of steps down to the terrace in fron of the rock chambers) is very irregular in shape and might have been modified from an originally natural cave. The very last (north-westernmost) entrance leads to a complex of interconnected rock chambers of which the first is almost entirely filled by a pool fed via the mouth of a sculpted cow (the all desires fulfilling cow Kamadenhu), who vomits water deviated to it by a contrievance fettled from corrugated iron sheets which catch water (part of the village's sewage) dripping from the edge of the cliff outside.