Fergusson College Caves

Herbert Daniel Gebauer - 28/03/2016

Man-made 'cave temples' (rock-cut chambers used for religious purposes) in a hill behind the cricket field but still on the land of Fergusson College at Pune (Poona) described KOSAMBI (1956, 2nd edition 1975 edited 1985, 1988, 1990, 1991, 1993, 1994, 1996, 1998: 34, 1960c: 136) as »… five caves, originally Buddhist monastic structures converted at the turn of the century into a temple containing several distinct cult images. Till 1930, they occasionally sheltered vagrants, thieves, counterfeiters« (read: thugs?). KOSAMBI (1962 edited 1983, 1992: 97-98, 143) points out that these caves, which are »shown on the wrong hill in the old district Gazetteer … [are] almost certainly Buddhist.« CAVE LIFE: BROSSET (1961: 425) reports a colony of some 30 bats (Chiroptera: Hipposideros speoris Schneider 1800) inhabiting an unidentified »grotte artificielle de Poona« which may be a different one.