But to us the temples and the sacred pools seem nothing by comparison with
the mighty monuments of Buddhism, which local wiseacres have erroneously
named the Pandu-Lena or caves of the Pandavas. We drive out in the fresh
morning air along the trunk road, which extends southwards of the holy city
like a grey ribbon streaked by two parallel lines of lighter colour where
the wheels of the bullock-carts have ground the hard metal into dust; and
hard by the fifth milestone we come face to face with three stark hills,
standing solitary out of the plain. A congeries of Mhars' huts fringing the
roadside marks the most convenient spot for alighting, whence we strike
across the belt 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.