The Manmodi Caves are a complex of a rock-cut caves about 3 km to the south of the city of Junnar in India. Other caves surrounding the city of Junnar are: Tulja Caves, Shivneri Caves and Lenyadri caves.
It is thought that the caves were positioned on natural trade routes, formed by passes leading from the coast to the basaltic plateau of the Western Ghats. One of the caves in Manmodi has an epigraph mentioning the Western Satrap Nahapana bearing the title of Mahakshatrapa (Great Satrap).
Description
The Manmodi hill lies south from Junnar, at a distance of about a 3 km. It contains three groups of excavations, the second of which is nearest to the road, and the first a considerable way along the north-west face of the hill, near where it turns to the north-east.
The caves are classified in three groups, also having specific names: Bhutalinga (भूत लेणी) group, with an inscription by a Yavana donor. Amba-Ambika (अंबा-अंबिका) group Bhimasankar (भीमाशंकर) group, southeast of Manmodi hill, with the inscription of Ayama, minister of Nahapana in 124 CE.
Bhutalinga group of caves
The Chaitya
These caves are the most western caves in the Manmodi group (). The principal cave here is an unfinished Chaitya-cave. The door is nearly the whole width of the nave, and it has apparently had a small semi-circular aperture or window over it, but the lintel is broken away. This arch of the window, however, is not adjusted to the arch of the roof inside, which is much higher, nor does it occupy the relative position in the great arch on the façade assigned to the window in later examples at Ajanta, Nasik, etc. The Chaitya-hall on the Manmodi hill is said to belong to the period of the Western Satrap ruler Nahapana, as is the case for the Great Chaitya at Karla Caves.
Over the opening of the entrance, the place usually occupied by the window is divided fan-wise into seven petal-shaped compartments with a semi-circular centre, round the edge of the inner member of which is an inscription, in one line, of Brahmi characters. This is an inscription by a Yavana donor, appearing on the central flat surface of the lotus over the entrance: it mentions the erection of a hall-front for the Buddhist Samgha, by a Yavana donor named Chanda:
In the middle compartment of the larger semi-circle is a standing female figure with a lotus flower on each side, the next compartments have elephants standing on lotus flowers and holding water-jars, as so often represented beside the figures of Sri or Lakshmi on old Buddhist works. In the next compartment on each side stands a male figure, his hands joined over or in front of his head, doing puja towards the central figure; and in the two outer spaces are females in similar attitudes, with a lotus flower and bud beside each. The style of art in which the figure of Sri Lakshmi is here represented is so similar to that employed for the same purpose at Bharhut, that there can be little doubt that they are of about the same age. The material, however, in which they are executed, and their purposes are so different, that it would be impossible, from that alone, to say which of the two is the earliest.
Over and outside these the façade of the great arch projects, with ribs in imitation of wooden rafters under it. On each side the finial is a male figure: that on the left holds a chauri and has wings, and some animal's head above his jaunty turban; the other holds some object in his right hand, and behind each shoulder are two snake-heads with their tongues hanging out. Right and left of these are dagobas in high relief, but roughly formed; and on the right of the arch is a tree with objects hanging in it, but it has never been quite finished, parts being only outlined.
On the projecting frieze over all are seven Chaitya-window ornaments, with smaller ones between their finials, and two on the faces of each jamb. Inside the cave, three octagonal pillars on the right side are blocked out, as is also the dagoba, but without the capital. There is a horizontal soft stratum in the rock, which has probably led to the work being relinquished in its present unfinished state. This is very much to be regretted, as the whole design of this cave is certainly the most daring, though it can hardly be called the most successful, attempt on the part of the early cave architects to emancipate themselves from the trammels of the wooden style they were trying to adapt to lithic purposes.