The seven Mauryan caves of Barabar and Nagarjuni in Bihar, cut from solid granite and polished to a mirror finish for Ajivika monks

Two isolated granite hills in Jehanabad district, Bihar, hold seven caves that were cut into solid rock in the Mauryan age and finished so smoothly that a torch beam bounces off the walls. Six of the seven carry a short inscription in the Brahmi script recording a gift by Ashoka or his grandson Dasaratha, and five of those name the Ajivika ascetics as the recipients. The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) protects all seven, and ASI officials quoted by the Press Trust of India in September 2022 call them the oldest surviving rock-cut caves in India.

Seven caves on two hills

Four of the caves are on the Barabar hill and three on the Nagarjuni hill, which lies about two kilometres away. E. Hultzsch, the epigraphist who edited Ashoka’s inscriptions in 1925, described the hills as isolated masses of syenitic granite rising abruptly from the plain about 15 miles north of Gaya. The ASI Patna Circle’s monument list names the Barabar four as Karan Chaupar, Lomas Rishi, Sudama and Visva Jhopri (the Press Trust of India spells the last Vishwakarma). The Nagarjuni three are Gopi, Vadathika and Vapiyaka.

The inscriptions give the Barabar hill an ancient name, Khalatika. Hultzsch also notes that a later inscription seems to show that it was once called Pravaragiri, and he records that a temple to Mahadeva (Shiva) once crowned the highest summit.

The polish that people still ask about

The interiors show what is usually called Mauryan polish, a glassy finish on the stone. The ASI list describes the walls of Visva Jhopri and Gopi as highly polished, and the ceiling of the Vapiyaka cave as vaulted and highly polished. A travel writer for Outlook Traveller, who visited on a winter weekday in 2024 and found almost no one else there, reports that the granite walls reflect torchlight and that sound lingers in the cylindrical chambers.

The plans are simple and exact. According to the ASI list, Sudama has two chambers, the inner one roughly circular with a hemispherical vaulted roof. Karan Chaupar is a single rectangular chamber with a vaulted roof, built, the ASI says, as a shelter for the rainy season. Hultzsch’s translation of the third Barabar inscription also mentions shelter during the rainy season.

What the inscriptions say

Hultzsch edited three Ashokan inscriptions from Barabar. In his translation, the first reads: “By king Priyadarsin, (when he had been) anointed twelve years, this Banyan-cave was given to the Ajivikas.” Priyadarsin is a title used in Ashoka’s other edicts. The cave’s ancient name, Nigoha-kubha, means banyan cave, and the ASI list places the twelfth-year inscription at Sudama.

The second inscription is also dated to the twelfth year and gives the cave’s location as “the Khalatika mountain”. The ASI list assigns a twelfth-year inscription to Visva Jhopri. The third was cut when the king had been anointed nineteen years, and the ASI list attaches a nineteenth-year inscription to Karan Chaupar.

At Nagarjuni, Hultzsch says, each of the three caves carries a dedication by Dasaratha, who is described as Ashoka’s grandson. The PTI report gives Dasaratha’s reign as 232 to 224 BCE. Buhler, who studied impressions of the six Mauryan inscriptions in 1891, noted that five of them name the Ajivikas as recipients and that the third Barabar text is badly defaced.

Which year was the twelfth year

Sources do not agree on the calendar date. The ASI Patna Circle list gives 261 BCE for the twelfth-year inscription at Sudama and about 245 BCE for the nineteenth-year inscription at Karan Chaupar. Those two dates are 16 years apart, though the regnal years are seven apart, and the page does not explain the difference. Hultzsch’s 1925 table of Ashoka’s regnal dates, built on his own working date for the coronation, puts the twelfth year at 252 BCE and the nineteenth at 245 BCE. He presented the years as the ones to which each regnal year “may be supposed to correspond”.

Hultzsch also raised a question that scholars still weigh. He wrote that one cannot decide with certainty whether the three Barabar inscriptions belong to the Ashoka of the rock and pillar edicts (see our profile of Ashoka) or to another member of his dynasty. In favour of Ashoka, he noted that the twelfth year is when that Ashoka began issuing his edicts on morality.

The Ajivikas, and a word that was chiselled away

The Ajivikas were an ascetic movement. Hultzsch’s footnote says Gosala founded it and that Gosala was a contemporary of both Gautama Buddha and Mahavira. PTI says the sect arose around the same time as Buddhism and Jainism and lasted until the 14th century. Outlook Traveller adds that it enjoyed imperial support only briefly.

A photograph caption on World History Encyclopedia describes Buddhist monks using the caves. The inscriptions name the Ajivikas. Buhler argued in 1891 that the recipients were probably not Buddhists and might have been Vaishnavas. Hultzsch records that D. R. Bhandarkar argued against that view, so the sect’s exact doctrine was debated, though the inscriptions are clear about the name.

In three of the inscriptions the word for Ajivikas has been scraped off. Hultzsch thought this was probably done in the time of Anantavarman, a Maukhari king who gave one Barabar cave to Krishna and two Nagarjuni caves to Shiva and Parvati.

Lomas Rishi, wood copied in granite

The Lomas Rishi cave is the one most photographed. It has two chambers and an arched entrance that, according to the PTI report, imitates a wooden structure of the period. The ASI list adds that the arch is ornamented with a low-relief frieze of elephants. Outlook Traveller describes elephants and stupas in the pattern.

Lomas Rishi has no Ashokan dedication. Hultzsch says it bears a Vaishnava inscription of Anantavarman. The ASI list says it has two inscriptions dating to the 7th or 8th century CE, while the heritage journal Pragyata gives the 5th or 6th century CE for the Maukhari inscriptions in the group. No inscription on the cave fixes its Mauryan date, and the ASI describes it as one of the oldest rock-cut caves in India.

Later caves carved out of rock followed the same idea at far larger scale, as at Udayagiri and Khandagiri near Bhubaneswar, Karla and Ajanta and Ellora.

Before you go

Visitor details here come from the ASI’s Patna Circle page, checked on 29 October 2026. It lists all seven caves under Centrally Protected Monuments and gives no opening hours or ticket information for them. For those it points to the circle office: 0612-2677623, 0612-2677188 or [email protected].

Facilities at the site are under review. In an order dated 21 September 2026, reported on 29 September, Justice Rajiv Roy of the Patna High Court called the caves a “great historical site” and directed the district administration to prepare a blueprint for permanent toilets, year-round drinking water, benches and cleanliness arrangements. The order arose from a petition about the 2024 Barabar Shravani Mela, a month-long fair at which a stampede on 12 August 2024 killed seven people. The court also asked for permanent safety measures. A committee headed by the Jehanabad District and Additional Sessions Judge has been asked to visit the caves and report. The next hearing is on 2 November 2026.

In September 2023 the National Monuments Authority released draft heritage bye-laws, for public comment, covering the Vapiyaka and Vada Thika caves at Nagarjuni. In September 2022 the ASI Patna Circle said it was preparing a proposal for the caves to go on India’s tentative list for UNESCO World Heritage status.

The Marabar of a novel

Outlook Traveller notes that the “Caves” section of E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India, published in June 1924, is set at a place called Marabar, which the writer links to Barabar.