A fifth century cave might become a runway under the new Navi Mumbai Airport Plan and anthropologists working in the field think it might be too late to preserve them. Anthropologist and Indologist Salil Sayed and Anjay Dhanawade have been working on digitally recreating the Dungi Caves in Navi Mumbai, however, through a photogrammetry process.
In a report by DNA, the said that they decided to document the cave by making its digital replica. “We saw that the caves were similar to the ones in Lonad. They must belong to the 5th century latest. So we started clicking pictures and are now in a process of making a photogrammetric image of the cave, as it was in the ancient period,” said Sayed. Sayed is an Architect and Dhanawad a history professor as well.
The report also said that The 55 feet by 25 feet cave has 6 supporting pillars. ‘It is carved out of a single rock and uses ancient stone carving process to flatten the roof and side walls. It was used as a storage or octroi naka during or post the rule of the Ahira raj. “The cave must have also been a place to rest during nights for merchants traveling on foot to the adjacent docks of Panvel, Thane and others,” said historian Ravindra Lad whose texts pushed the duo to pursue the caves.
Lad has worked for 27 years at the Elephanta caves and and done a sizeable chunk of work on Maharashtras history. He is an economist by profession and a historian by hobby.
In an interview with Homegrown he said, “The Ahira Raj existed before 200 B.C and many subsequent dynasties ruled the Konkan area. Most of the earlier ports like the Elephanta caves were linked together by rivers. Uran, Panvel, Belapur and surrounding areas have many caves which are linked by different rivers which were used as supply routes for trading. Ptolemy has mentioned many of these ports in his works like the Kalyan Fort but not the Elephanta and the Gharapuri forts. I have Roman and Persian pottery that I recovered from the Dungi port and this place was a ground for exchange of goods between Greeks, Persians, Arabians whose ships were docked at many of these ports.” Lad has published these findings in 1995 with the Akhil Maharashtra Itihas Parishad and Konkan Itihas Parishad.
The DNA article mentioned that there are speculations in Lad’s article that the caves were a link to the unknown port of Dounga mentioned in the texts of Ptolemy, A legendary greek geographer who lived from 90 A.D to 168 A.D. The port was said to be an important center of commerce during the 2nd century. “We are working on this theory. The photogrammetric reconstruction of the caves is something that we want to do before they are demolished,” said Sayed in the report.
“The only concrete evidence we have is that the Dunga port mentioned by Ptolemy has a village named Dungi near these caves. Most of the ports mentioned by him in Maharasthra have been identified but not the Dounga port. Wedon’t have much stylistic evidence as the columns mentioned have ruined beyond distinction and it is difficult to make a guess as to precisely when it was made. If we had a chance to excavate this area, we might come up with something but right now there is a complete absence of epigraphic (inscriptions) or numismatic (coins) evidence. The villagers have been very co-operative as they realize how these structures and their own villages are vanishing and support people who have an interest in preservation,” he said in an interview with Homegrown.
‘The duo will be studying other ancient temples and relics in the area to make photogrammetric images of the important ones. The researchers and Lad claim no inscriptions or idols were found in the cave that could symbolise that it was used as a temple. Even though, for the last 60-70 years, residents of the nearby hamlet of Waghavli Wada consider the cave to be the residence of local diety Keru Mata. The cave, earlier in a pathetic condition, was maintained by Damodar Ganpat M, a local villager, who converted it into a temple,’ the report said.
It also said that, “the cave had a lot of stagnated water and the floor was covered with knee-deep mud. Initially, I cleaned all of it myself. Later, with the help of donations, added the floors and got the walls painted. Three chambers of the cave are still full of water, which is clear and fit to drink,” said Damodar. He even sent a letter to City and Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO), appealing to save the caves, but there was no response.’
Sayed and Dhanawad started collecting the data in November, 2015 and expect the results to be out sooner this year. “There is a standard in Europe for such a study but that platform doesn’t exist in India. The difficult part is to make the data work on computer because it is so extensive. That process is taking longer than usual. We plan on making it available through a virtual reality model on a website or people could roam it through a video game console,” he told Homegrown.
We wish to make this data available for future researches and enthusiasts before it is lost forever. We did approach CIDCO and according to the location plan which we saw, this place comes under the airport runway and they have no way of preserving it in the airport,” said Sayed.
The article originally appeared here.