Panhalekaji Caves: A Travel Guide

Panhalekaji Caves are located in a small village in Konkan region of Maharashtra and are a collection of twenty-nine Buddhist and Hindu caves. It's a protected monument but it's not at all well developed. Absence of tourists has ensured that the place is still not commercialized and relatively quite clean.

Some of the earlier caves...

Lord Ganesha in one of the Hindu cave

Another view of the caves...

Panhalekaji caves are about 4 hours drive away from Pune and is an absolute delight for lovers of history, architecture and religion. My trip to his gem of a place was rather random decision, and it came about of a conversation with the caretaker of Aryan Farms in Dapoli.

History

Beautiful structures like these are everywhere...no one to look after...

I was extremely curious about the history of the caves when I was there, and sadly found absolutely nothing on site. Coming back I did a little bit of internet research and found precious little detail about the place. All I could gather was that the caves are about a thousand years old. The collection of twenty nine caves have sculptures Hinyan Buddhist sect, Tantrik Vajrayan sect, and the Nath sect; though for a novice I like me that requires even more research.

The caves

There are a total of twenty nine caves here. They are a combination of Hindu and Buddhist ones, though am not sure how this combination actually happened. In fact there are other sites in Maharashtra which have Jain caves as well.

Entrance to one of the caves...

The caves are not all together but spread around, only a few actually even touch each other. This adds quite a bit of beauty as well as individuality to each cave. There is absolutely no information written about the caves anywhere at the site, which is quite unfortunate. I would have loved to know more the men (or women) who dwelled in these caves and a little more about the lives they led. Also the caves are not all same, some are minimalistic while others have elaborate carvings. Some area smaller while others larger. Of course, each of these would have served a different purpose but most of it left to the guesswork of travellers.

The caves at right next to a Kotjai river, and you can immediately see the practical usefulness of this. Even today the place is far far off and rather challenging to reach, back then living here would have been living a life of absolute seclusion. This also made it self sustainability critical to survival. River provided water, the forests provided food and the nature provided all the inspirations needed for meditation.

Trees on the left and the river on the right...

To reach

This is the journey we followed to the Panhalekaji Caves. We started from Dapoli towards Khed. Midway came Walkoli and we took a right turn towards the caves from there. It does not exist on Google map so mapping it is impossible. Unavare are hot water Springs closer by and you can map that to come closer by and then ask for directions.

The drive to the caves is also the most challenging part of the journey. I believe that it must be due to financial constraints that there is almost zero promotion of this place so you won't even know this place exists. As you take the diversion from the main road you can see the signboard but they disappear when you take the turn. The road is pretty deserted and there aren't too many people to ask directions from.

Some beautiful columns...

The distance to Panhalekaji Caves is only about 18km but it takes about an hour to reach the caves from the main road. A 4x4 is ideal for the road, especially the last third of the journey, and I felt we were pushing our dear Polo for this.

Here is a video of my trip there. If you like what you see, do subscribe to my YouTube Channel for more reviews and fun travel videos :)

What else can you do around Panhalekanji?

Unavare

These are natural hot water Springs and located quite close to the caves. These are famous for curing skin diseases. They are not frequented by tourists much so are quite clean and close to nature.

Dapoli

The lovely town is in the mountains and very close to the beach as well. It's a prefect gateway from the city life and hence is popular with residents of Pune and Mumbai. There are many beaches here but the best one is Karde beach.

Harne

Located about 18km from Dapoli, the small town has nice beaches, droves of seagulls, a fishing village (great for photography) and a fort.