formed into a chain of those "Viharas" or places of rest and
recreation, which the Buddhists of pre-Christian and early Christian ages
sought to establish. Thus it happens that in each of the mountain ranges
which rise around Junner are found caves and shrines hewn out of the solid
rock by the followers of Buddhism, some with inscriptions in obsolete
characters and all of them in a wonderful state of preservation,
considering the ages that have passed since their foundation.

Among those most easy of access are the Ganesh Lena, as they are called,
hollowed out of the vast rounded scarp, which rising a hundred feet above
the plain projects from the Hatkeshvar and Suleman ranges about a mile
northward of the town. A fairly smooth but dusty road leads the traveller
down to the Kukdi river dried by the fair weather into stagnant pools, in
which the women wash their clothes and the buffaloes lounge heavily, and
thence through garden-land and clumps of mango-trees to the under-slopes of
the mountain. There the road proper merges into a rocky pathway, which in
turn yields place some little distance further on to a series of well-laid
masonry steps, of comparatively recent date, which, as they curve upwards,
recall to one's mind the well-known Hundred Steps at Windsor Castle. The
steps are divided into about ten flights, and are said to have been built
at different times by devotees of God Ganesh in gratitude for his having
granted their prayers. What prompted the first worshipper to prove his
gratitude in this form none can say: he might have so easily satisfied his
conscience with a presentation to the God or by the erection of a small
shrine in the plains. But happily for all men he adopted the more
philanthropic course of smoothing the road to the presence of the kindly
Deity. Others, the recipients of like favours and fired by his example,
added each in their turn to the work, until the once rude track was
transformed into a massive stone-approach fit for the feet of princes.

The caves are twenty-six in number and consist mainly of dwellings and
cells, with three water-cisterns two of which bear inscriptions, and a
chapel. The cells are all hewn into somewhat similar pattern and shape,
containing on one and sometimes two sides long stone benches, which served
doubtless as the resting-place of their Buddhist occupants. The "Chaitya
Vihara" or chapel cave alone is worth a visit. Pillars and pilasters with
eight-sided shafts