Seven more caves discovered in Mumbai's Sanjay Gandhi National Park

Seven more ancient Buddhist caves have been discovered in the Sanjay Gandhi National Park in Borivali, reports a leading daily. 

The caves are older than the Kanheri ones and were possibly built for sheltering monks in the monsoon. They are called 'viharas' meaning residence for monks. One of them even shows the remains of harmika' (the top railing of a stupa).

The discovery of five of the seven caves was done by a team in February 2015. The team comprised of  Centre for Archaeology, Mumbai University, and the department of ancient Indian culture, Sathaye College, Vile Parle. The Head of Department of ancient Indian culture in Sathaye College Suraj Pandit. 

A day after this team found the caves, two more were discovered by another team - Vinayak Parab, executive editor of a Marathi magazine Lok Prabha, and Akash Pawar, a student of Buddhism at Sathaye College.

The caves discovered by the first team are said to be between 1st century BCE (or BC) and 5th-6th century CE (or AD). "The newly discovered caves may have been older than the Kanheri Caves as they were simpler in form and they lacked water cisterns, which are found in the more evolved architecture of Kanheri. Moreover, we found monolithic tools which were prevalent in the 1st century BC. The absence of water cisterns also indicate that monks lived there in the monsoon," said Pandit.

Mugdha Karnik, head of Mumbai University's Centre for Extra-Mural Studies and heads Archaeology Centre said that the findings will help preserve archaeological sites which are otherwise ignored or prone to being demolished. "Such discoveries will help people to preserve their heritage," she said.