Caves of Lamgao, Goa

Sept 1, 2023. After a quick tour of Arvalem waterfall and Arvalem caves, we headed west towards Bicholim. We still had 3 hours for the check-in at a resort near Assonora. So we thought of covering two more places- Lamgao cave and Corjuem fort. Lamgao cave is about 4 km from Bicholim. The narrow road passing through several localities is really tight and twisty, only one car could pass at a time. As we approached the location, it was deserted. If not for the board pointing the direction, we might have missed it. The last 300 meters is a footpath flanked by arecanut plantations.

While touring Goa, one needs to be prepared for thermal shock on stepping out from an airconditioned space. The hot & humid weather can sap out energy rapidly. And the still air in a plantation adds to the discomfort.

The cave is slightly elevated from the footpath, may be 6 to 7 meters high. Srinu and Pushp decided not to enter the cave since the place had a eerie feeling. Also the place was littered with trash, looks like this historical place has become a drinking / gambling den.

Photographing this cave was tricky with bright sunlight blazing down and the dark interior of the cave. The cave is basically a natural one which was enlarged by humans. This too like Pandava caves is laterite rock-cut shelter.

In this view, the ancient sculptors have made columns and beams. The cave's floor is uneven and dirt, there's no laterite floor. Also the inside walls are natural, meaning they don't seemed to be touched by human hands. Going by the looks of the place, this project is incomplete, abandoned much before completion.

My ears were alert, ready to pick up any growls from the smaller chambers inside. The smaller caverns were dark, just a sheet of black. Who knows what creatures were resting inside. Better not to go deeper.

This cave is marked as Buddhist cave on Google Maps. It could be Buddhist or Jain or Shaivite.

Another view of the column. The lower portion is missing a portion yet the column has held up.

Nothing more to see, I rejoined the group and we headed back. On the way we stopped to take a few pictures of the rock-cut Rudreshwar Devasthan. Rudreshwar is a form of Shiva. This rock-cut shrine is on the same hill as the cave seen earlier.

The two-column three-passages format is a proper Hindu temple format. The same design was seen at Arvalem Shivalinga cave.

A damaged idol of Nandi opposite the temple. Someone has left a cute little white colored Nandi here.

Barely 15 minutes in the arecanut plantation I was soaked in my own sweat and raring to get out of this place. Our next destination: Corjuem fort, about 9 km from here.

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Prehistoric Artefacts

Between 2008 and 2014 my journeys touched some of the oldest inhabited places in Northern Karnataka. While most sites are on rocky hills, few are on plain land. The ones on rock hills had natural rock shelters.. homes of ancient people. Those ancient people left their marks in many forms.. right from dwellings to stones tools to stone drawings to music to inscriptions to anthropomorphic statues to tombs. In between is something which many today are not even aware of - stone alignments to predict seasons.. the ancient calendar system based on positions of shadows. There's one thing common in these all these artefacts one thing is common - stone. Here we go.. lets check out samples of the ancient artefacts..

Rock shelters and Cave dwellings
In the rock hills of Chitraduga, Bagalkot, Koppal, Bellary and Raichur are many a shelters in which ancient humans refuge from sun, rain and animals. Those shelters must have been occupied for generations. Yes, they lived free.. no rent or taxes to pay :) Of all rock shelters, the largest is know by the name Sidlaphadi. The word means lightning stone in Kannada.. however the name is given recently but for sure it was inhabited by humans several millennia ago. This picture below is Sidlaphadi, a bridge like rock formation. In the roof are three openings which are believed to be caused because of a massive lightning strike. This spot is situated in a depression on the plateau of Hiregudda (Big hill) of Badami. Besides this shelter, there are several smaller caves in the vicinity separated by plain land. During my visit I noticed one side of the cave's plains was sandy.. indication of flowing water. I looked for stone implements found none. Few kilometers from here is hill of Kutkankeri, a place of many shelters with rock paintings.

Stone tools
We have another hill called Hiregudda near Bellary. The hill has history dating back to Neolithic times, it was a tool manufacturing centre of that period. Even to this day we can find stone axes, spear-heads, pounding stones, and grinding stones. Our guide to Hiregudda is the one and only Rama Dasa of Sangankallu village which is approximately south-west of Hiregudda. On the northern-eastern side of the hill is another hill is Kappagallu; its name id derived from the dark colored dolerite dyke on the northern side of Hiregudda. During our second visit to Hiregudda, Ramadasa showed us the stone factory.. damaged & rejected stone implements and flakes formed during the process of manufacturing. Hiregudda is surrounded by vast plains of back soil. People back then practised agriculture and reared cattle. The stone tools manufactured here were also traded at Hiregudda, probably barter system had existed back then. Here are few pictures of ancient implements. In the bottom-right corner, Ramadasa was demonstrating how grains were ground into flour. The top-left picture is a grinding stone to sharpen axe heads. To read more about this visit open Prehistoric stone tools of Hiregudda.

One other place I'd seen stones which seemed like hand tools was in a riverbed next to Sonda fort.

Paintings on rocks
Now we are going to see the artistic side of ancient humans who at some point of time developed a delicate hands to create amazingly beautiful drawings of animals & birds including fish, humans, flowers, scenes of humans hunting wild beasts, group dances, battle scenes and abstract too. The paintings though mono-chrome have life to them, easily identifiable at the first glance. The largest collection of paintings were at Onake Kindi near Anegundi village, the city of ancient kingdom of Kishkinda. However the single largest painting depicting a hyena skin pattern was at Anepadi (meaning elephant stone) on the sandstone hill of Kutkankeri near Badami. Hire Benekal hill is better known for its megalithic tombs but it is said that hundreds of paintings could be found in the numerous rock shelters. Of all the paintings, the one near Ranganatha Swamy temple on Hiregudda of Badami is unique. The uniqueness is because of the fact that the animal and human forms seem unearthly.. they give a feeling they existed on a different planet. Personally I never felt such animals and human forms existed on Earth. Not just that, there are two drawings which are very much like an astronaut and a rocket in flight (see top-right picture). As you see the color used in all paintings is ochre, a shade of red

Petroglyphs
This is another form of drawings; stones scratched with stones. This is relatively rare to find,I've seen only two sites with ancient petroglyphs- Kappagallu and Maski. The name Kappagallu means dark stone in Kannada; the name has derived from the black igneous boulders of Hiregudda hill. On these rocks are hundreds of drawings of humans, animals & birds, and geometric figures. The most commonly seen animal is bull; one of the most lovely pictures is of a crane with a fish in its beak; and one a complex diagram of five pairs of bull & axe. The bull-axe-wheel has a deep meaning to it.. something which connects our earth with the space beyond the sky. In these pictures is Ramadasa, the person who knows Hiregudda by his heart. Maski in Raichur district is another place where I saw pictures of fish and elephants on a granite boulder.

Stone Alignment
This is something less known. Stones aligned in a huge matrix on plain land (spread over several acres) next to a twin peaked hill is one of the earliest known calendar system. The position of the peaks' shadow in the grid told what season it was. The only such alignment I've seen is at Vibuthihalli near Shahpur town in Karnataka.

Bell or Musical stones

Along with lovely sights, Nature produces captivating sounds... chirping birds, the sound of crashing waves, water gurgling through rocks.. well there's something else. Stones when struck produce clear sound.. like a bell. Through my journeys I've seen and heard four such rocks- two at Dolerite Dyke of Hiregudda and two at Mudgal fort. The top two pictures are from Hiregudda, these are igneous rocks. The bottom two are from Mudgal, a variety of granite local to that area. The bottom-right picture is a rock inside a natural shelter; that particular stone produces seven distinct notes... Sa Re Ga Ma... Amazing to hear the clear rings.. ting ting.

One another wondrous artefact is the kettle drum stone of Hire Benakal hill. This hemispherical stone is supposed to be created few thousand years ago. It is said that when the stone is struck with a wooden staff, it produces a booming sound which is audible as far as a kilometer! Well, I did not get a chance to check it out personally.. hoping the day comes.

Ash or Cinder Mounds
We all know ash is an end product of burning combustible material but here we are looking at rather big to gigantic ash mounds. In these ash mounds were found ancient artefacts like pottery pieces, grains, hair, bones, stone implements proving that they are ancient. Starting at top-right, going clock-wise direction- Hallur, Budihal, Kappagallu and Kudathini. Cinder mound of Hallur (Haveri district) is the largest covering approximately 30 acres and 30' high at places. Sadly this ancient monument is being actively destroyed by the village's own people. The next largest is at Kudathini. Kappagallu originally has three ash mounds however two have been flattened off by the land owner and one has survived the test of time. Lastly, Budihal ~ the name itself is derived from ashes. Budhi is the Kannada word for ash.

Anthropomorphic statues
These granite sheet cut-outs is another rare artefact. It is unclear as to what they represent.. are they deities or grave markers or a type of hero-stone? Whatever they are, they are clearly ancient and beautiful. These large human forms located on flat land between Kumathi and Valase villages in Bellary district. Locals call them Rakshahsagallu meaning demonic stones. Incidentally, about 3 kms away is a port-hole chamber megalithic tomb made of granite. Ramadasa remarked that the statue on right looks like a bird in flight. The other statue seems like Jesus in a lose robe.

Megalithic tombs
These is an interesting topic. Local people believe there structures made of dressed slabs were homes of ancient dwarf people. Archaeologists say these are ancient tombs. I've seen such tombs at five different sites- Hire Benakal, Aihole, Bachangudda, Kumathi, Rajan Kollur and Raap village next to Brahmagiri hill. I've also seen destroyed structures at Kutkankeri. Hire Benekal is the largest site, originally around 300 tombs, now around 100 can be seen. Structure heights vary from 1½ to 10 feet. Some of the tombs have port-holes. The lonely tomb of Kumathi is destroyed but the workmanship is good. The tombs of Raap village are destroyed completely, some ruins have been fenced off by ASI. Aihole and Rajan Kollur sites are more or less size same but the difference is while the former is on a hillock,, latter is in a gentle slope next to a stream. Tombs of these two seem primitive; rough cut red sandstone blocks have been used; again heights vary from 1½ to 6 feet. The group of tombs at Rajan Kollur has been researched by Philips Meadows Taylor way back in 1850. His book describes the structures in detail including a map showing the locations. The book also mentions tombs at Yeemigudda hill near Kanakagiri and Hegaratgi villages.

Similar tombs are also said to be found on Koppal hill and one near Mudabidri in western ghats. Neolithic culture had its own way of honouring their dead.

Cairns or Stone Circles

This is another type of grave markers. The only one I've seen until now is at the base of Hiregudda hill. Meadows Taylor has mentioned seeing several cairns in the Gulbarga, Raichur and Koppal districts.

Burial Urns
Terracotta burial urns can be seen at historical museums. Government Historical Museum at Bangalore and Museum at History Department of Karnatak University Dharwad have some good collection of burial urns and other clay-ware items like pots, plates, jars and jewellery too. The largest urn at Dharwad resembles a four legged creature.. like an ox or a horse. The museum's collections includes stone implements like axes, spear heads, sling balls, pounders and grinding stones.

..there's still lot to learn about our past.
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Belum cave - part 2

..continued from Belum Cave - part 1.

Another high speed tunnel. Its hard to imagine clear water carving stone. I think these grooves must be a result of muddy water flowing through at high speed. Natural color of these stones is whitish grey, matt surface. 

I love this particular block. Probably long time back it had straight edges, flowing water must have formed the rounded corners.

Yellow light forms a lovely shadow behind Gurudutt. It looks like meditating Buddha.

Of all pictures I liked this one most. We have a inverted key hole here. Notice the flat surface in the ceiling, a concave dome. Guru is on the right and our Reddy on the left.

This chamber must be the Dhyaana Mandir, I think. Notice the stalactites on the ceiling. To my eyes this chamber looks like its formed by a pair of cupped hands.

We have a false ceiling here with a holes. The false ceiling seems t be of the same material as stalactites.

We reach Kotilingalu Guha ~ Cave with countless Lingas. The ceiling is covered with thousands of small stalactites resembling Linga.

A closer look at the stalactites, they are tightly grouped together. Looks like an inverted ant hill.

Cross section of a stalactite; crust is of light colored matter, filling is dark and core is hollow. Concentric circles can be seen which is evidence of matter accumulating over thousands of years. They look like a sweet snack with sugar coating :)

Here we have stalactites resembling elephant trunks.

The hour glass arch.

Lines and grooves seem to intersect at right angle in most places.. how is that possible? Check out three surfaces of this rock; intersections are at right angle. Amazing!

This picture looks like a map, upper half is land and lower half is sea. Also, I can see a face... a face from left side.. a nose, small mouth, an eye and long hair. Got it?

Not finding the right word to describe this picture. Any suggestion?

Another grid. There's has to be an explanation for how these perpendicular grooves got formed. Vertical folds add beauty to this grid.

Our 1 hour 15 minutes tour as a rushed one, time was a constraint as always :( Time to leave.

These are the two holes I'd mentioned earlier. Through one descends the stairway into the cave.

A tourist group assembling at the hall, waiting for its guide to start the tour.

As mentioned earlier, in 1982-84 a team of German speleologists headed by H Daniel Gebauer conducted a detailed survey of  Belum cave and mapped its passages and chambers.

This map is a copy of the map displayed at the Belum Caves ticket counter. Since the paint had peeled off at few parts and unreadable, some parts on my map haven't been marked. I want to visit Belum Cave again and during that visit I'll carry a print out of this map and mark the spots properly.

Gautama Buddha statue at Belum caves

Approximate distance of Belum Caves from few cities.

• Gooty - 65 kms
• Kurnool - 110 km
• Hydrabad - 320 km
• Bengaluru - 330 km
• Hubli - 360 km

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Belum Cave - part 1

The first time I heard about Belum cave was from our vendor Zakheer, owner of a metal fabrication and machining unit way back in Y2K. We always spoke Kannada; he had told "Belum cave antha kelidira Saar? Anatapur hattra ide. guhe thumba doddadide, onduvare kilometer walage hogbek Saar." Here's the translation "have you heard of Belum cave? its near Anatapur. its a very big cave, its one and half kilometers deep." I couldn't believe his description but the curiosity to visit the cave had ignited. Though I planned couple times mid 2000, a trip never took off. It remained on my wish list. The day finally came.. Dec 23, 2015. My friend Gurudutt and I were travelling from Hyderabad to Bangalore. This was a good opportunity. I planned to visit 2 places on that day Alampur and Belum. We could spend the night at Gooty. The following day's plan was to see Ashokan edict at Yerragudi and resume our journey to Bangalore.

December 23, 2015
We left Hyderbad by 5-30 am, reached Alampur by 8-30 AM, spent 1 hr 45 min seeing Chalukyan temples and 30 minutes for breakfast, by 10-45 we were heading towards Kurnool. Getting our Kurnool took some time :( the town has grown! We took Nandyal road, about 40 kms from Kurnool was Banaganapalli cross where we turned right. Having driven on 6 or 4 lane roads, now I had to drive on a two lane road. The last time I drove this stretch was late 1990s. The terrain is interesting; roads pass through low hills and valleys. We drove through Banaganapalli and Owk. 15 kms from Owk is Belum cave entrance. It was 2 PM. The cave is open to public between 10 am and 5-30 pm. Entry fee for an adult is INR 50. Goverment appointed guides are available and they do not charge.

Belum cave is basically a natural underground cave, its entrance are a pair of 20' diameter holes in a rockbed. Through one of the holes descends a concrete stairway into a circular chamber which is used as a assembly point for groups. This is the last point where natural light is seen, beyond this point its artificial lighting.

Our guide Mr.Reddy gave a brief introduction of Belum cave:

Belum cave of Belum village in Kolimigundla mandal of Kurnool district is millions of years old. In the passages of this cave flowed an underground river. In this cave pottery  dating back to 4500 BCE were found which indicates the cave was inhabited by humans. It is also believed that Buddhist and Jain monks lived in these caves. The modern day existence of Belum cave was explored, surveyed and recorded in 1884 by H Bruce Foote. The cave was forgotten for a century. The latest exploration was done between 1982 and 1984 by a German speleologist Herbert Daniel Gebauer. His team explored and mapped the caves to an extent of 3 kilometers. In 1988 AP government declared Belum cave as a protected area and in 1999 APTDC took over for making it tourist friendly. A retired ASP M Narayana Reddy and few other local people had strived years to get Belum protected and developed. Belum cave is known for its stalactite and stalagmite formations. Belum cave's have long passages and spacious chambers makes it the second longest cave in the Indian subcontinent. Its deepest point known as Pataalaganga is at 150 feet from ground level.

Some noteworthy spots:

• Dhyan Mandir:  this chamber s said to be used by Buddhist monks to meditate. One of the rocks here resembles a bed with a pillow
• Kotilingalu Guha: from this chamber's ceiling hang stalactite formations resembling thousands of Shiva Lingas
• Mandapam: this chamber has magnificent stalactites on its sides creating a look of a pillared hall
• Pillidwaram: pillidwaram means cat's entrance; an arch of stalactites in the shape of a lion’s head
• Saptasvarala Guha: Saptasvara means the seven notes of music. Stalactite formations when struck produce musical sounds
• Banyan tree: hundreds of stalagmite have taken the form of a tree with a large trunk having a wide canopy with aerial roots resembling a Banyan tree
• Thousand Hoods:  a group of stalactites shaped like Cobra's hood.
• Stalactite and Stalagmite pillar: this is said to be a rare formation. a pair of perfectly aligned stalactite and stalagmite of equal diameter and hieight have joined to form a pillar
• Patalaganga: said to be the deepest point of  this cave at 150 feet. here a perennial stream disappears into the ground.

The other hole is directly above the entrance hall. A wall surrounds the pair of holes to keep people from trying any adventures.

The opening passage is wide and high. Sodium vapour lamps light up this part.

A limestone wall. These lines has been etched by flowing water millions of years ago.

This reminds me of a line from the book "Lao-Tzu's Whispers of Wisdom" describing water. "Water is the most plaint of things, yet it can erode away mountains and carve out canyons." I was not thinking only about these etched lines but the entire passage in these rocks.

The caves height increases to nearly 30' at this point. I was trying to imagine how it would be when water is flowing through this passage.. many forces and pressures.

With due respect to the engineers who installed the lighting system, I wish lighting was softer. Diffused light creates a uniform illumination. The cave is not entirely in its original form because of the changes made to make it tourist-friendly. Floors have to be levelled out, free from obstructions. But the caves ceiling are more or less original, I think.

A perfectly flat surface with a concave dome. Notice the perfectly circular perimeter except for a small notch? Amazing creation.

Another wall with predominantly parallel horizontal and irregular vertical grooves. Its simply beautiful!

Lot of rocks have been moved to a side to make way for people. Notice the criss-crossing grooves all over the rock's surface.

The wall looks as though it was built by arranging blocks systematically.

Deeper we went it got warmer, especially parts which did not have air vents. BTW, the cave has a number of air shafts connecting the cave to the ground level above us. Fresh air was pumped in through these shafts. The downside of the air shafts was noise, sounded as though we were in a mill.
This looks like a beasts mouth, the stalactite formations looks like fangs bearing down from the upper jaw.

Turning towards the walls again, we have a pair of French loaves here. I think water might have flown in right-left direction. Notice the parallel lines and one vertical line. What would be the cause for their formation?

On the ceiling- a concave dome surrounded by grooves.

Here we have a set of three concave domes.. they seem like nostrils of a demonic creature. If you look at the right side of the picture you can see gorilla face. As far as I remember such domes usually found only on the ceiling.

This is a good example of water carved tunnel. The horizontal grooves create an illusion of speed. In fact water flowing at high speed would have carved such grooves. Wonder what direction water had taken in this tunnel?

A tiny arch but large enough for a adult human to pass through.

Another high speed tunnel. Ever since water flow ceased dripping water formed a pair of perfectly aligned stalactite and stalagmite. Both grew and grew for centuries and then joined together to form a pillar. This stalactite-stalagmite pillar is a rare formation.

The spot from where we saw the stalactite-stalagmite pillar is a junction of three tunnels. We reached the junction from one tunnel and went into another tunnel. The third tunnel is where the pillar formation is and that tunnel is blocked - no entry. This tunnel below is very curvy, like a snake's path.

Here we have blocks.. The corner piece is missing.. probably fallen off long time ago.

Nature had its own way of producing dressed stone blocks. This is the fourth type I've seen so far. The first one was on the way to Srisailam, we could see stone quarries. In the pits we could see layers of slabs arranged neatly. Quarry workers had to break them into required lengths and widths, no need to work on the thickness. The second one was at the dolerite dyke on Hiregudda near Bellary. These are very hard stones exposed to Sun through the day. The cyclic heating and cooling had caused the stones to blast producing perfectly straight edged blocks. The third being lime stone blocks near Shahpur near Gulbarga. These are soft stones found in neat layers. Nature has produced spheres, cylinders, cones, squares and hexagons. We humans learn from Nature and turn against it :(

This is first half of  Belum cave tour. Do check out the following post - Belum Cave - part 2.

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