The Barabar Caves or The Barabar Caves are some of the oldest surviving rocky caves in India. They are located at Makhdamper Block in the Jehanabad district of the Indian state of Bihar, 24 km north of Gaia.
Four caves are in Barabar and three in the Nagarjun rocky uplands. Those located at a distance of 1.6 km from the Nagarjuna Uplands are sometimes called the Nagarjuna Caves.
Most of the Barabar caves consist of two chambers, carved out of granite, with carefully polished interior surfaces and unique acoustics. The first room is a large rectangular hall, and the second is small, round and domed.
Here is what those who were lucky enough to visit the caves write:
“Then there was the most amazing thing: the caretaker went to the end of the cave and loudly shouted out a few words, after which the cave was filled with some kind of intricacies of sounds, and many of them were obviously new, not related to what the caretaker was saying.
Still slightly dumbfounded, we ourselves began to experiment with sound, loudly pronouncing phrases with different intonations and intervals or clapping our hands. Before you finish your phrase, you are immediately enveloped by the intertwining of many sounds: some look like muffled conversation, exclamations, street noise, etc., others evoke some familiar, but difficult to convey associations.
The accuracy and thoroughness of the manufacture of the premises is amazing. Smooth walls, correct geometry.
Promotional video:
The emergence of some not very understandable and even strange sensations turned out to be very interesting and unexpected: you are standing in an absolutely dark cave (corners and walls are barely visible), and all “this” seems to be palpably “flying” around you. Some kind of psychedelic.
By the way, all the caves are really very dark. All lighting is daylight through the entrance and a candle that the caretaker lit in another cave. Photos were taken with a flash (autofocus on the spouse with a candle) and then decently finalized.
The result of our exercises was that the spouse is still absolutely sure that inside the cave she heard the everyday noise of the village below: the voices of people, the mooing of cows, the laughter of children, etc., and that "it" got inside either through the entrance or still somehow. All my attempts to dissuade her with the help of physics and logic so far have not led to anything - any arguments are powerless if a person really heard "this".
If you imagine how, in a dark cave with such acoustics, it spins for hours, breaking up into harmonics and intertwining again into something else, a surround sound from repeated with a certain rhythm and intonation to different voices: "Om-m-m!" - just frost on the skin.
When I pondered the nature of this miracle, I greatly regretted that I had not made several measurements of the attenuation by the stopwatch of the clock and did not try to listen more closely to what simple sounds decay (vowel, clap, etc.). I can only say that the complete attenuation of the sound occurs in approximately 5-6 seconds.
I have no doubt that all the Barabara and Nagarjuni caves were created as special acoustic halls. Apparently the ancient builders knew well how, from what and where to build premises with such an amazing reverberation: all caves are carved into a monolith; have almost the same size and internal geometry; the walls, vault and floor have been polished to the highest quality. Even absolutely rectangular openings in all caves are the same - probably there was some sense in this (perhaps they served as resonator holes)."
Most often, both of these places are referred to under the same general name: "Barabar Caves" (Barabar Caves).
The Barabar group consists of four caves, and the Nagarjuni group consists of three.
Officially: the caves date back to the time of the great Mauryan empire: they were built during the reign of Emperor Ashoka (268-232 BC) and his successor Dasharatha (232-225 BC). Along with the two Son Bhandar Caves in Rajgir, they are the oldest cave temples in India.
On the southern side of the rock, the western (first along the way) cave, which is located almost symmetrically relative to the longitudinal axis of the rock with Karan Chaupar, is called Sudama.
The entrance to Sudama is the same simple and perfectly rectangular opening as in Karan Chaupar (by the way, all caves are locked in this peculiar way).
The first is a hall measuring 10 by 5.8 m and a height of 3.6 m, the eastern wall of which is straight.
Dimensions of one room from the book about the temples of India.
To the right (east) of Sudama is the famous Lomas Rishi cave.
“Famous” because the only one of the Barabara caves has a carved entrance portal, the photograph of which is the “visiting card” of the Barabara caves (of the two Barabara photographs, one will certainly be with the Lomas Rishi portal).
Lomas Rishi, like Sudama, consists of two rooms (rectangular and round), but its construction for some reason was not completed, so on the plan the second room looks not round, but oval - it was simply not completed.
Even judging by the inconclusive dimensions (length - 10-11.1 m, width - 5.2 m, diameter of a round room - 5.2 m), one can judge that Lomas Rishi was conceived as a copy of Sudama.
The time and reason why the work in the cave was not completed are unknown.
On the surface of the massif there are such rectangular notches in the rock.
Visva Zopri (Visvajhopri) - the fourth cave from the Barabar group - is located about half a kilometer from the first cave - Karan Chaupar.
Although in some parts of the room - everything is at the highest level of granite processing.
Above - the same rectangular grooves in the rock: the path.
Caves of Nagarjuni (Nagarjuni Caves). The Nagarjuni Caves are located a couple of kilometers from Barabar.
In the neighborhood - huge granite "Lego". Everything is very similar to the place of Hampi, all in the same India.
On the wall of the entrance hallway there is a famous inscription from the Mauryan period. It says that Ashoka's successor Dasaratha donated this cave to the Ajivik sect.