Hiuen Tsang, a Chinese Buddhist monk who visited India in 631 AD i.e. in the seventh century, has written about Mihirkul that he committed great atrocities on Buddhists. They looted their monasteries, viharas and stupas and massacred them with great ruthlessness. Mihirkul ordered the complete destruction of the Buddhist Sangha in his entire kingdom.
Hiuen Tsang writes that Mihirkul destroyed 1600 Buddhist stupas and viharas and killed 90 million Buddhist worshippers. Hiuen Tsang's description may be exaggerated, but it is certain that Toorman and Mihirkul caused great damage to the Buddhists of Rajasthan. Destroyed their monasteries, burnt libraries. The monasteries were crushed to dust and millions of Buddhist monks were killed. The Gupta ruler Baladitya and the Malwa ruler Yashodharma were also fighting each other, so they could not drive the Huns out of India.
The crisis on the existence of Buddhists
Due to the terrible destruction of the Huns, a crisis of existence arose before the Buddhist monks. Many Buddhist monks fled and took refuge in countries like Tibet, China, Burma, Sri Lanka etc. Thousands of Buddhist monks of Rajasthan fled to the forests and caves and hid there, following the rules given by Lord Buddha and started doing spiritual practice. No inscription or written evidence has been found to tell what would have happened to the Buddhist monks hiding in these caves.
It can only be proceeded on the basis of conjecture and it can be said that these monks who tried to save themselves would have eventually either come under the tip of the spears of the Huns or they too were sent to China, Burma or Sri Lanka. Must have run away.
Buddhist Caves of Jhalawar District
If we follow the road leading to Mandsaur from Bhawanimandi town of Jhalawar district, then there are Buddhist caves of Buddhist monks from 6th to 8th century at Kolvi, Hatyagod, Binayaga and Gunai in Jhalawar district and Dharmarajeshwar in Mandsaur district of Madhya Pradesh. Hundreds of Buddhist monks seem to have built caves in these hills hidden in the dense forests and resided in them. The size of these caves and the presence of rooms, beds, sadhana halls, Buddhist temples, verandahs and two-storey caves, etc., suggest that Buddhist monks must have lived in them for a long time.
Here he carved caves as well as artistic stupas and statues of Lord Buddha. The sound of the chisels of the chiselled hands of Buddhist monks still resonates in the desert of these caves. The British officer Dr Impey had discovered the Colvi caves. These caves were also seen by General Cunningham.
These caves, spread from Jhalawar district to Mandsaur, are made of friable laterite stone, which can be easily cut by running a chisel. There is a lack of statues of Bodhisattva in this entire area, which proves that all these caves are of monks of Hinayana school of Buddhism, but there are many statues of Buddha, some of which are located outside the caves and some are located inside the caves. The Buddha statues in the caves prove that they were worshipped.
This thing can be said to be unique to the Hinayana sect of Jhalawar region that the Buddhist monks were worshiping the idols of Buddha here. The Hinayana sect basically considers Buddha to be a great man and not a god. That's why Buddha statues were not worshiped in Hinayana.
There are about 50 caves in Kolvi out of which some caves have been destroyed. The general size of these caves is 15 feet long, 13 feet wide and 22 feet high. These caves usually have platforms about two feet high in one part of a mixture of clay and stone, which appear to be beds. On one side of them is made of mud-stones, while the paitana (the part of the feet) is sloping down.
Ayurveda says that if after eating food, instead of sleeping directly on the earth at 180 degrees, if something is raised from the stomach to the head, then the food gets digested quickly and there are no disorders like wind and indigestion. These beds made in Buddhist caves seem to be built on this principle. Some caves have such beds on both sides.
Most of the caves have a single chamber, while some caves have more than one chamber inside. Along with some rooms, small rooms are also made which may have been used as sadhana room or as a storehouse. There is also a well in a cave in Kolvi which is an extraordinary thing.
Making a well by digging the hard rock of the mountain must have been a laborious task in those days. Because then there were neither advanced types of equipment nor explosives like gunpowder. The location of the well inside the cave also indicates that the Buddhist monks mined this well in a secret place, instead of mining it in a public place, to hide themselves from the enemy's sight.
Kolvi also has a 12 feet high statue of Lord Buddha engraved on a rock in a sermon posture. There are a large number of artistic stupas in different shapes and sizes, which have been carved out of rocks on a square and octagonal basis. Some of these stupas are still in good condition. In a cave there is a statue of Lord Buddha in Padmasana posture. Such caves are called chaityas. Their roof is like the back of an elephant. Some other Chaityas are also present in Kolvi which are now almost destroyed.
About 20 caves are located in the hill near Binayaga village, 13 km from Kolvi, which are smaller in size than the caves of Kolvi. There are 5 caves in the hill of the village named Hatyagod. There are also 4 caves in Gunai village. There are also some caves in the area near Dag in Jhalawar district which are called Niranjani Caves. The caves of Kolvi, Binayaga and Hatyagod have remained the same. The caves of Binayaga and Hatyagod also have stone and mud beds like the caves of Kolvi. Some caves in Kolvi are of two storeys whereas in Binayaga there are caves of only one storey. Mandsaur district starts after walking about 100 km on this road. An inscription of 524 Malav Samvat has been found here at a place called Dharmarajeshwar, in which Lord Buddha has been addressed by the name Sugata. The Rajasthan government has built a paved path of stone and a defense wall along it to reach the caves of Kolvi and Binayaga. This has made it easy to reach these caves. Yet tourists cannot be brought here until they are prominent on the state's tourism map.
The caves of Kolvi, Vinayaga, Hatyagod and Gunai villages of Jhalawar district and the caves of Dharmarajeshwar in Madhya Pradesh hide the secret of the Buddhist monks who were buried in the cheeks of time, still standing silent.