Lomas Rishi Cave - Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Lomas Rishi Cave - Credit: Wikimedia Commons
The Lomas Rishi Cave, also called the Grotto of Lomas Rishi, is one of the man-made Barabar Caves in the Barabar and Nagarjuni hills of Jehanabad district in the Indian state of Bihar. This rock-cut cave was carved out as a sanctuary. It was built during the Ashokan period of the Maurya Empire in the 3rd century BC, as part of the sacred architecture of the Ajivikas, an ancient religious and philosophical group of India that competed with Jainism and became extinct over time. Ājīvikas were atheistsJohannes Quack (2014), The Oxford Handbook of Atheism (Editors: Stephen Bullivant, Michael Ruse), Oxford University Press, , page 654 and rejected ritualism of the Puranic karma Kāṇḍa as well as Buddhist ideas. They were ascetic communities and meditated in the Barabar caves.Analayo (2004), Satipaṭṭhāna: The Direct Path to Realization, , pp. 207-208 Still, the Lomas Rishi cave lacks an explicit epigraphical dedication to the Ajivikas, contrary to most other Barabar Caves, and may rather have been built by Ashoka for the Buddhists. Read more on Wikipedia
Source: en.wikipedia.org