Belum caves

A huge white Buddha in meditative posture, seated on an open lotus, beckons us several kilometres before we actually come upon the hillock on which he is sculpted. We are about 270km from Bengaluru, at the nondescript Belum village in Andhra Pradesh’s Kurnool district, to visit the sub-continent’s second largest natural caverns.

In the limestone plains of Kurnool district, lies the millions of years old subterranean Belum Caves. One of the most sought-after tourist attractions in Andhra Pradesh, Belum derives from bhilum meaning hole or cave in Telugu. It extends 3.25 km underground of which only 1.5 km is open to the public.
The raised circular platform on terra firma with a flight of steps in concrete leading down to the caverns 30 feet below is entirely deceptive of the stunning sights we are to witness underground. The cave, illuminated in sections, unfolds scintillating chambers and galleries of stalactite and stalagmite in spectacular formations. The stalactite icicles that drape down to meet the upward spiking stalagmite counterparts in artistic motifs were formed thousands of years ago, resulting from the interactive play of ground-water and rich limestone deposits. A distinguishing aspect of Belum caves, unlike such formations elsewhere, is that a major portion of its walls are smooth, polished by the flowing waters several thousands of centuries ago.
According to an archaeological research, though the caves have been in existence as far back as 4500 BC, they were discovered for the first time in 1884 by Robert Bruce Foote, a British surveyor. However, it was only a century later, in the early 1980s, that a team of German speleologists headed by H. Daniel Gebauer explored the caves indepth. Following this detailed exploration, the government of Andhra Pradesh declared it a protected site in 1988 and developed it as a tourist spot.
A few of the chambers are broad and softly illuminated, allowing space for a small congregation of people. They assume interesting names, supposedly from their appearance: Simhadwaram, for the arch-like formation, the stalactites of which appear like a lion’s head; the Kotilingam Chamber comprises formations that resemble Shiv lingams. The musical chamber, named Saptasvarala guha, denoting the seven notes associated with music, is apparently the most recently discovered chamber. There is a small crowd that gathers to witness the unique feature of this chamber as the guide strikes the stalactites here with his knuckles and produces metallic sounds.
Though for the most part electric lights and fresh-air-shafts connected to blowers outside make exploring the caverns comfortable, there are other sections of the cave where we weave our way through a labyrinth of pitch dark passages, guided solely by our mobile lights, the silence of the caves broken only by our deep breathing and the gurgle of flowing water. As the passages narrow down, the darkness deepens and the air, if any, feels musty and murky.
We march ahead and come upon incredible artworks of nature, above and below. In some stretches, we duck our heads, crawl and squeeze through really narrow passages to reach some spectacular natural sculptures.
We reach the depths of the nether world in Patalaganga, the caverns’ deepest segment that boasts a perennial spring of water above which is a stalagmite formation that resembles a reasonably big Shiv lingam. While we are clueless as to the origins of the waterway, the guide informs us that the water flows into a well at the Belum village about a couple of kilometres away and the village in fact is fed by this water from the well!
Labouring our way through the last stretch of the caves open to the public, we land ourselves bang in front of what is considered to be the most beautiful chamber of the caverns — that of the banyan tree, where the stalactites assume the shape of the tree.
By now light and air are practically snuffed out and we are only too happy to make our return to civilisation!

The writer is a travel enthusiast