At the Crossroads Mother Goddess Cult-Sites in Ancient India

Extract

The Trade Routes. If the prehistoric tracks ran as outlined above, it would be logical to find some of them developing into trade-routes and also into modern roads except where settlements moved down into the valley, by the riverside, as land-clearing progressed. Such movement makes definitive proof rather difficult. But there is enough in common between old tracks and new, particularly the passes, to show the development. The great Buddhist cave monasteries (all near mountain passes) at Karsambḷe, Ṭhāṇālā, Bhājā, āarle, Beḍsā, and Junnar outline main trade routes without any doubt, particularly when smaller intermediate caves are linked up. It is logical to expect merchants to use the tracks most frequented by whatever people lived there before there were ploughusing villages. The Buddhist monks who penetrated the wilderness to preach ahiṃsā and peaceful social behaviour would naturally follow the same tracks in order to reach the greatest number of savages. Their religion insisted upon the cessation of bloodsacrifices, and the cult-spots were the most likely places for their preaching. So these cults and the major Buddhist caves which are obviously at the junctions of great trade-routes should have some demonstrable connection. In fact, this is just what we find.