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The cave is on the southern side of Barābar Hill. Its façade is sculpted to resemble the front of a wooden candraśālā hut. For further details of the monument see ASIR 01: 46-47. Anantavarman's inscription (IN00152) is on the recessed part of the façade, on a smooth vertical wall just above the doorway. There are also several short inscriptions in various places in and around the cave, their locations unclear, in characters of this period or slightly later (there is apparently no Aśokan inscription in this cave). One of these inscriptions is immediately below Anantavarman's praśasti above on the doorway; it seems to read vodhimūla(ḥ) kleśakāntāra[#ḥ]. This is dimly visible on the image reproduced in Prinsep 1837a (plate 36, nos. 21 and 20, or perhaps 18 and 19), as well as in ASIR 01 (plate 20, no. 15). Prinsep and Cunningham take the two words as two independent inscriptions. Both words occur in multiple places around the Barabar caves, and elsewhere one may occur without the other. This should be ascertained by a careful look at the site. |