Guhesvara is a name of Siva, and means Lord of the Caves. Siva lived in a cave in the Himalayas on Mt Kailasa so his presence within a cave is a way to pay respects to Lord Shiva. This is the story of my visiting Wat Tham Boya in Nakhon Sawan, Thailand. The cave is known as Boh Ya Cave and is located in Khao Luang Forest Park which has a large out cropping of lime stone hills, which are filled with many caverns. Wat Tham Boya sits at the base of one of these hills with a very long stair case which ascends up the steep hill and finally reaches the entrance to Boh Ya cave.
Having a statue of Shiva in a cave in Thailand testifies to the influence that India has had on the development of the spiritual evolution for the people of Thailand. In most cases most Thai people are not familiar with Shiva and associate him with the images of the Buddha. Nevertheless, inside Boh Ya cave you will find a wide assortment of deities from India.
A.K. Ramanujan, (1929-1993) a scholar and translator of works in the South Indian languages Kannada and Tamil, translated into English the vacana poetry (free-verse lyrics) by four major saints of the great Bhakti protest movement which originated in southern India in the tenth century A.D. Allama Prabhu was one such realized poet-saint of this period who dedicated his poems to Shiva as Guhesvara or "the Lord of Caves." The story of how Allama came to dedicate his poems to Shiva , Lord of the Caves, was he excavated a buried temple looking for his deceased wife. The temple door was locked so he broke it down only to find a yogi in deep meditation. The yogi awakened from his trance and transferred a linga to Allama's hand which in turn brought Allama instant enlightenment and a devotee of Shiva. Allama's vacanas usually ended with the line, Lord of Caves. Before I begin my story, I will mention several of Allama's vacanas dedicated to Lord of Caves as an introduction to my own visit to see Shiva deep within the Boh Ya cave of Thailand.