James Fergusson

CONTENTS.

Behar Caves—Western Chaitya Halls, &c.

Although, if looked at from a merely artistic point of view, it will probably be found that the rails are the most interesting Buddhist remains that have come down to our time, still, in an historical or architectural sense, they are certainly surpassed by the chaitya halls. These are the temples of the religion, properly so called, and the exact counterpart of the churches of the Christians, not only in form, but in use.

Some twenty or thirty of these are known still to exist in a state of greater or less preservation, but, with one exception, all cut in the rock. In so far as the interior is concerned this is of little or no consequence, but it prevents our being able to judge of their external form or effect,[133] and, what is perhaps worse, it hides from us entirely the mode in which their roofs were constructed. We know that they were formed with semicircular ribs of timber, and it is also nearly certain that on these ribs planks in two or three thicknesses were laid, but we cannot even guess what covered the planks externally. It could hardly have been metal, or any kind of felt, and one is unwilling to believe that they were thatched with grass, though I confess, as the evidence at present stands, this seems to me the most probable suggestion.[134]

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41. Plan of Chaitya Hall, Sanchi. Scale 30 ft. to 1 in.

The only structural one is at Sanchi, and is shown in plan in the accompanying woodcut (No. 41). It does not however, suffice to show us how the roofs of the aisles were supported externally. What it does show, which the caves do not, is that when the aisle which surrounded the apse could be lighted from the exterior, the apse was carried up solid. In all the caves the pillars surrounding the dagoba are different from and plainer than those of the nave. They are, in fact, kept as subdued as possible, as if it was thought they had no business there, but were necessary to admit light into the circumambient aisle of the apse.

As almost all our information regarding these chaityas, as well as the viharas, which form the next group to be described, is derived from the rock-cut examples in Western India, it would be convenient, if it were possible, to present something like a statistical account of the number and distribution of the groups of caves found there. The descriptions hitherto published do not, however, as yet admit of this.

I have myself visited and described all the most important of them;[135] and in an interesting paper, communicated to the Bombay branch of the Asiatic Society by the Rev. Dr. Wilson, he enumerated thirty-seven different groups of caves, more or less known to Europeans.[136] This number is exclusive of those in Bengal and Madras, and new ones are daily being discovered; we may therefore fairly assume that certainly more than forty, and probably nearly fifty, groups of caves exist in India Proper.

Some of these groups contain as many as 100 different and distinct excavations, many not more than ten or a dozen; but altogether I feel convinced that not less than 1000 distinct specimens are to be found. Of these probably 100 may be of Brahmanical or Jaina origin; the remaining 900 are Buddhist, either monasteries or temples, the former being incomparably the more numerous class; for of the latter not more than twenty or thirty are known to exist. This difference arose, no doubt, from the greater number of the viharas being grouped around structural topes, as is always the case in Afghanistan and Ceylon; and, consequently, they did not require any rock-cut place of worship while possessed of the more usual and appropriate edifice.

The faÇades of the caves are generally perfect, and form an exception to what has been said of our ignorance of the external appearance of Indian temples and monasteries, since they are executed in the rock with all the detail that could have graced the buildings of which they are copies. In the investigation of these objects, the perfect immutability of a temple once hewn out of the living rock is a very important advantage. No repair can add to, or indeed scarcely alter, the general features of what is once so executed; and there can be no doubt that we see them now, in all essentials, exactly as originally designed. This advantage will be easily appreciated by any one who has tried to grope for the evidence of a date in the design, afforded by our much-altered and often reconstructed cathedrals of the Middle Ages.

The geographical distribution of the caves is somewhat singular, more than nine-tenths of those now known being found within the limits of the Bombay Presidency. The remainder consist of two groups in Bengal; those of Behar and Cuttack, neither of which is important in extent; one only is known to exist in Madras, that of Mahavellipore; and two or three insignificant groups, which have been traced in Afghanistan and the Punjab.

At one time some were inclined to connect this remarkable local distribution with the comparative proximity of the west side of India to the rock-cutting Egyptians and Ethiopians. But the coincidence can be more simply accounted for by the existence in both countries of rocks perfectly adapted to such works. The great cave district of western India is composed of horizontal strata of amygdaloid and other cognate trap formations, generally speaking of very considerable thickness and great uniformity of texture, and possessing besides the advantage that their edges are generally exposed in perfectly perpendicular cliffs. No rock in any part of the world could either be more suited for the purpose or more favourably situated than these formations. They were easily accessible and easily worked. In the rarest possible instances are there any flaws or faults to disturb the uniformity of the design; and, when complete, they afford a perfectly dry temple or abode, singularly uniform in temperature, and more durable than any class of temple found in any other part of the world.

From the time of Asoka, who, two hundred and fifty years before Christ, excavated the first cave at Rajagriha, till the great cataclysm in the 8th century, the series is uninterrupted; and, if properly examined and drawn, the caves would furnish us with a complete religious and artistic history of the greater part of India during ten or eleven centuries, the darkest and most perplexing of her existence. But, although during this long period the practice was common to Buddhists, Hindus, and Jains, it ceased before the Mahomedan conquest. Hardly any excavations have been made or attempted since that period, except, perhaps, some rude Jaina monoliths in the rock at Gualior, and it may be one or two in southern India.

Behar Caves.

As might be expected from what we know of the history of the localities, the oldest caves in India are situated in Behar, in the neighbourhood of Rajagriha, which was the capital of Bengal at the time of the advent of Buddha. There is, indeed, one cave there which claims to be the Satapanni cave, in front of which the first convocation was held B.C. 543. It is, however, only a natural cave very slightly improved by art, and of no architectural importance.

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42.
Nigope Cave, Sat Ghurba group.

The most interesting group is situated at a place called Barabar, sixteen miles north of Gaya. One there, called the Karna Chopar, bears an inscription which records the excavation of the cave in the nineteenth year of Asoka (B.C. 245).[137] It is very simple, and, except in a doorway with sloping jambs, has no architectural feature of importance. A second, called the Sudama or Nigope cave (Woodcut No. 42), bears an inscription by Asoka in the twelfth year of his reign, the same year in which most of his edicts are dated, 260 or 264 B.C., and, consequently, is the oldest architectural example in India. It consists of two apartments: an outer, 32 ft. 9 in. in length, and 19 ft. 6 in. in breadth, and beyond this a circular apartment, 19 ft. in diameter, in the place usually occupied by the solid dagoba;[138] in front of which the roof hangs down and projects in a manner very much as if it were intended to represent thatch. The most interesting of the group is that called Lomas Rishi, which, though bearing no contemporary inscription, certainly belongs to the same age. The frontispiece is singularly interesting as representing in the rock the form of the structural chaityas of the age. These, as will be seen from the woodcut (No. 43), were apparently constructed with strong wooden posts, sloping slightly inwards, supporting a longitudinal rafter morticed into their heads, while three small blocks on each side are employed to keep the roof in form. Between the pillars was a framework of wood, which served to support five smaller rafters. Over these lies the roof, apparently formed of three thicknesses of plank, or probably two of timber planks laid reverse ways, and one of metal or some other substance externally. The form of the roof is something of a pointed arch, with a slight ogee point on the summit to form a watershed. The door, like all those of this series, has sloping jambs[139]—a peculiarity arising, as we shall afterwards see, from the lines of the openings following, as in this instance, those of the supports of the roof.

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43. FaÇade of Lomas Rishi Cave.
(From a Photograph by Mr. Peppe, C.E.)

The interior, as will be seen from the annexed plan (No. 44), is quite plain in form, and does not seem to have been ever quite completed. It consists of a hall 33 ft. by 19 ft., beyond which is an apartment of nearly circular form, evidently meant to represent a tope or dagoba, but at that early age the architects had not quite found out how to accomplish this in a rock-cut structure.

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44. Lomas Rishi Cave.

Judging from the inscriptions on these caves, the whole were excavated between the date of the Nigope and that of the Milkmaid’s Cave, so called (which was excavated by Dasaratha, the grandson of Asoka), probably within fifty years of that date. They appear to range, therefore, from 260 to 200 B.C., and the Lomas Rishi is probably the most modern[140]—it certainly is the most richly ornamented. No great amount of elaboration, however, is found in these examples, inasmuch as the material in which they are excavated is the hardest and most close-grained granite; and it was hardly to be expected that a people who so recently had been using nothing but wood as a building material would have patience sufficient for labours like these. They have polished them like glass in the interior, and with that they have been content.

Western Chaitya Halls.

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45. Chaitya Cave, Bhaja.
(From a Plan by Mr. Burgess.) Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.

There are in the Western GhÂts in the Bombay Presidency five or six important chaitya caves whose dates can be made out, either from inscriptions, or from internal evidence, with very fair approximate certainty, and all of which were excavated, if I am not very much mistaken, before the Christian Era. The oldest of these is situated at a place called Bhaja, four miles south of the great Karli cave in the Bhore GhÂt. There is no inscription upon it, but I have a plan and several photographs. From the woodcut (No. 45), it will be perceived that it is a chaitya hall of the usual plan, but of no great dimensions, being only 60 ft. from the back of the apse to the mortices (a a), in which the supports of the wooden screen once stood. From the woodcut (No. 46), taken from one of these photographs, it will be perceived that the pillars of the interior slope inwards at a considerable and most unpleasing angle. The rood-screen which closes the front of all other caves of this class is gone. In all other examples it is in stone, and consequently remains; but in this instance, being in wood, it has disappeared, though the holes to receive its posts and the mortices by which it was attached to the walls are still there. The ogee fronton was covered with wooden ornaments, which have disappeared; though the pin-holes remain by which they were fastened to the stone. The framework, or truss that filled the upper part of the great front opening, no longer exists, but what its appearance was may be judged of by the numerous representations of itself with which it is covered, or

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46. FaÇade of the Cave at Bhaja.
(From a Photograph.)

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47. Front of a Chaitya Hall.
(From a Bas-relief at Buddh Gaya.)

from the representation of a chaitya faÇade from the contemporary rail at Buddh Gaya (Woodcut No. 47), and there are several others on the rail at Bharhut, which are not only correct elevations of such a faÇade as this, but represent the wooden carved ornaments which—according to that authority—invariably adorned these faÇades. The only existing example of this wooden screen is that at Karli, but the innumerable small repetitions of it, not only here but in all these caves, shows not only its form, but how universal its employment was. The rafters of the roof were of wood, and many of them, as may be seen in the woodcut, remain to the present day. Everything, in fact, that could be made in wood remained in wood, and only the constructive parts necessary for stability were executed in the rock.

It is easy to understand that, the first time men undertook to repeat in stone forms they had only been accustomed to erect in wood, they should have done so literally. The sloping inwards of the pillars was requisite to resist the thrust of the circular roof in the wooden building, but it must have appeared so awkward in stone that it would hardly be often repeated. As, however, it was probably almost universal in structural buildings, the doorways and openings naturally followed the same lines, hence the sloping jambs. Though these were by no means so objectionable in practice, they varied with the lines of the supports, and, as these became upright, the jambs became parallel. In like manner, when it was done, the architects could hardly fail to perceive that they had wasted both time and labour in cutting away the rock to make way for their wooden screen in front. Had they left it standing, with far less expense they could have got a more ornamental and more durable feature. This was so self-evident that it never, so far as is known, was repeated, but it was some time before the pillars of the interior got quite perpendicular, and the jambs of the doors quite parallel.

There is very little figure-sculpture about this cave; none in the interior, and what there is on the faÇade seems to be of a very domestic character. But on the pillars in the interior at g and h in the plan (Woodcut No. 45), we find two emblems, and at a, e, and f three others are found somewhat rudely formed, but which occur again so frequently that it may be worth while to quote them here. They are known as the trisul, or trident, the central point being usually more important than here shown, the shield, and the chakra, or wheel. The two first are generally found in combination, as in Woodcut No. 33, and the wheel is frequently found edged with trisul ornaments, as in the central compartment of Woodcut No. 38 from Amravati. The fourth emblem here is the trisul, in combination with a face, and the fifth is one which is frequently repeated on coins and elsewhere, but to which no name has yet been given.

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48.Trisul. Shield. Chakra. Trisul.

The next group of caves, however, that at Bedsa, ten or eleven miles south of Karli, shows considerable progress towards lithic construction. The screen is in stone; the pillars are more upright,

49. Plan of Cave at Bedsa.
(From a Plan by Mr. Burgess.) Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.

though still sloping slightly inwards, the jambs more nearly parallel, and in fact we have nearly all the features of a well-designed chaitya cave. The two pillars in front, however, as will be seen from the plan (Woodcut No. 49), are so much too large in proportion to the rest, that they are evidently stambhas, and ought to stand free instead of supporting a verandah. Their capitals (Woodcut No. 50, p. 113) are more like the Persepolitan than any others in India, and are each surmounted by horses and elephants bearing men

and women of bold and free execution. From the view (Woodcut No. 51) it will be seen how much the surface is covered with the rail decoration, a repetition on a small scale of the rails described in the last section, and which it may here be mentioned is a fair test of the age of any building. It gradually becomes less and less used after the date

of these two chaitya caves, and disappears wholly in the 4th or 5th centuries, but during that period its greater or less prevalence in any building is one of the surest indications we have of the relative age of any two examples. In this cave, as will be observed, nearly the whole of the ornamentation is made up of miniature rails, and repetitions of window fronts or faÇades. It has also a semicircular open-work moulding, like basket-work, which is only found in the very oldest caves, and is evidently so unsuited for stone-work that it is no wonder it was dropped very early. No example of it is known after the Christian Era. There is an inscription in this cave in an ancient form of letter, but not sufficiently distinct to fix its age absolutely without further evidence.

The third cave is the chaitya at Nassick. Its pillars internally are so nearly perpendicular that their inclination might escape detection, and the door jambs are nearly parallel.

The faÇade, as seen in the woodcut (No. 52, p. 115), is a very perfect and complete design, but all its details are copied from wooden forms, and nothing was executed in wood in this cave but the rafters of the roofs internally, and these have fallen down.

Outside this cave, over the doorway, there is an inscription, stating that the cave was the gift of a citizen of Nassick,[141] in the reign of King Krishna, the second of the Andrabritya kings, who reigned just before the Christian Era,[142] and inside, on the pillars, another in an older form of character, stating that it was excavated in honour of King Badrakaraka,[143] who was almost certainly the fifth king of the Sunga dynasty, and who ascended the throne about B.C. 129. It may be possible that a more critical examination of these inscriptions may render their testimony less absolute than it now appears, but, taking them in conjunction with the architecture, the age of this cave hardly seems doubtful. For myself, I see no reason for hesitating to accept B.C. 129 as the date of its inception, though its completion may be a century later, and, if this is so, it carries back the caves of Bhaja and Bedsa to a period considerably before that time, while, on the other hand, it as certainly is older than the Karli cave, which appears to come next to it in age.

Karli.

The fourth cave mentioned above, known as that at Karli, is situated on the road between Bombay and Poonah, and is the finest of all—the finest, indeed, of its class. It is certainly the largest as well as the most complete chaitya cave hitherto discovered in India, and was excavated at a time when the style was in its greatest purity. In it all the architectural defects of the previous examples are removed; the pillars of the nave are quite perpendicular. The screen is ornamented with sculpture—its first appearance apparently in such a position—and the style had reached a perfection that was never afterwards surpassed.

In this cave there is an inscription on the side of the porch, and another on the lion-pillar in front, which are certainly integral, and ascribe its excavation to the Maharaja Bhuti or Deva Bhuti,[144] who, according to the Puranas, reigned B.C. 78, and, if this is so, they fix the age of this typical example beyond all cavil.

The building, as will be seen by the annexed illustrations (Nos. 53, 54, 55), resembles, to a very great extent, an early Christian church in its arrangements: consisting of a nave and side-aisles, terminating in an apse or semidome, round which the aisle is carried. The general dimensions of the interior are 126 ft. from the entrance to the back wall, by 45 ft. 7 in. in width. The side-aisles, however, are very much narrower than in Christian churches, the central one being 25 ft. 7 in., so that the others are only 10 ft. wide, including the thickness of the pillars. As a scale for comparison, it may be mentioned that its

arrangement and dimensions are very similar to those of the choir of Norwich Cathedral, or of the Abbaye aux Hommes at Caen, omitting the outer aisles in the latter buildings. The thickness of the piers at Norwich and Caen nearly corresponds to the breadth of the aisles in the Indian temple. In height, however, Karli is very inferior, being only 42 ft. or perhaps 45 ft. from the floor to the apex, as nearly as can be ascertained.

Fifteen pillars on each side separate the nave from the aisles; each pillar has a tall base, an octagonal shaft, and richly ornamented capital, on which kneel two elephants, each bearing two figures, generally a man and a woman, but sometimes two females, all very much better executed than such ornaments usually are. The seven pillars behind the altar are plain octagonal piers, without either base or capital, and the four under the entrance gallery differ considerably from those at the sides. The sculptures on the capitals supply the place usually occupied by frieze and cornice in Grecian architecture; and in other examples plain painted surfaces occupy the same space. Above this springs the roof, semicircular in general section, but somewhat stilted at the sides, so as to make its height greater than the semi-diameter. It is ornamented even at this day by a series of wooden ribs, probably coeval with the excavation, which prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that the roof is not a copy of a masonry arch, but of some sort of timber construction which we cannot now very well understand.

Immediately under the semidome of the apse, and nearly where the altar stands in Christian churches, is placed the dagoba, in this instance a plain dome slightly stilted on a circular drum. As there are no ornaments on it now, and no mortices for woodwork, it probably was originally plastered and painted, or may have been adorned with hangings, which some of the sculptured representations would lead us to suppose was the usual mode of ornamenting these altars. It is surmounted by a Tee, the base of which is similar to the one shown on Woodcut No. 13, and on this still stand the remains of an umbrella in wood, very much decayed and distorted by age.

Opposite this is the entrance, consisting of three doorways, under a gallery exactly corresponding with our roodloft, one leading to the centre, and one to each of the side-aisles; and over the gallery the whole end of the hall is open as in all these chaitya halls, forming one great window, through which all the light is admitted. This great window is formed in the shape of a horseshoe, and exactly resembles those used as ornaments on the faÇade of this cave, as well as on those of Bhaja, Bedsa, and at Nassick described above, and which are met with everywhere at this age. Within the arch is a framework or centering of wood standing free (Woodcut No. 55). This, so far as we can judge, is, like the ribs of the interior, coeval with the building;[145] at all events, if it has been renewed, it is an exact copy of the original form, for it is found repeated in stone in all the niches of the faÇade, over the doorways, and generally as an ornament everywhere, and with the Buddhist “rail,” copied from Sanchi, forms the most usual ornament of the style.

The presence of the woodwork is an additional proof, if any were wanted, that there were no arches of construction in any of these Buddhist buildings. There neither were nor are any in any Indian building anterior to the Mahomedan Conquest, and very few indeed in any Hindu building afterwards.

To return, however, to Karli, the outer porch is considerably wider than the body of the building, being 52 ft. wide, and is closed in front by a screen composed of two stout octagonal pillars, without either base or capital, supporting what is now a plain mass of rock, but which was once ornamented by a wooden gallery forming the principal ornament of the faÇade. Above this a dwarf colonnade or attic of four columns between pilasters admitted light to the great window, and this again was surmounted by a wooden cornice or ornament of some sort, though we cannot now restore it, since only the mortices remain that attached it to the rock.

In advance of this screen stands the lion-pillar, in this instance a plain shaft with thirty-two flutes, or rather faces, surmounted by a capital not unlike that at Kesariah (Woodcut No. 6), but at Karli supporting four lions instead of one, and, for reasons given above (p. 55), they seem almost certainly to have supported a chakra or Buddhist wheel. A similar pillar probably stood on the opposite side, but it has either fallen or been taken down to make way for the little temple that now occupies its place.

The absence of the wooden ornaments of the external porch, as well as our ignorance of the mode in which this temple was finished laterally, and the porch joined to the main temple, prevents us from judging what the effect of the front would have been if belonging to a free-standing building. But the proportions of such parts as remain are so good, and the effect of the whole so pleasing, that there can be little hesitation in ascribing to such a design a tolerably high rank among architectural compositions.

Of the interior we can judge perfectly, and it certainly is as solemn and grand as any interior can well be, and the mode of lighting the most perfect—one undivided volume of light coming through a single opening overhead at a very favourable angle, and falling directly on the altar or principal object in the building, leaving the rest in comparative obscurity. The effect is considerably heightened by the closely set thick columns that divide the three aisles from one another, as they suffice to prevent the boundary walls from ever being seen, and, as there are no openings in the walls, the view between the pillars is practically unlimited.

These peculiarities are found more or less developed in all the other caves of the same class in India, varying only with the age and the gradual change that took place from the more purely wooden forms of these caves to the lithic or stone architecture of the more modern ones. This is the principal test by which their relative ages can be determined, and it proves incontestably that the Karli cave was excavated not very long after stone came to be used as a building-material in India.

There are caves at Ajunta and probably at Junir which are as old as the four just described, and, when the history of cave architecture comes to be written in extenso, will supply details that are wanting in the examples just quoted. Meanwhile, however, their forms are sufficient to place the history on a firm basis, and to explain the origin and early progress of the style with sufficient distinctness.

From the inscriptions and literary evidence, it seems hardly doubtful that the date of the Karli cave is about 78 B.C., and that at Nassick about 129 B.C. We have no literary authority for the date of the two earlier ones, but the archÆological evidence appears irresistible. The Bhaja cave is so absolutely identical in style with the Lomas Rishi cave at Behar (Woodcut No. 43) that they must be of very nearly the same age. Their pillars and their doorways slope so nearly at the same angle, and the essential woodenness—if the expression may be used—of both is so exactly the same, that, the one being of the age of Asoka, the other cannot be far removed from the date of his reign. The Bedsa cave exhibits a degree of progress so nearly halfway between the Bhaja and Nassick examples, that it may safely be dated 150 to 200 B.C., and the whole four thus exhibit the progress of the style during nearly two centuries in the most satisfactory manner, and form a basis from which we may proceed to reason with very little hesitation or doubt.

Ajunta.[146]

There are four chaitya caves in the Ajunta series which, though not so magnificent as some of the four just mentioned, are nearly as important for the purposes of our history. The oldest there (No. 9) is the lowest down on the cliff, and is of the smallest class, being only 45 ft. by 23 ft. in width. All its woodwork has perished, though it would not be difficult to restore it from the mortices left and the representations of itself on the faÇade. There are several inscriptions, but they do not seem integral. They are painted on the walls, and belong, from the form of their characters, to the 2nd or 3rd century of our era, when the frescoes seem to have been renewed, so that the real tests of its age are, first, its position in the series, which make it, with its accompanying vihara (No. 12), undoubtedly the oldest there; the other test is the architecture of its faÇade, which so much resembles that of the Nassick chaitya (B.C. 129) that it cannot be far off in date. It may, however, be somewhat earlier, as the pillars in the interior slope inwards at a somewhat greater angle, and, in so far as that is a test of age, it indicates a greater antiquity in the Ajunta example.

The next chaitya (No. 10) is situated very near to the last, a little higher up in the rock, however, and of nearly twice its dimensions. It is 94 ft. 6 in. in depth by 41 ft. 3 in. in width internally. As may be seen from the annexed view (Woodcut No. 57), the nave is separated from the aisles by a range of plain octagonal shafts, perfectly upright, but without capitals or bases. The triforium belt is of unusual height, and was originally plastered and painted. Traces of this can still be seen, though the design cannot be made out (Woodcut No. 58). One of the most remarkable characteristics of the cave is that it shows signs of transition from wood to stone in its architectural details. The ribs of the aisle are in stone cut in rock, but copied from the wooden forms of previous examples. The vault of the nave was adorned with wooden ribs, the mortices for which are still there, and their marks can still be traced in the roof, but the wood itself is gone.

There are two inscriptions in this cave which seem to be integral, but unfortunately neither of them contain names that can be identified; but from the form of their characters a palÆographist would almost certainly place them anterior to the Christian Era.[147] Taking, however, all the circumstances of the case into consideration, and so as to avoid stretching any point too far, it would, perhaps, be better to assume for the present that the cave belongs to the 1st century of our era.

The faÇades of both these caves are so much ruined by the rock falling away that it is impossible to assert that there was no sculpture on the lower parts. None, certainly, exists in the interior, where everything depends on painting; and it is, to say the least of it, very improbable that any figure-sculpture ever adorned the oldest, while it seems likely that even No. 10 depended wholly on conventional architectural forms for its adornment.

The next chaitya cave in this series (No. 19) is separated from these two by a very long interval of time. Unfortunately, no inscription exists upon it which would assist in assigning it any precise date; but it belongs to a group of viharas, Nos. 16 and 17, whose date, as we shall afterwards see, can be fixed with tolerable certainty as belonging to the 5th century of our era. The cave itself, as will be seen from the plan (Woodcut No. 59), is of the smallest size, nearly the same as No. 9, or 46 ft. 4 in. by 23 ft. 7 in., and its arrangements do not differ much, but its details belong to a totally different school of art. All trace of woodwork has disappeared, but wooden forms are everywhere repeated in stone, like the triglyphs and mutules of the Doric order, long after their original meaning was lost. More than this, painting in the interval had to a great extent become disused as a means of decoration, both internally and externally, and sculpture substituted for it in all monumental works; but the greatest change of all is that Buddha, in all his attitudes, is introduced everywhere. In the next woodcut (No. 60)—the view of the faÇade—it will be seen how completely figure-sculpture had superseded the plainer architectural forms of the earlier caves. The rail ornament, too, has entirely disappeared; the window heads have been dwarfed down to mere framings for masks; but, what is even more significant than these, is that from a pure theism or rather atheism we have passed to an overwhelming idolatry. At Karli, the eight figures that originally adorned the porch are chiefs with their wives, in pairs. All the figures of Buddha that appear there now are long subsequent additions. None but mortals were sculptured in the earlier caves, and among these mortals Sakya Muni nowhere appears. Here, on the contrary, he is Bhagavat—the Holy One—the Deity—the object of worship, and occupies a position in the front of the dagoba or altar itself (Woodcut No. 61, p. 126), surmounted by the triple umbrella and as the Numen of the place.

At a future stage of our inquiries we may be able to fix more nearly the time in which this portentous change took place in Buddhist ritual. For the present it is sufficient to remark that images of Buddha, and their worship, were not known in India in the 1st century of our era, and that the revolution was complete in the 5th century.

Before leaving this cave, however, it may be well to remark on the change that had taken place in the form of the dagoba during these 500 years. If Woodcut No. 61 is compared with the dagobas in Nos. 56 and 57, it will be seen how much the low rounded form of the early examples had been conventionalised into a tall steeple-like object. The drum had become more important than the dome, and was ornamented with architectural features that have no meaning as applied. But more curious still is the form the triple umbrella had assumed. It had now become a steeple reaching to the roof of the cave, and its original form and meaning would hardly be suspected by those who were not familiar with the intermediate steps.

I am not aware of more than three umbrellas being found surmounting any dagoba in the caves, but the annexed representation of a model of one found at Sultanpore, near Jelalabad (Woodcut No. 62), probably of about the same age, has six such discs; and in Behar numerous models are found with seven, making with the base and finial nine storeys,[148] which afterwards in China became the conventional number for the nine-storeyed towers of that land.

The last chaitya at Ajunta (No. 26) is of a medium size, 66 ft. by 36, and has a long inscription, but which unfortunately contains nothing to enable us to fix its date with certainty. It is certainly more modern than the last-named, its sculptures are coarser, and their meaning more mythological. We shall probably not err in assuming that it was excavated towards the end of the 6th or beginning of the 7th century; and that the year 600 is not far from its true date. Its chief interest is in showing how nearly Buddhism was approximating to Brahmanism when the catastrophe took place which expelled the former from the country of its birth.

Ellora.

The celebrated Viswakarma cave at Ellora is a chaitya of the first class, intermediate in age between the two last-described caves at Ajunta, or it may be as modern as the last. There are unfortunately no inscriptions nor any traditions[149] that would assist in fixing its age, which must consequently depend wholly on its position in the series and its architectural peculiarities.

The dimensions of this cave are considerable, 85 ft. by 43 ft., and the inner end is entirely blocked up by the dagoba which, instead of being circular as in all the older examples, has a frontispiece attached to it larger than that in cave No. 19 at Ajunta, which, as shown in Woodcut No. 60, makes it square in front. On this addition is a figure of Buddha seated with his feet down, and surrounded by attendants and flying figures in the latest style of Buddhist art. In the roof, all the ribs and ornaments are cut in the rock, though still copied from wooden prototypes, and the triforium has sculptured figures as in Nos. 19 and 26 of Ajunta. Its most marked characteristic, however, is the faÇade, where for the first time we miss the great horseshoe opening, which is the most marked feature in all previous examples. We can still trace a reminiscence of it in the upper part of the window in the centre (Woodcut No. 63, p. 128); but it was evidently considered necessary, in this instance, to reduce the size of the opening, and it is easy to see why this was the case. At Bedsa, Karli, Kenheri and elsewhere, there was a verandah or porch with a screen in front of the great window, which prevented the direct rays of the sun from reaching it, and all the older caves had wooden screens, as at Karli, from which curtains could be hung so as to modify the light to any desired extent. At Ellora, no screen could ever have existed in front, and wooden additions had long ceased to be used, so that it consequently became necessary to reduce the size of the opening. In the two later chaityas at Ajunta, this is effected by simply reducing their size. At Ellora it was done by dividing it. If we had the structural examples in which this change was probably first introduced, we might trace its progress; but, as this one is the only example we have of a divided window, we must accept it as one of the latest modifications of the faÇades of these chaityas. Practically, it may be an improvement, as it is still sufficiently large to light the interior in a satisfactory manner; but artistically it seems rather to be regretted. There is a character and a grandeur about the older design which we miss in this more domestic-looking arrangement, though it is still a form of opening not destitute of beauty.

Owing to the sloping nature of the ground in which it is excavated this cave possesses a forecourt of considerable extent and of great elegance of design, which gives its faÇade an importance it is not entitled to from any intrinsic merit of its own.

Kenheri.

One of the best known and most frequently described chaityas in India is that on the island of Salsette, in Bombay Harbour, known as the great Kenheri cave. In dimensions it belongs to the first rank, being 88 ft. 6 in. by 39 ft. 10 in., and it has the advantage that its date is now almost absolutely fixed. In the verandah there is an inscription recording that the celebrated Buddhaghosha dedicated one of the middle-sized statues in the porch to the honour of the lord Bhagawan,[150] and in the same porch another inscription records the execution of the great statues of Buddha by “Gotamiputra’s imperial descendant Sri Yadnya Sat Karni.”[151] Now we know that the first-named, Buddhaghosha, went on his mission to Ceylon, B.C. 410,[152] and he is not known ever to have returned to India; and Yadnya Sri has always been assumed to have lived 408-428, generally it must be confessed on the mistaken etymology of confounding his name with that of Yuegai of the Chinese. That, however, is apparently only a translation of the “Moon beloved king,” and more applicable, consequently, to Chandra Sri or Chandragupta, who was his contemporary. The true basis for the determination of his date is the Puranic chronology, which, for this period seems indisputable.[153] Be all this as it may, the conjunction of these two names here in this cave settles their date, and settles also the age of the cave as belonging to the early years of the 5th century, at the time when Fa Hian was travelling in India.

This being so, one would naturally expect that the architecture of the cave should exhibit some stage of progress intermediate between cave(No. 10and cave No. 19 of Ajunta, but nothing of the sort is apparent here; the Kenheri cave is a literal copy of the great cave at Karli, but in so inferior a style of art that, when I first saw it, I was inclined to ascribe it to an age of Buddhist decrepitude, when the traditions of true art had passed away, and men were trying by spasmodic efforts to revive a dead art. This being now proved not to be the case, the architecture of this cave can only be looked upon as an exceptional anomaly, the principles of whose design are unlike anything else to be found in India, emanating probably from some individual caprice, the origin of which we may probably never now be able to recover.

Internally the roof was ornamented with timber rafters, and though these have fallen away, the wooden pins by which they were fastened to the rock still remain; and the screen in front has all the mortices and other indications, as at Karli, proving that it was intended to be covered with wooden galleries and framework. What is still more curious, the figures of chiefs with their wives, which adorn the front of the screen at Karli, are here repeated literally, but copied so badly as not at first sight to be easily recognisable. This is the more strange as it occurred at an age when their place was reserved for figures of Buddha, and when, at Karli itself, they were cutting away the old sculptures and old inscriptions, to introduce figures of Buddha, either seated cross-legged, or borne on the lotus, supported by Naga figures at its base.[154]

In front of this cave is a dwarf rail which, with the knowledge we now have, would in itself be almost sufficient to settle the age, in spite of these anomalies (Woodcut No. 64). Unfortunately it is so weather-worn that it is difficult to make out all its details; but comparing it with the Gautamiputra rail (Woodcut No. 32) and the Amravati rail (Woodcut No. 36), it will be seen that it contains all those complications that were introduced in the 3rd and 4th centuries, but which were discontinued in the 5th and 6th, when the rail in any shape fell into disuse as an architectural ornament.[155]

The evidence in fact seems complete that this cave was excavated in the early years of the 5th century; but, admitting this, it remains an anomaly, the like of which only occurs once again so far as I know in the history of Indian architecture, and that in a vihara at Nassick of the same age, to be described hereafter.

Dhumnar.

About half way between Kotah and Ujjain, in Rajputana, there exists a series of caves at a place called Dhumnar which are of considerable extent, but the interest that might be felt in them is considerably diminished by their being cut in a coarse laterite conglomerate, so coarse that all the finer architectural details had to be worked out in plaster, and that, having perished with time, only their plans and outlines can now be recognised. Among the sixty or seventy excavations here found one is a chaitya of some extent, and presenting peculiarities of plan not found elsewhere. It is practically a chaitya cella situated in the midst of a vihara (Woodcut No. 65). The cell in which the dagoba is situated is only 35 ft. by 13 ft. 6 in., but to this must be added the porch, or ante-chapel, extending 25 ft. further, making the whole 60 ft. On two sides, and on half the third, it is surrounded by an open verandah leading to the cells. The third side never was finished, but in two of the side cells are smaller dagobas—the whole making a confused mass of chambers and chaityas in which all the original parts are confounded, and all the primitive simplicity of design and arrangement is lost, to such an extent that, without previous knowledge, they would hardly be recognisable.

There are no exact dates for determining the age of this cave, but like all of the series it is late, probably between the years 500 and 600 A.D., or even later, and its great interest is that, on comparing it with the chaitya and vihara at Bhaja or Bedsa (Woodcuts Nos. 46 and 49), we are enabled to realise the progress and changes that took place in designing these monuments during the seven or eight centuries that elapsed between them.

Kholvi.

Not far from Dhumnar is another series of caves not so extensive, but interesting as being probably the most modern group of Buddhist caves in India. No very complete account of them has yet been published,[156] but enough is known to enable us to feel sure how modern they are. One, called Arjun’s House, is a highly ornamented dagoba, originally apparently some 20 ft. in height, but the upper part being in masonry has fallen away. Inside this is a cell open to the front, in which is a cross-legged seated figure of Buddha, showing an approach to the Hindu mode of treating images in their temples, which looks as if Buddhism was on the verge of disappearing.

The same arrangement is repeated in the only excavation here which can be called a chaitya hall. It is only 26 ft. by 13 ft. internally; but the whole of the dagoba, which is 8 ft. in diameter, has been hollowed out to make a cell, in which an image of Buddha is enshrined. The dagobas, in fact, here—there are three standing by themselves—have become temples, and only distinguishable from those of the Hindus by their circular forms.[157]

It is probably hardly necessary to say more on this subject now, as most of the questions, both of art and chronology, will be again touched upon in the next chapter when describing the viharas which were attached to the chaityas, and were, in fact, parts of the same establishments. As mere residences, the viharas may be deficient in that dignity and unity which characterises the chaityas, but their number and variety make up to a great extent for their other deficiencies; and altogether their description forms one of the most interesting chapters in our history.