DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.2371#0065
BARABAR GROUP.
43
open framework of wood between them, which was equally universal,
and the rafters and little fashion pieces which kept the lower parts
of the roof in its place. In fact we have here in stone every feature
of those wooden facades which the earlier excavators of caves
copied so literally in the rock. It is unfortunately, however, only in
stone, and we cannot even now feel quite certain how the roof was
covered, when erected as a building standing free. It looks as if
formed of two thicknesses of wooden planks, one bent, and the
other laid longitudinally, and with a covering of metal; it could
hardly have been thatch, the thickness is scarcely sufficient, and
when men were copying construction so literally, it would have
been easy to have made the outer covering 9 inches or a foot in
thickness instead of only the same as the other two coverings.1 Be
this as it may, the age of the facade is not doubtful, and so far as
we at present know it is the earliest architectural composition that
exists in any part of India,, and one of the most instructive, from the
literal manner in which it its wooden prototypes are copied in the
rock.-
1 The whole thickness of the roof so far as I can make out from the photographs is
only 9 or 10 inches.
a The buildings now existing in India, that seem most like these primitive caves in
elevation, are the huts or houses erected by the Todas on the Nllagiri hills. They are
formed of bambu neatly bound together with rattans. Their section is nearly the
same as that of the caves, and they are covered externally with a very delicate thatch.
For an account of them see An Account of the primitive Tribes and Monuments
of the jS'ilagiris, by J. W. Breeks, M.C.S., published by Allen & Co. for the India
Office in 1873, Plates VIII. and IX.
43
open framework of wood between them, which was equally universal,
and the rafters and little fashion pieces which kept the lower parts
of the roof in its place. In fact we have here in stone every feature
of those wooden facades which the earlier excavators of caves
copied so literally in the rock. It is unfortunately, however, only in
stone, and we cannot even now feel quite certain how the roof was
covered, when erected as a building standing free. It looks as if
formed of two thicknesses of wooden planks, one bent, and the
other laid longitudinally, and with a covering of metal; it could
hardly have been thatch, the thickness is scarcely sufficient, and
when men were copying construction so literally, it would have
been easy to have made the outer covering 9 inches or a foot in
thickness instead of only the same as the other two coverings.1 Be
this as it may, the age of the facade is not doubtful, and so far as
we at present know it is the earliest architectural composition that
exists in any part of India,, and one of the most instructive, from the
literal manner in which it its wooden prototypes are copied in the
rock.-
1 The whole thickness of the roof so far as I can make out from the photographs is
only 9 or 10 inches.
a The buildings now existing in India, that seem most like these primitive caves in
elevation, are the huts or houses erected by the Todas on the Nllagiri hills. They are
formed of bambu neatly bound together with rattans. Their section is nearly the
same as that of the caves, and they are covered externally with a very delicate thatch.
For an account of them see An Account of the primitive Tribes and Monuments
of the jS'ilagiris, by J. W. Breeks, M.C.S., published by Allen & Co. for the India
Office in 1873, Plates VIII. and IX.