Fergusson, James; Burgess, James: The cave temples of India (London, 1880)

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CHAPTER II.
KATAK CAYES.
Introductory.

To the artist or the architect the group of caves situated on the
Udayagiri hill in Orissa is perhaps even more interesting than those
in Behar just described, but to the archaeologist they are less so,
from the difficulty of fixing their dates with the same certainty, and
because their forms have not the same direct bearing on the origin or
history of the great groups of caves on the western side of India.
Notwithstanding this, the picturesqueness of their forms, the richness
of their sculptures and architectural details, combined with their
acknowledged antiquity, render them one of the most important
groups of caves in India, and one that it is impossible to pass over
in such a work as this, without describing them in very considerable
detail.

The caves in question are all situated in a picturesque and well
wooded group of hills that rise out of the level plains of the Delta
of the Mahanaddi, almost like islands from the ocean. Their com-
position is of a coarse sandstone rock, very unusual in that neigh-
bourhood, but which from that circumstance offered greater facilities
for their excavation than the laterite rocks with which the country
everywhere abounds. Their position is not marked on any of the
ordinary maps of the country, but may easily be fixed, as their
bearing is 17 miles slightly to the east of south from Katak, and
4 miles north-west from Bhuvaneswar. The great Saiva temple of
that city, one of the oldest and finest in India, being easily dis-
cernible from the tops of the hills in which the caves are excavated.

Besides the facilities for excavation, there were probably other
motives which attracted the early Buddhist hermits to select these
hills as their abode and continue to occupy them during three or
four centuries at least. "We may probably never be able to ascertain
with accuracy what these reasons were, or how early they were so
occupied. We know, however, that Asoka about the year 250 b.c.
selected the Aswatama rocks, near Dhauli, about 6 miles south-east