DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.2371#0113
GANESA GUMPHA. 91
the sculptures from that vast repository of improbable fables. Still,
having recognised beyond doubt the Wasantara, the Sama, and other
Jatakas at Sanchi, where no descriptive inscriptions exist,1—and the
inscribed ones at Bharhut show how favourite a mode of illustration
they were at the age of these caves,—we ought not to despair that
they may yet yield their secrets to future investigators. A more
remarkable peculiarity of this group of caves is the total absence of
any Chaitya caves, or of any sanctuary in the Viharas, which could
ever have been appropriated to worship in any form. In all the
western groups, such as Bhaja, Bedsa, Nasik, Ajanta, everywhere in
fact, the Chaitya, or church cave, seems to have been commenced
as early as the Yiharas or monasteries to which they were attached,
The two in fact being considered indispensable to form a com-
plete monastic establishment. Here, on the contrary, though we
have Aira in his famous inscription boasting that he had " caused
to be constructed subterranean chambers and caves containing a
Chaitya temple and pillars," 2 we find nothing of this sort anywhere.
No traces of such excavation, have been found, and the Viharas also
differ most essentially from those found on the western side of
India. There in almost every instance the Vihara consists of a
central hall, round which the cells are ranged; nowhere do the cells
open directly,—except in the smallest hermitages,—on the verandah,
or on the outer air.
The only means that occur to me of accounting for these differences,
which appear to be radical and important, is by supposing that in
Behar and Orissa there existed a religion—Buddhist or Jaina—using
the same forms, and requiring the same class of constructions, that
were afterwards stereotyped in the caves. If this were so there
probably existed, before Asoka's time, halls of assembly and monas-
teries—constructed in wood of course—which were appropriate for
this form of worship, and they continued to use these throughout
the whole Buddhist period without, as a rule, attempting to imitate
them in the rock.
1 Tree and Serpent fVorship, Plates XXXVI. and XXXVIII. The identification
of these jatakas at that time was one of the most important discoveries made in modern
times for the authentication of the Buddhist scriptures. Before that many were inclined
to believe that the Jatakas were mere modern inventions. Then for the first time it
was proved that before the Christian era they existed, and very nearly in the same
form as at the present day.
2 J- A. S. B., vol. vi. p. 1084.
the sculptures from that vast repository of improbable fables. Still,
having recognised beyond doubt the Wasantara, the Sama, and other
Jatakas at Sanchi, where no descriptive inscriptions exist,1—and the
inscribed ones at Bharhut show how favourite a mode of illustration
they were at the age of these caves,—we ought not to despair that
they may yet yield their secrets to future investigators. A more
remarkable peculiarity of this group of caves is the total absence of
any Chaitya caves, or of any sanctuary in the Viharas, which could
ever have been appropriated to worship in any form. In all the
western groups, such as Bhaja, Bedsa, Nasik, Ajanta, everywhere in
fact, the Chaitya, or church cave, seems to have been commenced
as early as the Yiharas or monasteries to which they were attached,
The two in fact being considered indispensable to form a com-
plete monastic establishment. Here, on the contrary, though we
have Aira in his famous inscription boasting that he had " caused
to be constructed subterranean chambers and caves containing a
Chaitya temple and pillars," 2 we find nothing of this sort anywhere.
No traces of such excavation, have been found, and the Viharas also
differ most essentially from those found on the western side of
India. There in almost every instance the Vihara consists of a
central hall, round which the cells are ranged; nowhere do the cells
open directly,—except in the smallest hermitages,—on the verandah,
or on the outer air.
The only means that occur to me of accounting for these differences,
which appear to be radical and important, is by supposing that in
Behar and Orissa there existed a religion—Buddhist or Jaina—using
the same forms, and requiring the same class of constructions, that
were afterwards stereotyped in the caves. If this were so there
probably existed, before Asoka's time, halls of assembly and monas-
teries—constructed in wood of course—which were appropriate for
this form of worship, and they continued to use these throughout
the whole Buddhist period without, as a rule, attempting to imitate
them in the rock.
1 Tree and Serpent fVorship, Plates XXXVI. and XXXVIII. The identification
of these jatakas at that time was one of the most important discoveries made in modern
times for the authentication of the Buddhist scriptures. Before that many were inclined
to believe that the Jatakas were mere modern inventions. Then for the first time it
was proved that before the Christian era they existed, and very nearly in the same
form as at the present day.
2 J- A. S. B., vol. vi. p. 1084.