DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.2371#0161
sahadeva's ratha. 139
Each of these 16 cells at Jamalgiri, according to General Cun-
ningham, originally contained a figure of Buddha seated in the usual
cross-legged conventional attitude. This Rath may have contained a
Linga, if that emblem was introduced into the south as early as
700 a.d., or more probably a figure of Siva in some of his manifes-
tations, but which, not being cut in the rock, has disappeared.
The age of the Jamalgiri monasteries has not yet been settled,
they are certainly earlier than the Raths at Mahavallipur, but their
distance in time cannot be very great. The Buddhism there deve-
loped is very similar to that found in the later caves at Ajanta, and
elsewhere, ranging from the fifth to the seventh century of our era,
which cannot consequently be long subsequent to the date of these
Peshawar monasteries, which cannot be very far removed from that
of the Mahavallipur Raths.
It may probably appear to some, that more space has been devoted
to these Raths than is justified either by their relative dimensions or
their artistic merits, but the fact is, that it seems almost impossible
to overestimate their importance to the history of Buddhist archi-
tecture. One of its most remarkable peculiarities is, that though
we have some 700 or 800 caves spread over the 1,000 years during
which Buddhism flourished in India, we have not, excepting the
Topes and their rails, one single structural building, and among the
caves not one that has an exterior; without exception the latter are
only interiors with one fagade, through which the light is introduced.
No Buddhist cave has even two, much less three, external sides, and
not one has an external roof. Under these circumstances it is an ex-
ceptional piece of good luck to find a petrified Buddhist village—on
a small scale it must be confessed—and applied to the purposes of
another religion, but still representing Buddhist forms just at that
age when their religion with its architectural forms were perishing
out of the land where it arose. At the same time no one who has paid
any attention to the subject can, I fancy, for one moment doubt that
Arjuna's and Dhamaraja's Rathas are correct models on a small scalo
°f the monasteries or viharas of the Buddhists, that the Granesa
temple and Bhima's Raths are in like manner models of the Salas or
■Halls of the Buddhists, that Draupadi's Rath represents a hermitage
and Sahadeva's a chapel belonging to the votaries of that religions
Ike forms of the two last named have fallen into disuse, their pur-
Each of these 16 cells at Jamalgiri, according to General Cun-
ningham, originally contained a figure of Buddha seated in the usual
cross-legged conventional attitude. This Rath may have contained a
Linga, if that emblem was introduced into the south as early as
700 a.d., or more probably a figure of Siva in some of his manifes-
tations, but which, not being cut in the rock, has disappeared.
The age of the Jamalgiri monasteries has not yet been settled,
they are certainly earlier than the Raths at Mahavallipur, but their
distance in time cannot be very great. The Buddhism there deve-
loped is very similar to that found in the later caves at Ajanta, and
elsewhere, ranging from the fifth to the seventh century of our era,
which cannot consequently be long subsequent to the date of these
Peshawar monasteries, which cannot be very far removed from that
of the Mahavallipur Raths.
It may probably appear to some, that more space has been devoted
to these Raths than is justified either by their relative dimensions or
their artistic merits, but the fact is, that it seems almost impossible
to overestimate their importance to the history of Buddhist archi-
tecture. One of its most remarkable peculiarities is, that though
we have some 700 or 800 caves spread over the 1,000 years during
which Buddhism flourished in India, we have not, excepting the
Topes and their rails, one single structural building, and among the
caves not one that has an exterior; without exception the latter are
only interiors with one fagade, through which the light is introduced.
No Buddhist cave has even two, much less three, external sides, and
not one has an external roof. Under these circumstances it is an ex-
ceptional piece of good luck to find a petrified Buddhist village—on
a small scale it must be confessed—and applied to the purposes of
another religion, but still representing Buddhist forms just at that
age when their religion with its architectural forms were perishing
out of the land where it arose. At the same time no one who has paid
any attention to the subject can, I fancy, for one moment doubt that
Arjuna's and Dhamaraja's Rathas are correct models on a small scalo
°f the monasteries or viharas of the Buddhists, that the Granesa
temple and Bhima's Raths are in like manner models of the Salas or
■Halls of the Buddhists, that Draupadi's Rath represents a hermitage
and Sahadeva's a chapel belonging to the votaries of that religions
Ike forms of the two last named have fallen into disuse, their pur-