DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.2371#0208
186 CAVE-TEMPLES OF WESTERN INDIA.
yana sect. There is no Chaitya Cave in the series as it now exists,
but several caves have fallen in. This group may be placed about
a.d. 350 to 450.
6. Many of the Salsette Oaves at Kanheri and Magathana in
Bombay harbour are 'of comparatively recent date, and their range
is very extensive. They may be placed between a.d. 150 and 850.
7. A small group of caves at Dhank, in the same province, circa
a.d. 700.
8. The Buddhist Caves at Dhamnar and at Kholvi, must extend
down to a.d. 700 at least, if not to even a later date.
It is hardly probable that any subsequent researches will disturb
this chronology, to any material extent. A thorough revision of the
inscriptions, however, especially if it should result in enabling us to fix
the dates of the Andhrabhritya kings with certainty, would give the
list a precision in which, it must be confessed, it is in some instances
deficient at present.1
1 Before leaving this branch of the subject, it may be interesting to allude to the
curious similarities that exist betvveeen some of the Buddhist forms just referred to,
and many of those which are found in Europe in the middle ages.
The form of the Chaitya caves and the position of the altar and choir must strike
anyone who compares these plans with those of early Christian churches, but the essen-
tial analogy that exists between the dagoba and the altar is even more striking. Every
dagoba had a relic in or on the table under the umbrella. There are evidences of this
in every known instance, while no mediaeval altar was an altar, in a religious sense,
until a relic had been put into it or under it. This is, in fact, what constitutes it an
altar.
The monasteries too, though existing before the Christian era, are in their forms
and institutions so like those afterwards adopted in Europe, that their investigation
opens up numerous important questions, that ought to interest, but can hardly be enterei
upon in a work like the present.
yana sect. There is no Chaitya Cave in the series as it now exists,
but several caves have fallen in. This group may be placed about
a.d. 350 to 450.
6. Many of the Salsette Oaves at Kanheri and Magathana in
Bombay harbour are 'of comparatively recent date, and their range
is very extensive. They may be placed between a.d. 150 and 850.
7. A small group of caves at Dhank, in the same province, circa
a.d. 700.
8. The Buddhist Caves at Dhamnar and at Kholvi, must extend
down to a.d. 700 at least, if not to even a later date.
It is hardly probable that any subsequent researches will disturb
this chronology, to any material extent. A thorough revision of the
inscriptions, however, especially if it should result in enabling us to fix
the dates of the Andhrabhritya kings with certainty, would give the
list a precision in which, it must be confessed, it is in some instances
deficient at present.1
1 Before leaving this branch of the subject, it may be interesting to allude to the
curious similarities that exist betvveeen some of the Buddhist forms just referred to,
and many of those which are found in Europe in the middle ages.
The form of the Chaitya caves and the position of the altar and choir must strike
anyone who compares these plans with those of early Christian churches, but the essen-
tial analogy that exists between the dagoba and the altar is even more striking. Every
dagoba had a relic in or on the table under the umbrella. There are evidences of this
in every known instance, while no mediaeval altar was an altar, in a religious sense,
until a relic had been put into it or under it. This is, in fact, what constitutes it an
altar.
The monasteries too, though existing before the Christian era, are in their forms
and institutions so like those afterwards adopted in Europe, that their investigation
opens up numerous important questions, that ought to interest, but can hardly be enterei
upon in a work like the present.