DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.2371#0224
202 EABLV BUDDHIST CAVE-TEMPLES.
usually divides such excavations into an outer verandah and an inner
hall. It seems to have been constructed as a place of assembly or
religious instruction, a Dharmasala in fact, where the early Buddhist
missionaries preached to the simple people of the district, and taught
them the new doctrines. Outside the entrance are wells or tanks on
both sides, and several cells. On its facade are fragments of a modi-
fied, perhaps, a very primitive form of the horse-shoe or chaitya-
window ornament, and of the Buddhist rail pattern, but this is the
only sculpture now traceable among these caves.
The others are small plain caves not meriting description. In one
of them is a dagoba or stone cylinder with hemispherical top of a
very simple type, the base only entire, and the remains of the torarm
or capital still attached to the flat roof of the cave. The dagoba
and general arrangements of these caves are sufficient indications of
their being Buddhist works; and though we have no very definite
means of determining their antiquity, yet from the simplicity of
their arrangements, and except that already mentioned on the facade
of the Ebhal Mandap from the entire absence of sculpture, such as
is common in all the later Buddhist caves, we may relegate them to
a very early age, possibly even to that of Asoka or soon after.
The rock is of very different qualities in different parts of the
hill; but where the existing caves are executed it is full of quartz
veins ramified among nodules of varying degrees of hardness, and
the disintegration of these under the effects of atmospheric in-
fluences has so destroyed the original surface, that if any inscriptions
ever existed, they must have disappeared long ago.
Sana.
Considerably to the south-west of Talaja and a march from
Bajula, is the village and hill of Lor or Lauhar, in Babriawad, in
which are some natural caves appropriated to local divinities, and a
small and perfectly plain excavation, probably a Buddhist ascetic s
cell. Farther west, and not far from the village of Vankia, is &e
Sana hill, ^a wild, desolate place, without a human habitation in
sight. Close to the foot of the hill is a perennial stream which aids
to redeem the view, and doubtless helped to tempt the first ascetics
to hew out their dwellings in the adjoining rock. The hill consists
of several spurs from a central ridge, on the top of which are soffl
old foundations of very large bricks.
usually divides such excavations into an outer verandah and an inner
hall. It seems to have been constructed as a place of assembly or
religious instruction, a Dharmasala in fact, where the early Buddhist
missionaries preached to the simple people of the district, and taught
them the new doctrines. Outside the entrance are wells or tanks on
both sides, and several cells. On its facade are fragments of a modi-
fied, perhaps, a very primitive form of the horse-shoe or chaitya-
window ornament, and of the Buddhist rail pattern, but this is the
only sculpture now traceable among these caves.
The others are small plain caves not meriting description. In one
of them is a dagoba or stone cylinder with hemispherical top of a
very simple type, the base only entire, and the remains of the torarm
or capital still attached to the flat roof of the cave. The dagoba
and general arrangements of these caves are sufficient indications of
their being Buddhist works; and though we have no very definite
means of determining their antiquity, yet from the simplicity of
their arrangements, and except that already mentioned on the facade
of the Ebhal Mandap from the entire absence of sculpture, such as
is common in all the later Buddhist caves, we may relegate them to
a very early age, possibly even to that of Asoka or soon after.
The rock is of very different qualities in different parts of the
hill; but where the existing caves are executed it is full of quartz
veins ramified among nodules of varying degrees of hardness, and
the disintegration of these under the effects of atmospheric in-
fluences has so destroyed the original surface, that if any inscriptions
ever existed, they must have disappeared long ago.
Sana.
Considerably to the south-west of Talaja and a march from
Bajula, is the village and hill of Lor or Lauhar, in Babriawad, in
which are some natural caves appropriated to local divinities, and a
small and perfectly plain excavation, probably a Buddhist ascetic s
cell. Farther west, and not far from the village of Vankia, is &e
Sana hill, ^a wild, desolate place, without a human habitation in
sight. Close to the foot of the hill is a perennial stream which aids
to redeem the view, and doubtless helped to tempt the first ascetics
to hew out their dwellings in the adjoining rock. The hill consists
of several spurs from a central ridge, on the top of which are soffl
old foundations of very large bricks.