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

250 EARLY BUDDHIST CAVE-TEMPLES.

frequently among Buddhist symbols at an early age. The character
of the letters are not so old as those employed at Udayagiri, but still
certainly before the Christian era.1 The lower hall has three cells in
each side wall and four in the back, several of them unfinished.

Further north, and somewhat higher, beyond a recess and a cis-
tern with two openings into it, is a Vihara, the whole front of which
is open. It has a plain pilaster at each end, with holes in them for
the fastenings of a wooden front that has at one time screened the
interior. This mode of closing the fronts of these rooms seems to
have been employed in several instances here, and these, so far as
can be conjectured, are among the oldest caves. A bench runs round
the interior walls, with an advanced dais or seat at the back, perhaps
for a sthavira or teacher.

Next we come to some large cisterns, of which the roof has fallen
in, and over the north side of them is a large vihara with four cells
in the back and two in the south end. In this, again, there seems
originally to have been only a wooden front, but in its place has been
substitated a stone one, of ten courses of ashlar carefully jointed,
with a lattice stone window and a neatly-carved door of the style of
about the tenth or eleventh century. This alteration was probably
made by some Hindu sect—not Buddhist. There is a fragment of
an inscription outside, at the north end over a stone bench. At the
commencement is the Buddhist trisula symbol; but only three or
four letters in the line can be made out.

North from this are some more cells, much decayed, but which
had probably all wooden fronts. There are holes in the stone for
fastenings which could only have been in wood, which clearly indi-
cate that this was the mode employed to close the front.

A difficult scramble along the face of the cliff brings us to the
Bara Kotri—so called from a large vihara cave with twelve cells
First, over a cistern, broken in, is a dagoba in half relief in fr0"
of a large cell with a stone bed in it, and having on the south site
of the door an inscription in five lines of varying length.2 JJj>
are four cells, the last with a stone bed; third, three cisterns wit
small hall over the last which once has had two square pilars
front and reached by a stair. Fourth, the vihara that gives nam

1 No. 11 in the series given in Ind. Ant., vol. vi., plate at p. 38.

2 Nos. VIII. and IX. in J. B. B. B. A. S., vol. v. pp. 163, "*