DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.2371#0386
364 BUDDHIST CAVE-TEMPLES.
wall are two more tall standing figures in arched recesses, one
Padmapani and the other probably some Bodhisattva, with a bottle
or water-gourd in his hand. The faces and hair of some of these
figures are really well cut; but a Jogi, who has taken possession
of the cave, is rapidly besmearing them with soot from his fires.
In the shrine is a Chaitya or dagoba, 14|- feet high and 10 feet
3 inches in diameter at the plinth of the octagonal-moulded base,
which is 4 feet high; it then becomes round for 3 feet 9 inches,
with a diameter of about 7 feet, also moulded. This supports the
dome, about 4f feet high—being considerably more than a hemi-
sphere. The box above is a mere short neck to the five overlapping
slabs which crown it. This form of Chaitya we find again repeated
in the third cave.
In the back of a cell in the east side is an aperture which leads
into another cell, and from that into an area, much choked up
with fallen rock, but which is the corner of another Vihara, of
which the whole roof has fallen in.1
No. II. seems to have been left unfinished, and is much ruined.
It has had four pillars in a front hall, of which two are gone.
Behind this another hall has been roughly blocked out with two
rows of four pillars each across it. In the sides of the front hall
are apartments with two pillars in front, and inside what appears
to be a small shrine in the middle and two cells at each end.
No. III. is known as " the painted cave," from its having been
covered with fresco painting, apparently quite as good as any at
Ajanta, but somewhat different in the subjects and arrangement.
The roof has been in compartments as at Ajanta, and about 4 feet
of the upper portion of the walls covered with intertwined vegetable
patterns, while below were figures and scenes, Buddhist Jatakas, &c,
now very much injured by the fall of much of the roof, as well as
from natives having scribbled their names over it, and from decay-
The hall is a magnificent one, about 96 feet square, with twenty-
eight pillars round it, having high square bases, but a band of so ■
earth just at the bottom has ruined many of them; inside there i
an octagon of eight round pillars, within which again are four squ<»
built piers. The rock in which the cave is cut is stratified, the dit
hit"1
bid"
1 In Captain Dangerfield's plan a series of six cells are represented in line one ue^
another: the first two only exist as shown, the others are in the wall of the cave fl
is entered beyond the second.
wall are two more tall standing figures in arched recesses, one
Padmapani and the other probably some Bodhisattva, with a bottle
or water-gourd in his hand. The faces and hair of some of these
figures are really well cut; but a Jogi, who has taken possession
of the cave, is rapidly besmearing them with soot from his fires.
In the shrine is a Chaitya or dagoba, 14|- feet high and 10 feet
3 inches in diameter at the plinth of the octagonal-moulded base,
which is 4 feet high; it then becomes round for 3 feet 9 inches,
with a diameter of about 7 feet, also moulded. This supports the
dome, about 4f feet high—being considerably more than a hemi-
sphere. The box above is a mere short neck to the five overlapping
slabs which crown it. This form of Chaitya we find again repeated
in the third cave.
In the back of a cell in the east side is an aperture which leads
into another cell, and from that into an area, much choked up
with fallen rock, but which is the corner of another Vihara, of
which the whole roof has fallen in.1
No. II. seems to have been left unfinished, and is much ruined.
It has had four pillars in a front hall, of which two are gone.
Behind this another hall has been roughly blocked out with two
rows of four pillars each across it. In the sides of the front hall
are apartments with two pillars in front, and inside what appears
to be a small shrine in the middle and two cells at each end.
No. III. is known as " the painted cave," from its having been
covered with fresco painting, apparently quite as good as any at
Ajanta, but somewhat different in the subjects and arrangement.
The roof has been in compartments as at Ajanta, and about 4 feet
of the upper portion of the walls covered with intertwined vegetable
patterns, while below were figures and scenes, Buddhist Jatakas, &c,
now very much injured by the fall of much of the roof, as well as
from natives having scribbled their names over it, and from decay-
The hall is a magnificent one, about 96 feet square, with twenty-
eight pillars round it, having high square bases, but a band of so ■
earth just at the bottom has ruined many of them; inside there i
an octagon of eight round pillars, within which again are four squ<»
built piers. The rock in which the cave is cut is stratified, the dit
hit"1
bid"
1 In Captain Dangerfield's plan a series of six cells are represented in line one ue^
another: the first two only exist as shown, the others are in the wall of the cave fl
is entered beyond the second.