DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.2371#0408
386 BUDDHIST CAVE-TEMPLES.
dah.1 A great slab of rock, however, several feet thick and more
than fifty in length, has split off by a horizontal flaw, and fallen
down on the platform, crushing the pillars of the porch under it.
The verandah is 76 feet 5 inches long and 9 feet wide, with eight
pillars in front, each with square bases and round or polygonal
shafts of four different patterns, and bracket capitals with struts
under each wing of the bracket, carved mostly with female figures.
The whole style of these columns is so similar to that of those of
Cave I. at Ajanta, and of others near the eastern extremity of the
group, they must be assigned to the same age, while this being pro-
bably the last cave attempted here, it fixes the latest limit of this
series as about coeval with or slightly subsequent to the latest
at Ajanta—say towards the middle or end of the seventh century a.d.
The back wall of the verandah is pierced for three doors and two
windows. It was intended for a 28 pillared Vihara; but the work
was stopped when only the front aisle, about 9 feet wide, had been
roughly cleared out.
Cave II.—Descending now to the second cave, we find that it has
been a temple intended solely for worship, and yet not of the
pattern usually designated Chaitya caves, but of a form probably
borrowed by the MaMydiia sect of Buddhists from the Brahmanical
temples. The front is quite destroyed, but it has consisted of a
verandah or open hall, 21 feet 6 inches wide by 12 feet 10 inches
deep, with two pillars and their corresponding pilasters in front-
Behind this the floor is raised about 2 feet, and on this stand two
square pillars neatly carved on the upper halves of the shafts.
Inside these is an aisle, about 9 feet wide and 21 feet long, in front
of the shrine, which is surrounded by a pradahhind or passage tor
circumambulation—a ceremony probably taken over, with others,
from the Brahmanical religions, and employed by the Hindi/Hi"11!
primitive Buddhists in connexion with the Chaitya, and by
Mahdydna or later development of the sect, as in this case, in con
nexion with the shrine containing the principal image.
At the doorway of this shrine stand two tall figures, each upon .
lotus flower. That on the left of the door is the more pi*""
dressed, and from the small image of Buddha on his forehead
1 Archaological Reports, vol. iii., Bidar and Aurangabad, p. 60, Plates XL. •»
dah.1 A great slab of rock, however, several feet thick and more
than fifty in length, has split off by a horizontal flaw, and fallen
down on the platform, crushing the pillars of the porch under it.
The verandah is 76 feet 5 inches long and 9 feet wide, with eight
pillars in front, each with square bases and round or polygonal
shafts of four different patterns, and bracket capitals with struts
under each wing of the bracket, carved mostly with female figures.
The whole style of these columns is so similar to that of those of
Cave I. at Ajanta, and of others near the eastern extremity of the
group, they must be assigned to the same age, while this being pro-
bably the last cave attempted here, it fixes the latest limit of this
series as about coeval with or slightly subsequent to the latest
at Ajanta—say towards the middle or end of the seventh century a.d.
The back wall of the verandah is pierced for three doors and two
windows. It was intended for a 28 pillared Vihara; but the work
was stopped when only the front aisle, about 9 feet wide, had been
roughly cleared out.
Cave II.—Descending now to the second cave, we find that it has
been a temple intended solely for worship, and yet not of the
pattern usually designated Chaitya caves, but of a form probably
borrowed by the MaMydiia sect of Buddhists from the Brahmanical
temples. The front is quite destroyed, but it has consisted of a
verandah or open hall, 21 feet 6 inches wide by 12 feet 10 inches
deep, with two pillars and their corresponding pilasters in front-
Behind this the floor is raised about 2 feet, and on this stand two
square pillars neatly carved on the upper halves of the shafts.
Inside these is an aisle, about 9 feet wide and 21 feet long, in front
of the shrine, which is surrounded by a pradahhind or passage tor
circumambulation—a ceremony probably taken over, with others,
from the Brahmanical religions, and employed by the Hindi/Hi"11!
primitive Buddhists in connexion with the Chaitya, and by
Mahdydna or later development of the sect, as in this case, in con
nexion with the shrine containing the principal image.
At the doorway of this shrine stand two tall figures, each upon .
lotus flower. That on the left of the door is the more pi*""
dressed, and from the small image of Buddha on his forehead
1 Archaological Reports, vol. iii., Bidar and Aurangabad, p. 60, Plates XL. •»