DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.2371#0410
388 BUDDHIST CAVE-TEMPLES.
bands, mostly with thick lips and very elaborate headdresses' and
necklaces.
It is difficult to conjecture the age of this work, but it may be
approximately placed about 640 to 650 a.d., or even later, for it is
evident from an inspection of its plan that the original idea of
a Vihara as an abode of monks had almost as entirely died out, as
in the latest caves at Elura. There are only four cells in the angles
which could be used for that purpose. The back and sides are used
as chapels, and adorned in the most elaborate manner, and the whole
is a shrine for worship rather than a place of residence. We cannot
tell how far the same system might have been adopted in the latest
caves at Ajanta. The corresponding caves there, XXIII. and IV.,
are only blocked out, and their plans cannot be ascertained. But
this one is certainly later than No. I. there, Plate XL., which still
retains all the features of a Vihara as completely as the Nahapana
caves at Nasik.
Cave IV.—A few yards to the east of the last is the Chaitya
cave, very much ruined, the whole front being gone, and what is
left filled with fallen rock, &c. Its dimensions seem to have been
38 feet in length by 221 wide, with seventeen plain octagonal
pillars and a Ddgoba, 5 feet 8 inches in diameter. Prom the pri-
mitive simplicity of this cave we can hardly suppose that it w»s
excavated after the middle of the fourth century, and may be even
earlier. If this be the case, then we must suppose that there were
monks' cells and Viharas of a much earlier type than any that nofl
remain. These may have been enlarged, and altered into Caves Al-
and V., or, which seems very probable, they were to the east o
No. V., where there is now a large hollow under the rock partial)
filled up with debris.
Cave V. appears to have been originally a small temple u <•
No. II., but without any dwdrpdlas to the shrine, which is all t ia
is left. Inside it is about 8 feet square, and contains a large nn<\-
of Buddha, now appropriated by the Jains of the neighbouring ci. ■
and dedicated to Parswanatha. .,
The second group of caves is about three-quarters ot a
farther east in the same range of hills. , .,
Cave VI., the most westerly of this second series, is considers
1 See Arclueologicctl Reports, vol. iii., Plate XLIX
bands, mostly with thick lips and very elaborate headdresses' and
necklaces.
It is difficult to conjecture the age of this work, but it may be
approximately placed about 640 to 650 a.d., or even later, for it is
evident from an inspection of its plan that the original idea of
a Vihara as an abode of monks had almost as entirely died out, as
in the latest caves at Elura. There are only four cells in the angles
which could be used for that purpose. The back and sides are used
as chapels, and adorned in the most elaborate manner, and the whole
is a shrine for worship rather than a place of residence. We cannot
tell how far the same system might have been adopted in the latest
caves at Ajanta. The corresponding caves there, XXIII. and IV.,
are only blocked out, and their plans cannot be ascertained. But
this one is certainly later than No. I. there, Plate XL., which still
retains all the features of a Vihara as completely as the Nahapana
caves at Nasik.
Cave IV.—A few yards to the east of the last is the Chaitya
cave, very much ruined, the whole front being gone, and what is
left filled with fallen rock, &c. Its dimensions seem to have been
38 feet in length by 221 wide, with seventeen plain octagonal
pillars and a Ddgoba, 5 feet 8 inches in diameter. Prom the pri-
mitive simplicity of this cave we can hardly suppose that it w»s
excavated after the middle of the fourth century, and may be even
earlier. If this be the case, then we must suppose that there were
monks' cells and Viharas of a much earlier type than any that nofl
remain. These may have been enlarged, and altered into Caves Al-
and V., or, which seems very probable, they were to the east o
No. V., where there is now a large hollow under the rock partial)
filled up with debris.
Cave V. appears to have been originally a small temple u <•
No. II., but without any dwdrpdlas to the shrine, which is all t ia
is left. Inside it is about 8 feet square, and contains a large nn<\-
of Buddha, now appropriated by the Jains of the neighbouring ci. ■
and dedicated to Parswanatha. .,
The second group of caves is about three-quarters ot a
farther east in the same range of hills. , .,
Cave VI., the most westerly of this second series, is considers
1 See Arclueologicctl Reports, vol. iii., Plate XLIX