DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.2371#0414
302 BUDDHIST CAVE-TEMPLES.
No. IX. is at a somewhat higher level, but is very much ruined, and
filled up with mud. Its front hall has been 85 feet long by nearly
19 feet deep, with three smaller ones at the back, each leading into a
shrine, but much of the cave has been left unfinished. On the walls
are several female figures larger than life, and on the west wall
Buddha is represented, 16 feet in length, lying on his right side, dying
or entering nirvana, while on the back wall, at his feet, is a
four-armed image of Padmapani—the only one of the kind here.
The other caves in the same hills are perfectly plain and some of
them unfinished, with little or nothing to indicate whether they were
Buddhist or Brahmanical.
Dhamnar.
The caves of Dhumnar or Dhamnar,1 near the village of Chan-
dwas in Rajputana, are about 75 miles north of Ujjain, 70 south of
Kota, and 22 miles north-west from those of Kholvi. They were
first noticed by Colonel Tod who visited them in December 1821,'
and they have since been examined by Mr. Fergusson,3 and General
Cunningham,4 the latter of whom has given a plan of the principal
group of Buddhist caves, but on rather too small a scale and with
too few details to be of much service.
The flat-topped hill in which they are excavated is composed of
a coarse laterite not at all favourable to the execution of the minute
details of sculpture. In this hill there are four groups of caves,—
two in the north-west, one at the point of a spur to the west, ana
the fourth and only important group in a bay to the south. Most
of them are small, being merely cells, and altogether they may
amount to about sixty or seventy.5
The principal group on the south face of the hill are all Buddha
caves, and from the style of their architectural details and their
1 Tod writes '' Dhoomnar," Cunningham " Dhamnar." j
2 Ann. and Antiq, of Rajasthan, vol. ii. p. 721 ff., or Madras ed., vol. ii- PP- ***
Tod was misled by his Jain attendant in regarding the Buddhist eaves as deilica
he Tirthankaras.
3 Rock-cut Temples of India, p. 40; and Ind. and East. Archil., pp. 131-1°-
* Archceological Report, vol. n. for 1864-65, pp. 270 ff. ^
5 Fergussou's Rock-Temples, p. 42; Tod says he counted "one liundn^a
seventy," Bajasthan, vol. ii. p. 721 conf. Cunningham, Arch. Rep-, vol. "• !'• -
No. IX. is at a somewhat higher level, but is very much ruined, and
filled up with mud. Its front hall has been 85 feet long by nearly
19 feet deep, with three smaller ones at the back, each leading into a
shrine, but much of the cave has been left unfinished. On the walls
are several female figures larger than life, and on the west wall
Buddha is represented, 16 feet in length, lying on his right side, dying
or entering nirvana, while on the back wall, at his feet, is a
four-armed image of Padmapani—the only one of the kind here.
The other caves in the same hills are perfectly plain and some of
them unfinished, with little or nothing to indicate whether they were
Buddhist or Brahmanical.
Dhamnar.
The caves of Dhumnar or Dhamnar,1 near the village of Chan-
dwas in Rajputana, are about 75 miles north of Ujjain, 70 south of
Kota, and 22 miles north-west from those of Kholvi. They were
first noticed by Colonel Tod who visited them in December 1821,'
and they have since been examined by Mr. Fergusson,3 and General
Cunningham,4 the latter of whom has given a plan of the principal
group of Buddhist caves, but on rather too small a scale and with
too few details to be of much service.
The flat-topped hill in which they are excavated is composed of
a coarse laterite not at all favourable to the execution of the minute
details of sculpture. In this hill there are four groups of caves,—
two in the north-west, one at the point of a spur to the west, ana
the fourth and only important group in a bay to the south. Most
of them are small, being merely cells, and altogether they may
amount to about sixty or seventy.5
The principal group on the south face of the hill are all Buddha
caves, and from the style of their architectural details and their
1 Tod writes '' Dhoomnar," Cunningham " Dhamnar." j
2 Ann. and Antiq, of Rajasthan, vol. ii. p. 721 ff., or Madras ed., vol. ii- PP- ***
Tod was misled by his Jain attendant in regarding the Buddhist eaves as deilica
he Tirthankaras.
3 Rock-cut Temples of India, p. 40; and Ind. and East. Archil., pp. 131-1°-
* Archceological Report, vol. n. for 1864-65, pp. 270 ff. ^
5 Fergussou's Rock-Temples, p. 42; Tod says he counted "one liundn^a
seventy," Bajasthan, vol. ii. p. 721 conf. Cunningham, Arch. Rep-, vol. "• !'• -