DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.2371#0420
398 BUDDHIST CAVE-TEMPLES.
Dagobas on the island of Salsette, nothing of the sort has been
discovered.
This negative result is the less to be expected, inasmuch as we
know from the erection of the Tope at Sarnath, and the rebuilding
of the Great Monastery at Nalanda, that Buddhism flourished in
Bengal under the Pala dynasty from the 9th to the 12th century {ante,
p. 132), and this seems no a priori reason why this might not have
been the case in the West as well as in the East of India. There is
perhaps no country in the world, however, in which it is so unsafe to
rely on historical analogies as it is in India. The history of each pro-
vince must be taken by itself, and, however likely or unlikely it may
be, it is seldom that what may have happened in one province has so
direct bearing on what may have occurred in another, that it can be
used as an argument to illustrate any particular development either
of religion or art.
Under these circumstances it is fortunate that in the thousand
and one caves of the "West, we have a complete series of perfectly
authentic illustrations of the rise and fall of the Buddhist religion
in that region, from the time of its introduction in the age of
Asoka, in the third century before Christ, till its extinction, when
the Rathors eclipsed for a time the glories of the great Ohalukya
race in the eighth century. The Buddhists then disappear as
suddenly as they rose, being either absorbed among the Jains, with
whose faith they had many points in common, or by being converted
to that of Vishnu, towards which they had long been tending, or
crushed by the followers of Siva, who in many places superseded
them. During the 1,000 years, however, of their existence w the
West they have left in their caves a complete record of tne
vicissitudes of Hinayana and Mahayana sects among themseive*,
and of their rise and progress till their decline and fall. As
chapter of architectural history it is one of the most complete an
interesting known to exist anywhere. It is almost the onJJ °
example of a stone architecture which we can trace back
absolute certainty to its wooden original, and can follow it throue
out its whole course without detecting any foreign influence in
introduction of any borrowed forms, and in which we can watc
final extinction, in the district where it arose, together with
religion to which it owed its origin.
Dagobas on the island of Salsette, nothing of the sort has been
discovered.
This negative result is the less to be expected, inasmuch as we
know from the erection of the Tope at Sarnath, and the rebuilding
of the Great Monastery at Nalanda, that Buddhism flourished in
Bengal under the Pala dynasty from the 9th to the 12th century {ante,
p. 132), and this seems no a priori reason why this might not have
been the case in the West as well as in the East of India. There is
perhaps no country in the world, however, in which it is so unsafe to
rely on historical analogies as it is in India. The history of each pro-
vince must be taken by itself, and, however likely or unlikely it may
be, it is seldom that what may have happened in one province has so
direct bearing on what may have occurred in another, that it can be
used as an argument to illustrate any particular development either
of religion or art.
Under these circumstances it is fortunate that in the thousand
and one caves of the "West, we have a complete series of perfectly
authentic illustrations of the rise and fall of the Buddhist religion
in that region, from the time of its introduction in the age of
Asoka, in the third century before Christ, till its extinction, when
the Rathors eclipsed for a time the glories of the great Ohalukya
race in the eighth century. The Buddhists then disappear as
suddenly as they rose, being either absorbed among the Jains, with
whose faith they had many points in common, or by being converted
to that of Vishnu, towards which they had long been tending, or
crushed by the followers of Siva, who in many places superseded
them. During the 1,000 years, however, of their existence w the
West they have left in their caves a complete record of tne
vicissitudes of Hinayana and Mahayana sects among themseive*,
and of their rise and progress till their decline and fall. As
chapter of architectural history it is one of the most complete an
interesting known to exist anywhere. It is almost the onJJ °
example of a stone architecture which we can trace back
absolute certainty to its wooden original, and can follow it throue
out its whole course without detecting any foreign influence in
introduction of any borrowed forms, and in which we can watc
final extinction, in the district where it arose, together with
religion to which it owed its origin.