DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.2371#0421
399
BOOK III.
THE BRAHMANICAL CAVES.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
It is sufficiently evident, from what has been said in the pre-
ceding pages, that the Buddhists were the first to appreciate the
fitness of the stratified rocks of India for the construction of temples
appropriate to the purposes of their religion, and as abodes for the
priests who were to serve in them, and they retained a monopoly of
the idea long enough to perfect a style of their own, without any ad-
mixture of elements borrowed from any other form of faith. When,
however, in the decline of their religion the Brahmans were com-
peting with them for popular favour, they eagerly seized on a form
°t architectural expression which evidently had gained a strong
"old on the public imagination, and in the sixth and seventh centuries
commenced the excavation of a number of caves which rival those
°t their predecessors in extent and elaborateness of decoration,
'ough certainly not in appropriateness for the purposes for which
they were designed.
* ™» them monasticism does not occupy so prominent a place as
Un the Buddhists, and is not connected in any way with the
I pular worship, so that monastic abodes were not required, and all
ahmanical °aves copied from the Viharas became simply
pies of the new faith. Nor were the ceremonials of their rituals
alike, and as it happened that the Chaitya form of temple was
so suitable for either the Saiva or Vaishnava cults, as the later
as tl ° n^st Vihara ; it seems accordingly to have been chosen
} st model. The side cells were, of course, dispensed with,
BOOK III.
THE BRAHMANICAL CAVES.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
It is sufficiently evident, from what has been said in the pre-
ceding pages, that the Buddhists were the first to appreciate the
fitness of the stratified rocks of India for the construction of temples
appropriate to the purposes of their religion, and as abodes for the
priests who were to serve in them, and they retained a monopoly of
the idea long enough to perfect a style of their own, without any ad-
mixture of elements borrowed from any other form of faith. When,
however, in the decline of their religion the Brahmans were com-
peting with them for popular favour, they eagerly seized on a form
°t architectural expression which evidently had gained a strong
"old on the public imagination, and in the sixth and seventh centuries
commenced the excavation of a number of caves which rival those
°t their predecessors in extent and elaborateness of decoration,
'ough certainly not in appropriateness for the purposes for which
they were designed.
* ™» them monasticism does not occupy so prominent a place as
Un the Buddhists, and is not connected in any way with the
I pular worship, so that monastic abodes were not required, and all
ahmanical °aves copied from the Viharas became simply
pies of the new faith. Nor were the ceremonials of their rituals
alike, and as it happened that the Chaitya form of temple was
so suitable for either the Saiva or Vaishnava cults, as the later
as tl ° n^st Vihara ; it seems accordingly to have been chosen
} st model. The side cells were, of course, dispensed with,