DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.2371#0423
INTRODUCTORY. 401
most perfect structural examples, and forming one of the most
beautiful and interesting monuments in India.
It was a daring effort, and the result has been one of the most
remarkable monuments in India; but a temple in a pit, which this
practically is, is an anomaly that could not be persevered in. It
was only very rarely that the Brahmans could find detached boulders,
or even ridges as at Mahavallipur, out of which to hew their shrines,
and when these did not exist, the proper effect of a monolithic temple
cannot be obtained, as it is evidently impossible, in most cases, to
remove the mountain to a sufficient extent to admit of its being
properly seen. In this respect the Buddhists were more successful,
because more logical than their successors. All their rock-cut
temples are interiors—are caves in fact—and as such perfectly suited
to the place where they are found. When, however, the inevitable
logic of facts had proved to the Brahmans, after their experience in
the matter, that interiors could not supply all they wanted for
architectural effect, they boldly attempted to supplement the defi-
ciency by adding the external forms they were familiar with to the
small modicum of accommodation that was required for the purposes
of their religion. They failed in effecting this at Mahavallipur from
their ignorance of the nature of the granite material in which they
were working, and their inexperience of the forms necessary to meet
the difficulties consequent on the nature of the mass. At Elura,
from their long experience of the material in which they were
forking, they were perfectly successful, from a mechanical point of
vw, but artistically the Kailasa was a mistake it was hardly pro-
bable would be repeated. So the Brahmans seem to have thought,
or though their greatest effort it seems also to have been their last.
here are no later Brahmanical rock-cut temples in India. What
ew cave temples there are after this date belong to the sect of the
jjms, and except those excavated within sight of the Kailasa at
ura> tuey are not remarkable either for their beauty or their
aagnincence.
g 1S difficult to fix with any certainty the age at which these
ttaiucal temples were first constructed in the rock. It would
' 0Da a remarkable passage in Porphyry,1 that there were
■ ■ ■ , . . , ....
Ylg S "iV* 56; EfephttHta, § 38, and note 58. Priaulx's Apollonius, p. 15.
most perfect structural examples, and forming one of the most
beautiful and interesting monuments in India.
It was a daring effort, and the result has been one of the most
remarkable monuments in India; but a temple in a pit, which this
practically is, is an anomaly that could not be persevered in. It
was only very rarely that the Brahmans could find detached boulders,
or even ridges as at Mahavallipur, out of which to hew their shrines,
and when these did not exist, the proper effect of a monolithic temple
cannot be obtained, as it is evidently impossible, in most cases, to
remove the mountain to a sufficient extent to admit of its being
properly seen. In this respect the Buddhists were more successful,
because more logical than their successors. All their rock-cut
temples are interiors—are caves in fact—and as such perfectly suited
to the place where they are found. When, however, the inevitable
logic of facts had proved to the Brahmans, after their experience in
the matter, that interiors could not supply all they wanted for
architectural effect, they boldly attempted to supplement the defi-
ciency by adding the external forms they were familiar with to the
small modicum of accommodation that was required for the purposes
of their religion. They failed in effecting this at Mahavallipur from
their ignorance of the nature of the granite material in which they
were working, and their inexperience of the forms necessary to meet
the difficulties consequent on the nature of the mass. At Elura,
from their long experience of the material in which they were
forking, they were perfectly successful, from a mechanical point of
vw, but artistically the Kailasa was a mistake it was hardly pro-
bable would be repeated. So the Brahmans seem to have thought,
or though their greatest effort it seems also to have been their last.
here are no later Brahmanical rock-cut temples in India. What
ew cave temples there are after this date belong to the sect of the
jjms, and except those excavated within sight of the Kailasa at
ura> tuey are not remarkable either for their beauty or their
aagnincence.
g 1S difficult to fix with any certainty the age at which these
ttaiucal temples were first constructed in the rock. It would
' 0Da a remarkable passage in Porphyry,1 that there were
■ ■ ■ , . . , ....
Ylg S "iV* 56; EfephttHta, § 38, and note 58. Priaulx's Apollonius, p. 15.