DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9541#0189
1GG
BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE.
Book I.
group is in itself sufficient to prove how late it is. If we take a.d. 600
as the medium date for the Viswakarma and its surroundings, and
a.d. 750 as a time when the last trace of Buddhism had disappeared
from western India, we shall probably not err to any great extent ;
but we must wait for some inscriptions or more precise data before
attempting to speak with precision on the subject.
A great deal more requires to be done before this great cartoon
can be filled up with anything like completeness; but in the mean-
while it is satisfactory to know that in these "rock-cut temples," eked
out by the few structural examples that exist, we have a complete
history of the arts and liturgies of the Buddhists for the thousand
years that ranged from b.c. 250 to a.d. 750 ; and that, when any one
with zeal and intelligence enough for the purpose will devote himself to
the task, he will be able to give us a more vivid and far more authentic
account of this remarkable form of faith than can be gathered from any
books whose existence is now known to us.
Junie.
When the history of the cave-temples of western India conies to-
be written in anything like a complete and exhaustive manner, the
groups situated near and around the town of Junir, about half-way
between Nassick and Poonah, will occupy a prominent position in
the series. There are not, it is true, in this locality any chaityas so
magnificent as that at Karli, nor any probably so old as those at
Bhaja and Bedsa; but there is one chaitya, both in plan and dimen-
sions, very like that at Nassick and probably of the same age, and
one vihara, at least, quite equal to the finest at that place. The
great interest of the series, however, consists in its possessing examples
of forms not known elsewhere. There are, for instance, certainly
two, probably three, chaitya caves, with square terminations and
without internal pillars, and one circular cave which is quite unique
so far as we at present know.
These caves have long been known to antiquarians. In 18:-i;j
Colonel Sykes published a series of inscriptions copied from them,
but without any description of the caves themselves.1 In 1817,
Dr. Bird noticed them in his 'Historical Researches,' with some
wretched lithographs, so bad as to be almost unintelligible; in 1850,
Dr. Wilson described them in the 'Bombay Journal'; and in 1857
Dr. Stevenson republished their inscriptions, with translations, in
the eighth volume of the same journal; and lastly Mr. Sinclair of the
Bombay Civil Service, wrote an account of them in the ' Indian
Antiquary' for February, 1874. Notwithstanding all this, we are
1 'Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,' vol. iv. pp. 287-291.
BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE.
Book I.
group is in itself sufficient to prove how late it is. If we take a.d. 600
as the medium date for the Viswakarma and its surroundings, and
a.d. 750 as a time when the last trace of Buddhism had disappeared
from western India, we shall probably not err to any great extent ;
but we must wait for some inscriptions or more precise data before
attempting to speak with precision on the subject.
A great deal more requires to be done before this great cartoon
can be filled up with anything like completeness; but in the mean-
while it is satisfactory to know that in these "rock-cut temples," eked
out by the few structural examples that exist, we have a complete
history of the arts and liturgies of the Buddhists for the thousand
years that ranged from b.c. 250 to a.d. 750 ; and that, when any one
with zeal and intelligence enough for the purpose will devote himself to
the task, he will be able to give us a more vivid and far more authentic
account of this remarkable form of faith than can be gathered from any
books whose existence is now known to us.
Junie.
When the history of the cave-temples of western India conies to-
be written in anything like a complete and exhaustive manner, the
groups situated near and around the town of Junir, about half-way
between Nassick and Poonah, will occupy a prominent position in
the series. There are not, it is true, in this locality any chaityas so
magnificent as that at Karli, nor any probably so old as those at
Bhaja and Bedsa; but there is one chaitya, both in plan and dimen-
sions, very like that at Nassick and probably of the same age, and
one vihara, at least, quite equal to the finest at that place. The
great interest of the series, however, consists in its possessing examples
of forms not known elsewhere. There are, for instance, certainly
two, probably three, chaitya caves, with square terminations and
without internal pillars, and one circular cave which is quite unique
so far as we at present know.
These caves have long been known to antiquarians. In 18:-i;j
Colonel Sykes published a series of inscriptions copied from them,
but without any description of the caves themselves.1 In 1817,
Dr. Bird noticed them in his 'Historical Researches,' with some
wretched lithographs, so bad as to be almost unintelligible; in 1850,
Dr. Wilson described them in the 'Bombay Journal'; and in 1857
Dr. Stevenson republished their inscriptions, with translations, in
the eighth volume of the same journal; and lastly Mr. Sinclair of the
Bombay Civil Service, wrote an account of them in the ' Indian
Antiquary' for February, 1874. Notwithstanding all this, we are
1 'Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,' vol. iv. pp. 287-291.