IV. RAILS…

IV. RAILS

CONTENTS.

Rails at Bharhut, Muttra, Sanchi, and Amravati.

It is only recently that our rapidly-increasing knowledge has enabled us to appreciate the important part which Rails play in the history of Buddhist architecture. The rail of the great Tope at Sanchi has, it is true, been long known; but it is the plainest of those yet discovered, and without the inscriptions which are found on it, and the gateways that were subsequently added to it, presents few features to interest any one. There is a second rail at Sanchi which is more ornamented and more interesting, but it has not yet been published in such a manner as to render its features or its history intelligible. The same is at least partially true of the great rail at Buddh Gaya, though it is one of the oldest and finest of its kind. When, however, the Amravati sculptures were brought to light and pieced together,[112] it was perceived that the rail might, and in that instance did, become one of the most elaborate and ornamental features of the style. Since then General Cunningham has found two or three buried rails at Muttra, and his crowning discovery of the great rail at Bharhut, has made it clear that this was the feature on which the early Buddhist architects lavished all the resources of their art, and from the study of which we may consequently expect to learn most.

The two oldest rails of which we have any knowledge in India are those at Buddh Gaya and that recently discovered at Bharhut. The former, General Cunningham thinks, cannot be of much later date than Asoka.[113] The latter, in his ‘Memorandum,’[114] he ascribes to the age of that monarch. These determinations he founds principally on the form of the characters used in the inscriptions on them, which certainly are nearly identical with those used on the lâts. From them, and the details of the sculptures, it is quite evident they cannot be far removed in age from the dates so assigned to them. On the whole, however, I am inclined to believe that the Buddh Gaya rail was really erected by Asoka, or during his reign. At all events, we know from the fifteenth chapter of the ‘Mahawanso’ that even if he did not worship this tree, he certainly reverenced it to such an extent that when he sent his daughter Sangamitta to aid in the conversion of Ceylon to the true faith, he cut off and entrusted her with a branch of this tree planted in a golden vessel. That tree was replanted with infinite ceremony at Anuradhapura, and it, or its lineal descendant, remains the principal numen of the island to this day. Hiouen Thsang tells us that Asoka built a small vihara to the east of the tree on the spot where the present temple stands;[115] and nothing is consequently more probable than he should have added this rail, which is concentric with his vihara, but not with the tree.

There certainly is no inherent improbability that he should have done so, for it seems hardly doubtful that this was the tree under whose shade Sakya Muni attained “complete enlightenment,” or, in other words, reached Buddhahood; and no spot consequently could be considered more sacred in the eyes of a Buddhist, or was more likely to be reverenced from the time forward.

The Bharhut rail, according to the inscription on it, was erected by a Prince Vâdha Pala, son of Raja Dhanabhuti,--a name we cannot recognise in any list, but hardly could have been contemporary with the all-powerful and all-pervading rule of Asoka, and must consequently have been subsequent, as no such works were, so far as we now know, erected in India before his day. The ultimate determination of the relative dates of these two monuments will depend on a careful comparison of their sculptures, and for that the materials do not exist in this country. I have, thanks to the kindness of General Cunningham, a nearly complete set of photographs of the Bharhut sculptures, but not one of the Buddh Gaya rail. It is true the drawings by Major Kittoe, in the India House Library, are very much better than those published by General Cunningham in his report;[116] but they do not suffice for this purpose. In so far, however, as the evidence at present available enables us to judge, it seems nearly certain that the Bharhut sculptures are half a century nearer those of the gateways at Sanchi than those at Buddh Gaya are; and consequently we may, for the present at least, assume the Buddh Gaya rail to be 250 B.C., that at Bharhut 200 B.C., and the gateways at Sanchi to range from 10 to say 70 or 80 A.D.[117]

The Buddh Gaya rail is a rectangle, measuring 131 ft. by 98 ft., and is very much ruined. Its dimensions were, indeed, only obtained by excavation. The pillars are apparently only 5 ft. 11 in. in height, and are generally ornamented with a semi-disc top and bottom, containing a single figure, or a group of several. They have also a central circular disc, with either an animal or bust in the centre of a lotus. No part of the upper rail seems to have been recovered, and none of the intermediate rails between the pillars are sculptured. As the most ancient sculptured monument in India, it would be extremely interesting to have this rail fully illustrated,[118] not so much for its artistic merit as because it is the earliest authentic monument representing manners and mythology in India. Its religion, as might be expected, is principally Tree and Serpent worship, mingled with veneration for dagobas, wheels, and Buddhist emblems. The domestic scenes represent love-making, and drinking,--anything, in fact, but Buddha or Buddhism, as we afterwards come to understand the term.

BHARHUT.

Whatever interest may attach to the rail at Buddh Gaya, it is surpassed ten times over by that of the newly-discovered rail at Bharhut, which, taking it all in all, is perhaps the most interesting monument--certainly in a historical point of view--known to exist in India. The tope itself, which seems to have been 68 ft. in diameter, has entirely disappeared, having been utilised by the natives to build their villages; but about one-half of the rail, which was partly thrown down and buried in the rubbish, still remains. Originally it was 88 ft. in diameter, and consequently some 275 ft. in length. It was divided into four quadrants by the four entrances, each of which was guarded by statues 4½ ft. high, carved in relief in the corner pillars of Yakshas and Yakshinis, and Naga Rajas--the representatives, in fact, of those peoples who afterwards became Buddhists. The eastern gateway only seems to have been adorned with a Toran--or, as the Chinese would call it, a “Pailoo”--like those at Sanchi. One pillar of it is shown in the following woodcut, (No. 27), and sufficient fragments were found in the excavations to enable General Cunningham to restore it with almost absolute certainty. From his restoration it appears to have been 22 ft. 6 in. in height from the ground to the top of the chakra, or wheel, which was the central emblem on the top of all, supported by a honeysuckle ornament of great beauty. The beams had no human figures on them, like those at Sanchi. The lower had a procession of elephants, bringing offerings to a tree; the middle beam, of lions similarly employed; the upper beam has not been recovered, but the beam-ends are ornamented with conventional crocodiles, and show elevations of buildings so correctly drawn as to enable us to recognise all their features in the rock-cut edifices now existing.

The toran, most like this one, is that which surmounted the southern entrance at Sanchi, which, for reasons given elsewhere,[119] I believe to be not only the oldest of the four found there, but to have been erected in the first quarter of the first century of our era (A.D. 10 to 28). This one, however, is so much more wooden than even that and constructively so inferior, that I would, on architectural grounds alone, be inclined to affirm that it was at least a century older, and see no reason why it should not be two centuries more ancient. The age of the rail, however, does not depend on this determination, as the toran may have been added afterwards.

The rail was apparently 9 ft. in height, including the coping, and had three discs on intermediate rails. The inner side of the upper rail was ornamented by a continuous series of bas-reliefs, divided from each other by a beautiful flowing scroll. The inside also of the discs was similarly ornamented, and some of the pillars had bas-reliefs in three storeys on three of their sides. Altogether, I fancy not less than one hundred separate bas-reliefs have been recovered, all representing some scene or legend of the time, and nearly all inscribed not only with the names of the principal persons represented, but with the title of the jataka or legend, so that they are easily recognised in the books now current in Buddhist countries.

It is the only monument in India that is so inscribed, and it is this that consequently gives it such value for the history not only of art but of Buddhist mythology.[120]

If this work professed to be a history of Indian art, including sculpture, it would be necessary to illustrate this rail to a much greater extent than is attempted; but as architecturally it is hardly more important than others, that task may well be left to its discoverer. Meanwhile, however, it cannot be too strongly insisted upon that the art here displayed is purely indigenous. There is absolutely no trace of Egyptian influence. It is, indeed, in every detail antagonistic to that art; nor is there any trace of classical art; nor can it be affirmed that anything here exhibited could have been borrowed directly from Babylonia or Assyria. The capitals of the pillars do resemble somewhat those at Persepolis, and the honeysuckle ornaments point in the same direction; but, barring that, the art, especially the figure-sculpture belonging to the rail, seems an art elaborated on the spot by Indians, and by Indians only.[121]

Assuming these facts to be as stated, they give rise to one or two inferences which have an important bearing on our investigations. First, the architecture of this rail, with its toran, are more essentially wooden than even those at Sanchi, and, so far as it goes, tends to confirm the conclusion that, at the period they were erected, the style was passing from wood to stone. On the other hand, however, the sculpture is so sharp and clean, and every detail so well and so cleverly expressed in the hard sandstone in which it is cut, that it is equally evident the carvers were perfectly familiar with the material they were using. It is far from being a first attempt. They must have had chisels and tools quite equal to carving the hardest stone, and must have been perfectly familiar with their use. How long it may have taken them to acquire this degree of perfection in stone carving, it is of course impossible to guess, without further data; but it must have been centuries. Though, therefore, we may despair of finding any architectural buildings older than the time of Asoka, it is by no means improbable that we may find images or bas-reliefs, and inscriptions of a much earlier date, and for the history of India and her arts they would be as useful as the larger examples. They, like this rail, are probably buried under some neglected mound or the ruins of some forsaken city, and will only be recovered by excavation or by accident.

For the present we must be content with the knowledge, that we now know perfectly what the state of the arts was in India when the Greeks first visited it. Neither the Buddh Gaya nor the Bharhut rails were, it is true, in existence in Alexander’s time; but both were erected within the limits of the century in which Megasthenes visited the country, as ambassador from Seleucus, and it is principally from him that we know what India was at that time. If he did not see these monuments he must have seen others like them, and at all events saw carvings executed in the same style, and wooden chaityas and temples similar to those depicted in these sculptures. But one of the curious points they bring out is, that the religious observances he witnessed at the courts of the Brahmanical king, Chandragupta, are not those he would have witnessed had he been deputed to his Buddhist grandson the great Asoka. There, as everywhere else at this age, everything is Buddhist, but it is Buddhism without Buddha. He nowhere appears, either as a heavenly person to be worshipped, or even as an ascetic. The nearest indication of his presence is in a scene where Ajatasatra--the king in whose reign he attained Nirvana--kneels before an altar in front of which are impressions of his feet. His feet, too, seem impressed on the step of the triple ladder, by which he descended from Heaven at Sankissa; Maya’s dream, and the descent of the white Elephant can be recognised, and other indications sufficient to convince an expert that Buddhism is the religion indicated. But, as at Sanchi, by far the most numerous objects to which worship is addressed in these sculptures, are trees, one of which, the inscription tells us, is the Bodhi-tree of Sakya Muni. Besides this, the Bo-trees of six or seven of his predecessors are represented in these sculptures, and both by their foliage and their inscriptions we can easily recognise them as those known at the present day as belonging to these previous Buddhas.[122]

Naga people, and kings with their five-headed serpent-hoods are common; but only one instance has yet been brought to light in which the serpent can be said to be worshipped. Making love and drinking are not represented here as at Sanchi--nor are females represented nude as they are at Muttra. All are decently clothed, from the waist downwards at least, and altogether the manners and customs at Bharhut are as much purer as the art is better than it is in the more modern example at Sanchi.

MUTTRA.

When excavating at Muttra, General Cunningham found several pillars of a rail, which, judging from the style, is most probably of about the same age as that at Bharhut, or it may be a little more modern, but still certainly anterior to the Christian Era. The pillars, however, are only 4½ ft. high, and no trace of the top rail nor of the intermediate discs has been found. Each pillar is adorned by a figure of a naked female in high relief, singularly well executed, richly adorned with necklaces and bangles, and a bead belt or truss round their middles. Each stands on a crouching dwarf, and above each, in a separate compartment, are the busts of two figures, a male and female, on a somewhat smaller scale, either making violent love to each other, or drinking something stronger than water.[123]

Though the sculptures at Sanchi and Cuttack have made us familiar with some strange scenes, of what might be supposed an anti-Buddhistical tendency, this rail can hardly be Buddhist. We do not, indeed, know if it was straight or circular, or to what class of building it was attached. If part of a palace, it would be unobjectionable. But if it belonged to a temple, it ought to have been dedicated to Krishna, not to Buddha. It is not, indeed, impossible that a form of Vishnuism may have co-existed with Buddhism in the neighbourhood of Bindrabun, even at this early age. But these are problems, the existence of which is only just dawning upon us, and which cannot be investigated in a work like the present.

SANCHI.

Though the rails surrounding the topes at Sanchi are not, in themselves, so interesting as those at Buddh Gaya and Bharhut, still they are useful in exhibiting the various steps by which the modes of decorating rails were arrived at, and the torans or gateways of the great rail are quite unequalled by any other examples known to exist in India. The rail that surrounds the great tope may be described as a circular enclosure 140 ft. in diameter, but not quite regular, being elliptical on one side, to admit of the ramp or stairs leading to the berm or procession-path surrounding the monument. As will be seen from the annexed woodcut (No. 29), it consists of octagonal pillars 8 ft. in height, and spaced 2 ft. apart. These are joined together at the top by a rail 2 ft. 3 in. deep, held in its position by a tenon cut on the top of the pillars, as at Stonehenge; between the pillars are three intermediate rails, which are slipped into lens-shaped holes, on either side, the whole showing how essentially wooden the construction is. The pillars, for instance, could not have been put up first, and the rails added afterwards. They must have been inserted into the right or left hand posts, and supported while the next pillar was pushed laterally, so as to take their ends, and when the top rail was shut down the whole became mortised together as a piece of carpentry, but not as any stone-work was done, either before or afterwards.

The next stage in rail design is exemplified in that of No. 2 Tope, Sanchi (Woodcut No. 30); there circular discs are added in the centre of each pillar, and semicircular plates at top and bottom. In carpentry the circular ones would represent a great nail meant to keep the centre bar in its place; the half discs, top and bottom, metal plates to strengthen the junctions--and this it seems most probably may really have been the origin of these forms.

If from this we attempt to follow the progress made in the ornamentation of these rails, it seems to have been arrived at by placing a circular disc in each of the intermediate rails, as shown in the woodcut (No. 31), copied from a representation of the outer face of the Amravati rail, carved upon it. In the actual rail the pillars are proportionally taller and the spaces somewhat wider, but in all other respects it is the same--it has the same zöophorus below, and the same conventional figures bearing a roll above, both which features are met with almost everywhere.

A fourth stage was reached in that shown in the next woodcut (No. 32), from a representation of a rail in the Gautamiputra cave at Nassick, A.D. 312 to 333, where there are three full discs on the pillars as well as on the rails, and no doubt other variations may yet be found; but these are sufficient to show how the discs were multiplied till the pillars almost become evanescent quantities in the composition.

The greatest innovation, however, that took place, was the substitution of figure-sculpture for the lotus or water leaves of the discs, if that can be called an innovation, which certainly took place in the wooden age of architecture, before it was thought of translating these things into stone. The earliest rails we know, those at Buddh Gaya and Bharhut, show these changes already completed in the manner above described. The plainness of the rail, or the absence of figure-sculpture, is consequently no test of its greater or less antiquity, though the extreme multiplication of discs, as shown in the last example, seems only to have taken place just before their discontinuance.

* * * * *

To return, however, from this digression. The rail that surrounds the great tope at Sanchi was probably commenced immediately after its erection, which, as explained above, was probably in Asoka’s time, B.C. 250; but as each rail, as shown by the inscription on it, was the gift of a different individual,[124] it may have taken 100 or 150 years to erect. The age of the torans is more easily ascertained. There is an inscription on the south gateway, which is certainly integral, which states that the gateway was erected during the reign of a Sat Karni king, and it is nearly certain that this applies to a king of that name who reigned A.D. 10 to 28. As this gateway is certainly the oldest of the four, it gives us a starting-point from which to determine the age of the others. The next that was erected was the northern. That was followed by the eastern--the one of which there is a cast at South Kensington--and the last erected was the western. The style and details of all those show a succession and a progress that could hardly have taken place in less than a century, and, with other reasons, enable us to assert without much hesitation, that the four gateways were added to the rail of the great tope during the first century of the Christian Era, and their execution spread pretty evenly over that period.[125] The northern gateway is shown in the general view of the building (Woodcut No. 10), but more in detail in the cut (No. 33) on the following page.

In design and dimensions these four gateways are all very similar to one another. The northern is the finest,[126] as well as somewhat larger than the others. Its pillars, to the underside of the lower beam, measure 18 ft., including the elephant capitals, and the total height to the top of the emblem is 35 ft. The extreme width across the lower beam is 20 ft. The other gateways are somewhat less in dimensions, the eastern being only 33 ft. in height. The other two having fallen, it is not easy to be sure what their exact dimensions may have been while standing.

All these four gateways, or torans as they are properly called, were covered with the most elaborate sculptures both in front and rear--wherever, in fact, their surface was not hidden by being attached to the rail behind them. Generally the sculptures represent scenes from the life of Buddha when he was the Prince Siddharta, rarely, if ever, after he became an ascetic, and nowhere is he represented in the conventional forms either standing or seated cross-legged, which afterwards became universal. In addition to these are scenes from the jatakas or legends, narrating events or actions that took place during the five hundred births through which Sakya Muni had passed before he became so purified as to reach perfect Buddhahood. One of these, the Wessantara, or “alms-giving Jataka,” occupies the whole of the lower beam of the northern gateway, and reproduces all the events of that wonderful tale exactly as it is narrated in Ceylonese books at the present day. Besides these historical scenes, the worship of trees is represented at least seventy-six times; of dagobas or relic shrines, thirty-eight times; of the chakra, or wheel, the emblem of Dharma--the law--ten times; and of Devi or Sri, the goddess, who afterwards, in the Hindu Pantheon, became the consort of Vishnu, ten times. The trisul or trident emblem which crowns the gateways may be, and I am inclined to believe does, represent Buddha himself. On the left-hand pillar of the north gateway it crowns a pillar, hung with wreaths and emblems, at the bottom of which are the sacred feet (Woodcut No. 34). The whole looking like a mystic emblem of a divinity, it was forbidden to represent it under a human form. The corresponding face of the opposite pillar is adorned with architectural scrolls, wholly without any esoteric meaning so far as can be detected, but of great beauty of design (Woodcut No. 35).

Other sculptures represent sieges and fighting, and consequent triumphs, but, so far as can be seen, for the acquisition of relics or subjects connected with the faith. Others portray men and women eating and drinking and making love, and otherwise occupied, in a manner as unlike anything we have hitherto been accustomed to connect with Buddhism as can well be imagined. Be this as it may, the sculptures of these gateways form a perfect picture Bible of Buddhism as it existed in India in the first century of the Christian Era, and as such are as important historically as they are interesting artistically.[127]

The small tope (No. 3), on the same platform as the great tope at Sanchi, was surrounded by a rail, which has now almost entirely disappeared. It had, however, one toran, the pillars and one beam of which are still standing. It is only about half the size of those of the great tope, measuring about 17 ft. to the top of the upper beam, and 13 ft. across its lower beam. It is apparently somewhat more modern than the great gateways, and its sculptures seem to have reference to the acts of Sariputra and Moggalana, whose relics, as above mentioned, were deposited in its womb.

This tope was only 40 ft. in diameter, which is about the same dimension as No. 2 Tope, containing the relics of the ten apostles who took part in the third convocation under Asoka, and afterwards in the diffusion of the Buddhist religion in the countries bordering on India.

As above pointed out, the rails at Buddh Gaya and Bharhut afford a similar picture of Buddhism at a time from two to three centuries earlier. At first sight the difference is not so striking as might be expected, but on a closer examination it is only too evident that both the art and the morals had degenerated during the interval. There is a precision and a sharpness about the Bharhut sculptures which is not found here, and drinking and love-making do not occur in the earlier sculptures--they do, however, occur at Buddh Gaya--to anything like the extent they do at Sanchi. There is no instance at Bharhut of any figure entirely nude; at Sanchi nudity among the females is rather the rule than the exception. The objects of worship are nearly the same in both instances, but are better expressed in the earlier than in the later examples. Till, however, the Bharhut sculptures are published in the same detail as those of Sanchi, it is hardly fair to insist too strongly on any comparison that may be instituted between them. I believe I know nearly all, but till the publication of General Cunningham’s work the public will not have the same advantage.

Before leaving these torans, it may be well to draw attention again to the fact of their being, even more evidently than the rails, so little removed from the wooden originals out of which they were elaborated. No one can look at them, however carelessly, without perceiving that their forms are such as a carpenter would imagine, and could construct, but which could not be invented by any process of stone or brick masonry with which we are familiar. The real wonder is that, when the new fashion was introduced of repeating in stone what had previously been executed only in wood, any one had the hardihood to attempt such an erection in stone; and still more wonderful is it that, having been done, three of them should have stood during eighteen centuries, till one was knocked down by some clumsy Englishmen, and that only one--the earliest, and consequently the slightest and most wooden--should have fallen from natural causes.

Although these Sanchi torans are not the earliest specimens of their class executed wholly in stone, neither are they the last. We have, it is true, no means of knowing whether those represented at Amravati[128] were in stone or in wood, but, from their different appearances, some of them most probably were in the more permanent material. At all events, in China and Japan their descendants are counted by thousands. The pailoos in the former country, and the toris in the latter, are copies more or less correct of these Sanchi gateways, and like their Indian prototypes are sometimes in stone, sometimes in wood, and frequently compounded of both materials, in varying proportions. What is still more curious, a toran with five bars was erected in front of the Temple at Jerusalem, to bear the sacred golden vine, some forty years before these Sanchi examples. It, however, was partly in wood, partly in stone, and was erected to replace one that adorned Solomon’s Temple, which was wholly in bronze, and supported by the celebrated pillars Jachin and Boaz.[129]

AMRAVATI.

Although the rail at Bharhut is the most interesting and important in India in an historical sense, it is far from being equal to that at Amravati, either in elaboration or in artistic merit. Indeed, in these respects, the Amravati rail is probably the most remarkable monument in India. In the first place it is more than twice the dimensions of the rail at Bharhut, the great rail being 195 ft. in diameter, the inner 165 ft., or almost exactly twice the dimensions of that at Bharhut; between these two was the procession-path, which in the earlier examples was on the tope itself. Externally, the total height of the great rail was about 14 ft.; internally, it was 2 ft. less, while the inner rail was solid, and only 6 ft. in height.

The external appearance of the great rail may be judged of from the annexed woodcut (No. 36), representing a small section of it. The lower part, or plinth, was ornamented by a frieze of animals and boys, generally in ludicrous and comic attitudes. The pillars, as usual, were octagonal, ornamented with full discs in the centre, and half discs top and bottom, between which were figure sculptures of more or less importance. On the three rails were full discs, all most elaborately carved, and all different. Above runs the usual undulating roll moulding, which was universal in all ages,[130] but is here richly interspersed with figures and emblems. The inside of the rail was very much more richly ornamented than the outside shown in the woodcut; all the central range of discs, both on the pillars and on the rails, being carved with figured subjects, generally of very great elaboration and beauty of detail, and the upper rail was one continuous bas-relief upwards of 600 ft. in length. At the returns of the gateways another system was adopted, as shown in the above woodcut (No. 37). The pillars being narrower, and the discs smaller, the principal sculpture was on the intermediate space: in this instance a king on his throne receives a messenger, while his army in front defends the walls; lower down the infantry, cavalry, and elephants sally forth in battle array, while one of the enemy sues for peace, which is probably the information being communicated to the king.

The inner rail, though lower, was even more richly ornamented than the great rail, generally with figures of dagobas--apparently twelve in each quadrant--most elaborately carved with scenes from the life of Buddha or from legends. One of these dagobas has already been given (Woodcut No. 17). Between these were pillars and slabs ornamented, either as shown in Woodcuts Nos. 38 and 39, or with either Buddhist designs or emblems, but all as rich, at least, as these; the whole making up a series of pictures of Buddhism, as it was understood in the 4th and 5th centuries, unsurpassed by anything now known to exist in India. The slab represented in Woodcut No. 38 (p. 101), though now much ruined, is interesting as showing the three great objects of Buddhist worship at once. At the top is the dagoba with its rail, but with the five-headed Naga in the place usually occupied by Buddha. In the central compartment is the chakra or wheel, now generally acknowledged to be the emblem of Dharma, the second member of the Buddhist Trinity; below that the tree, possibly representing Sanga or the congregation; and in front of all a throne, on which is placed what I believe to be a relic, wrapt up in a silken cloth.

This combination is repeated again and again in these sculptures, and may be almost designated as the shorter Buddhist catechism, or rather the confession of faith, Buddha, Dharma, Sanga. The last woodcut (No. 39) is also interesting, as showing, besides the three emblems, the form of pillars with its double animal capitals so common in structures of this and an earlier age.

The age of these rails does not seem doubtful.[131] The outer or great rail seems to have been commenced about A.D. 319, at the time when the tooth relic paid this place a visit on its way from Puri to Ceylon, and its erection may have occupied the whole of the rest of that century. The inner rail is more modern, and seems to have been begun about A.D. 400, and, with some other detached fragments, carry the history of the monument down, it may be, to 500. At the same time it is clear that an older monument existed on the spot. The fragments that exist of the central tope are certainly of an earlier age, and some of the slabs of the inner rail exhibit sculptures of a much earlier date on their backs. It seems as if they had belonged to some disused earlier building, and been re-worked when fitted to their new places.

When Hiouen Thsang visited this place in the year 639 it had already been deserted for more than a century, but he speaks of its magnificence and the beauty of its site in more glowing terms than he applies to almost any other monument in India. Among other expressions he uses one not easily understood at first sight, for he says, “It was ornamented with all the magnificence of the palaces of Bactria”[132] (Tahia). Now, however, that we know what the native art of India was from the sculptures at Bharhut and Sanchi, and as we also know nearly what the art of Bactria was from those recently dug up near Peshawur, especially at Jamalgiri, we see at once that it was by a marriage of these two arts that the Amravati school of sculpture was produced, but with a stronger classical influence than anything of its kind found elsewhere in India. It is now also tolerably evident that the existence of so splendid a Buddhist establishment so far south must have been due to the fact of the mouths of the Kistnah and Godavery being ports of departure from which the Buddhists of the north-west and west of India, in early times, conquered or colonised Pegu and Cambodia, and eventually the island of Java.

All this will be clearer as we proceed. Meanwhile it seems probable that with this, which is certainly the most splendid specimen of its class, we must conclude our history of Buddhist rails. No later example is known to exist; and the Gandhara topes, which generally seem to be of this age or later, have all their rails attached to their sides in the shape of a row of pilasters. If they had any figured illustrations, they must have been in the form of paintings on plaster on the panels between the pilasters. This, indeed, was probably the mode in which they were adorned, for it certainly was not with sculptures, but we cannot understand any Buddhist monument existing anywhere, without the jatakas or legends being portrayed on its walls in some shape or other.

At Sarnath all reminiscences of a rail had disappeared, and a new mode of ornamentation introduced, which bore no resemblance to anything found on the earlier topes.

Although, therefore, our history of the rails may finish about A.D. 500, it by no means follows that many examples may not yet be brought to light belonging to the seven and a half centuries that elapsed between that date and the age of Asoka. As they all certainly were sculptured to a greater or less extent, when they are examined and published we may hope to have an ancient pictorial history of India for those ages nearly as complete as that possessed by any other country in the world. At present, however, we only know of ten or twelve examples, but they are so easily thrown down and buried that we may hope to find many more whenever they are looked for, and from them to learn the whole story of Buddhist art.

NOTE.--The central crowning ornament in Woodcut No. 33, page 96, is a chakra or wheel in the centre, with trisul emblems right and left. On the upper beam, five dagobas and two trees are worshipped; on the intermediate blocks, Sri and a chakra; on the middle beam are seven sacred trees, with altars; on the intermediate blocks, Sri and the chakra again. The lower beam is wholly occupied by the early scenes in the Wessantara jataka, which is continued in the rear. The subjects on the pillars have all been described in ‘Tree and Serpent Worship,’ but are on too small a scale to be distinguishable in the woodcut.

V. CHAITYA HALLS

CONTENTS.

Behar Caves--Western Chaitya Halls, &c.

Although, if looked at from a merely artistic point of view, it will probably be found that the rails are the most interesting Buddhist remains that have come down to our time, still, in an historical or architectural sense, they are certainly surpassed by the chaitya halls. These are the temples of the religion, properly so called, and the exact counterpart of the churches of the Christians, not only in form, but in use.

Some twenty or thirty of these are known still to exist in a state of greater or less preservation, but, with one exception, all cut in the rock. In so far as the interior is concerned this is of little or no consequence, but it prevents our being able to judge of their external form or effect,[133] and, what is perhaps worse, it hides from us entirely the mode in which their roofs were constructed. We know that they were formed with semicircular ribs of timber, and it is also nearly certain that on these ribs planks in two or three thicknesses were laid, but we cannot even guess what covered the planks externally. It could hardly have been metal, or any kind of felt, and one is unwilling to believe that they were thatched with grass, though I confess, as the evidence at present stands, this seems to me the most probable suggestion.[134]

The only structural one is at Sanchi, and is shown in plan in the accompanying woodcut (No. 41). It does not however, suffice to show us how the roofs of the aisles were supported externally. What it does show, which the caves do not, is that when the aisle which surrounded the apse could be lighted from the exterior, the apse was carried up solid. In all the caves the pillars surrounding the dagoba are different from and plainer than those of the nave. They are, in fact, kept as subdued as possible, as if it was thought they had no business there, but were necessary to admit light into the circumambient aisle of the apse.

* * * * *

As almost all our information regarding these chaityas, as well as the viharas, which form the next group to be described, is derived from the rock-cut examples in Western India, it would be convenient, if it were possible, to present something like a statistical account of the number and distribution of the groups of caves found there. The descriptions hitherto published do not, however, as yet admit of this.

I have myself visited and described all the most important of them;[135] and in an interesting paper, communicated to the Bombay branch of the Asiatic Society by the Rev. Dr. Wilson, he enumerated thirty-seven different groups of caves, more or less known to Europeans.[136] This number is exclusive of those in Bengal and Madras, and new ones are daily being discovered; we may therefore fairly assume that certainly more than forty, and probably nearly fifty, groups of caves exist in India Proper.

Some of these groups contain as many as 100 different and distinct excavations, many not more than ten or a dozen; but altogether I feel convinced that not less than 1000 distinct specimens are to be found. Of these probably 100 may be of Brahmanical or Jaina origin; the remaining 900 are Buddhist, either monasteries or temples, the former being incomparably the more numerous class; for of the latter not more than twenty or thirty are known to exist. This difference arose, no doubt, from the greater number of the viharas being grouped around structural topes, as is always the case in Afghanistan and Ceylon; and, consequently, they did not require any rock-cut place of worship while possessed of the more usual and appropriate edifice.

The façades of the caves are generally perfect, and form an exception to what has been said of our ignorance of the external appearance of Indian temples and monasteries, since they are executed in the rock with all the detail that could have graced the buildings of which they are copies. In the investigation of these objects, the perfect immutability of a temple once hewn out of the living rock is a very important advantage. No repair can add to, or indeed scarcely alter, the general features of what is once so executed; and there can be no doubt that we see them now, in all essentials, exactly as originally designed. This advantage will be easily appreciated by any one who has tried to grope for the evidence of a date in the design, afforded by our much-altered and often reconstructed cathedrals of the Middle Ages.

The geographical distribution of the caves is somewhat singular, more than nine-tenths of those now known being found within the limits of the Bombay Presidency. The remainder consist of two groups in Bengal; those of Behar and Cuttack, neither of which is important in extent; one only is known to exist in Madras, that of Mahavellipore; and two or three insignificant groups, which have been traced in Afghanistan and the Punjab.

At one time some were inclined to connect this remarkable local distribution with the comparative proximity of the west side of India to the rock-cutting Egyptians and Ethiopians. But the coincidence can be more simply accounted for by the existence in both countries of rocks perfectly adapted to such works. The great cave district of western India is composed of horizontal strata of amygdaloid and other cognate trap formations, generally speaking of very considerable thickness and great uniformity of texture, and possessing besides the advantage that their edges are generally exposed in perfectly perpendicular cliffs. No rock in any part of the world could either be more suited for the purpose or more favourably situated than these formations. They were easily accessible and easily worked. In the rarest possible instances are there any flaws or faults to disturb the uniformity of the design; and, when complete, they afford a perfectly dry temple or abode, singularly uniform in temperature, and more durable than any class of temple found in any other part of the world.

From the time of Asoka, who, two hundred and fifty years before Christ, excavated the first cave at Rajagriha, till the great cataclysm in the 8th century, the series is uninterrupted; and, if properly examined and drawn, the caves would furnish us with a complete religious and artistic history of the greater part of India during ten or eleven centuries, the darkest and most perplexing of her existence. But, although during this long period the practice was common to Buddhists, Hindus, and Jains, it ceased before the Mahomedan conquest. Hardly any excavations have been made or attempted since that period, except, perhaps, some rude Jaina monoliths in the rock at Gualior, and it may be one or two in southern India.

BEHAR CAVES.

As might be expected from what we know of the history of the localities, the oldest caves in India are situated in Behar, in the neighbourhood of Rajagriha, which was the capital of Bengal at the time of the advent of Buddha. There is, indeed, one cave there which claims to be the Satapanni cave, in front of which the first convocation was held B.C. 543. It is, however, only a natural cave very slightly improved by art, and of no architectural importance.

The most interesting group is situated at a place called Barabar, sixteen miles north of Gaya. One there, called the Karna Chopar, bears an inscription which records the excavation of the cave in the nineteenth year of Asoka (B.C. 245).[137] It is very simple, and, except in a doorway with sloping jambs, has no architectural feature of importance. A second, called the Sudama or Nigope cave (Woodcut No. 42), bears an inscription by Asoka in the twelfth year of his reign, the same year in which most of his edicts are dated, 260 or 264 B.C., and, consequently, is the oldest architectural example in India. It consists of two apartments: an outer, 32 ft. 9 in. in length, and 19 ft. 6 in. in breadth, and beyond this a circular apartment, 19 ft. in diameter, in the place usually occupied by the solid dagoba;[138] in front of which the roof hangs down and projects in a manner very much as if it were intended to represent thatch. The most interesting of the group is that called Lomas Rishi, which, though bearing no contemporary inscription, certainly belongs to the same age. The frontispiece is singularly interesting as representing in the rock the form of the structural chaityas of the age. These, as will be seen from the woodcut (No. 43), were apparently constructed with strong wooden posts, sloping slightly inwards, supporting a longitudinal rafter morticed into their heads, while three small blocks on each side are employed to keep the roof in form. Between the pillars was a framework of wood, which served to support five smaller rafters. Over these lies the roof, apparently formed of three thicknesses of plank, or probably two of timber planks laid reverse ways, and one of metal or some other substance externally. The form of the roof is something of a pointed arch, with a slight ogee point on the summit to form a watershed. The door, like all those of this series, has sloping jambs[139]--a peculiarity arising, as we shall afterwards see, from the lines of the openings following, as in this instance, those of the supports of the roof.

The interior, as will be seen from the annexed plan (No. 44), is quite plain in form, and does not seem to have been ever quite completed. It consists of a hall 33 ft. by 19 ft., beyond which is an apartment of nearly circular form, evidently meant to represent a tope or dagoba, but at that early age the architects had not quite found out how to accomplish this in a rock-cut structure.

Judging from the inscriptions on these caves, the whole were excavated between the date of the Nigope and that of the Milkmaid’s Cave, so called (which was excavated by Dasaratha, the grandson of Asoka), probably within fifty years of that date. They appear to range, therefore, from 260 to 200 B.C., and the Lomas Rishi is probably the most modern[140]--it certainly is the most richly ornamented. No great amount of elaboration, however, is found in these examples, inasmuch as the material in which they are excavated is the hardest and most close-grained granite; and it was hardly to be expected that a people who so recently had been using nothing but wood as a building material would have patience sufficient for labours like these. They have polished them like glass in the interior, and with that they have been content.

WESTERN CHAITYA HALLS.

There are in the Western Ghâts in the Bombay Presidency five or six important chaitya caves whose dates can be made out, either from inscriptions, or from internal evidence, with very fair approximate certainty, and all of which were excavated, if I am not very much mistaken, before the Christian Era. The oldest of these is situated at a place called Bhaja, four miles south of the great Karli cave in the Bhore Ghât. There is no inscription upon it, but I have a plan and several photographs. From the woodcut (No. 45), it will be perceived that it is a chaitya hall of the usual plan, but of no great dimensions, being only 60 ft. from the back of the apse to the mortices (a a), in which the supports of the wooden screen once stood. From the woodcut (No. 46), taken from one of these photographs, it will be perceived that the pillars of the interior slope inwards at a considerable and most unpleasing angle. The rood-screen which closes the front of all other caves of this class is gone. In all other examples it is in stone, and consequently remains; but in this instance, being in wood, it has disappeared, though the holes to receive its posts and the mortices by which it was attached to the walls are still there. The ogee fronton was covered with wooden ornaments, which have disappeared; though the pin-holes remain by which they were fastened to the stone. The framework, or truss that filled the upper part of the great front opening, no longer exists, but what its appearance was may be judged of by the numerous representations of itself with which it is covered, or from the representation of a chaitya façade from the contemporary rail at Buddh Gaya (Woodcut No. 47), and there are several others on the rail at Bharhut, which are not only correct elevations of such a façade as this, but represent the wooden carved ornaments which--according to that authority--invariably adorned these façades. The only existing example of this wooden screen is that at Karli, but the innumerable small repetitions of it, not only here but in all these caves, shows not only its form, but how universal its employment was. The rafters of the roof were of wood, and many of them, as may be seen in the woodcut, remain to the present day. Everything, in fact, that could be made in wood remained in wood, and only the constructive parts necessary for stability were executed in the rock.

It is easy to understand that, the first time men undertook to repeat in stone forms they had only been accustomed to erect in wood, they should have done so literally. The sloping inwards of the pillars was requisite to resist the thrust of the circular roof in the wooden building, but it must have appeared so awkward in stone that it would hardly be often repeated. As, however, it was probably almost universal in structural buildings, the doorways and openings naturally followed the same lines, hence the sloping jambs. Though these were by no means so objectionable in practice, they varied with the lines of the supports, and, as these became upright, the jambs became parallel. In like manner, when it was done, the architects could hardly fail to perceive that they had wasted both time and labour in cutting away the rock to make way for their wooden screen in front. Had they left it standing, with far less expense they could have got a more ornamental and more durable feature. This was so self-evident that it never, so far as is known, was repeated, but it was some time before the pillars of the interior got quite perpendicular, and the jambs of the doors quite parallel.

There is very little figure-sculpture about this cave; none in the interior, and what there is on the façade seems to be of a very domestic character. But on the pillars in the interior at g and h in the plan (Woodcut No. 45), we find two emblems, and at a, e, and f three others are found somewhat rudely formed, but which occur again so frequently that it may be worth while to quote them here. They are known as the trisul, or trident, the central point being usually more important than here shown, the shield, and the chakra, or wheel. The two first are generally found in combination, as in Woodcut No. 33, and the wheel is frequently found edged with trisul ornaments, as in the central compartment of Woodcut No. 38 from Amravati. The fourth emblem here is the trisul, in combination with a face, and the fifth is one which is frequently repeated on coins and elsewhere, but to which no name has yet been given.

The next group of caves, however, that at Bedsa, ten or eleven miles south of Karli, shows considerable progress towards lithic construction. The screen is in stone; the pillars are more upright, though still sloping slightly inwards, the jambs more nearly parallel, and in fact we have nearly all the features of a well-designed chaitya cave. The two pillars in front, however, as will be seen from the plan (Woodcut No. 49), are so much too large in proportion to the rest, that they are evidently stambhas, and ought to stand free instead of supporting a verandah. Their capitals (Woodcut No. 50, p. 113) are more like the Persepolitan than any others in India, and are each surmounted by horses and elephants bearing men and women of bold and free execution. From the view (Woodcut No. 51) it will be seen how much the surface is covered with the rail decoration, a repetition on a small scale of the rails described in the last section, and which it may here be mentioned is a fair test of the age of any building. It gradually becomes less and less used after the date of these two chaitya caves, and disappears wholly in the 4th or 5th centuries, but during that period its greater or less prevalence in any building is one of the surest indications we have of the relative age of any two examples. In this cave, as will be observed, nearly the whole of the ornamentation is made up of miniature rails, and repetitions of window fronts or façades. It has also a semicircular open-work moulding, like basket-work, which is only found in the very oldest caves, and is evidently so unsuited for stone-work that it is no wonder it was dropped very early. No example of it is known after the Christian Era. There is an inscription in this cave in an ancient form of letter, but not sufficiently distinct to fix its age absolutely without further evidence.

The third cave is the chaitya at Nassick. Its pillars internally are so nearly perpendicular that their inclination might escape detection, and the door jambs are nearly parallel.

The façade, as seen in the woodcut (No. 52, p. 115), is a very perfect and complete design, but all its details are copied from wooden forms, and nothing was executed in wood in this cave but the rafters of the roofs internally, and these have fallen down.

Outside this cave, over the doorway, there is an inscription, stating that the cave was the gift of a citizen of Nassick,[141] in the reign of King Krishna, the second of the Andrabritya kings, who reigned just before the Christian Era,[142] and inside, on the pillars, another in an older form of character, stating that it was excavated in honour of King Badrakaraka,[143] who was almost certainly the fifth king of the Sunga dynasty, and who ascended the throne about B.C. 129. It may be possible that a more critical examination of these inscriptions may render their testimony less absolute than it now appears, but, taking them in conjunction with the architecture, the age of this cave hardly seems doubtful. For myself, I see no reason for hesitating to accept B.C. 129 as the date of its inception, though its completion may be a century later, and, if this is so, it carries back the caves of Bhaja and Bedsa to a period considerably before that time, while, on the other hand, it as certainly is older than the Karli cave, which appears to come next to it in age.

KARLI.

The fourth cave mentioned above, known as that at Karli, is situated on the road between Bombay and Poonah, and is the finest of all--the finest, indeed, of its class. It is certainly the largest as well as the most complete chaitya cave hitherto discovered in India, and was excavated at a time when the style was in its greatest purity. In it all the architectural defects of the previous examples are removed; the pillars of the nave are quite perpendicular. The screen is ornamented with sculpture--its first appearance apparently in such a position--and the style had reached a perfection that was never afterwards surpassed.

In this cave there is an inscription on the side of the porch, and another on the lion-pillar in front, which are certainly integral, and ascribe its excavation to the Maharaja Bhuti or Deva Bhuti,[144] who, according to the Puranas, reigned B.C. 78, and, if this is so, they fix the age of this typical example beyond all cavil.

The building, as will be seen by the annexed illustrations (Nos. 53, 54, 55), resembles, to a very great extent, an early Christian church in its arrangements: consisting of a nave and side-aisles, terminating in an apse or semidome, round which the aisle is carried. The general dimensions of the interior are 126 ft. from the entrance to the back wall, by 45 ft. 7 in. in width. The side-aisles, however, are very much narrower than in Christian churches, the central one being 25 ft. 7 in., so that the others are only 10 ft. wide, including the thickness of the pillars. As a scale for comparison, it may be mentioned that its arrangement and dimensions are very similar to those of the choir of Norwich Cathedral, or of the Abbaye aux Hommes at Caen, omitting the outer aisles in the latter buildings. The thickness of the piers at Norwich and Caen nearly corresponds to the breadth of the aisles in the Indian temple. In height, however, Karli is very inferior, being only 42 ft. or perhaps 45 ft. from the floor to the apex, as nearly as can be ascertained.

Fifteen pillars on each side separate the nave from the aisles; each pillar has a tall base, an octagonal shaft, and richly ornamented capital, on which kneel two elephants, each bearing two figures, generally a man and a woman, but sometimes two females, all very much better executed than such ornaments usually are. The seven pillars behind the altar are plain octagonal piers, without either base or capital, and the four under the entrance gallery differ considerably from those at the sides. The sculptures on the capitals supply the place usually occupied by frieze and cornice in Grecian architecture; and in other examples plain painted surfaces occupy the same space. Above this springs the roof, semicircular in general section, but somewhat stilted at the sides, so as to make its height greater than the semi-diameter. It is ornamented even at this day by a series of wooden ribs, probably coeval with the excavation, which prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that the roof is not a copy of a masonry arch, but of some sort of timber construction which we cannot now very well understand.

Immediately under the semidome of the apse, and nearly where the altar stands in Christian churches, is placed the dagoba, in this instance a plain dome slightly stilted on a circular drum. As there are no ornaments on it now, and no mortices for woodwork, it probably was originally plastered and painted, or may have been adorned with hangings, which some of the sculptured representations would lead us to suppose was the usual mode of ornamenting these altars. It is surmounted by a Tee, the base of which is similar to the one shown on Woodcut No. 13, and on this still stand the remains of an umbrella in wood, very much decayed and distorted by age.

Opposite this is the entrance, consisting of three doorways, under a gallery exactly corresponding with our roodloft, one leading to the centre, and one to each of the side-aisles; and over the gallery the whole end of the hall is open as in all these chaitya halls, forming one great window, through which all the light is admitted. This great window is formed in the shape of a horseshoe, and exactly resembles those used as ornaments on the façade of this cave, as well as on those of Bhaja, Bedsa, and at Nassick described above, and which are met with everywhere at this age. Within the arch is a framework or centering of wood standing free (Woodcut No. 55). This, so far as we can judge, is, like the ribs of the interior, coeval with the building;[145] at all events, if it has been renewed, it is an exact copy of the original form, for it is found repeated in stone in all the niches of the façade, over the doorways, and generally as an ornament everywhere, and with the Buddhist “rail,” copied from Sanchi, forms the most usual ornament of the style.

The presence of the woodwork is an additional proof, if any were wanted, that there were no arches of construction in any of these Buddhist buildings. There neither were nor are any in any Indian building anterior to the Mahomedan Conquest, and very few indeed in any Hindu building afterwards.

To return, however, to Karli, the outer porch is considerably wider than the body of the building, being 52 ft. wide, and is closed in front by a screen composed of two stout octagonal pillars, without either base or capital, supporting what is now a plain mass of rock, but which was once ornamented by a wooden gallery forming the principal ornament of the façade. Above this a dwarf colonnade or attic of four columns between pilasters admitted light to the great window, and this again was surmounted by a wooden cornice or ornament of some sort, though we cannot now restore it, since only the mortices remain that attached it to the rock.

In advance of this screen stands the lion-pillar, in this instance a plain shaft with thirty-two flutes, or rather faces, surmounted by a capital not unlike that at Kesariah (Woodcut No. 6), but at Karli supporting four lions instead of one, and, for reasons given above (p. 55), they seem almost certainly to have supported a chakra or Buddhist wheel. A similar pillar probably stood on the opposite side, but it has either fallen or been taken down to make way for the little temple that now occupies its place.

The absence of the wooden ornaments of the external porch, as well as our ignorance of the mode in which this temple was finished laterally, and the porch joined to the main temple, prevents us from judging what the effect of the front would have been if belonging to a free-standing building. But the proportions of such parts as remain are so good, and the effect of the whole so pleasing, that there can be little hesitation in ascribing to such a design a tolerably high rank among architectural compositions.

Of the interior we can judge perfectly, and it certainly is as solemn and grand as any interior can well be, and the mode of lighting the most perfect--one undivided volume of light coming through a single opening overhead at a very favourable angle, and falling directly on the altar or principal object in the building, leaving the rest in comparative obscurity. The effect is considerably heightened by the closely set thick columns that divide the three aisles from one another, as they suffice to prevent the boundary walls from ever being seen, and, as there are no openings in the walls, the view between the pillars is practically unlimited.

These peculiarities are found more or less developed in all the other caves of the same class in India, varying only with the age and the gradual change that took place from the more purely wooden forms of these caves to the lithic or stone architecture of the more modern ones. This is the principal test by which their relative ages can be determined, and it proves incontestably that the Karli cave was excavated not very long after stone came to be used as a building-material in India.

There are caves at Ajunta and probably at Junir which are as old as the four just described, and, when the history of cave architecture comes to be written in extenso, will supply details that are wanting in the examples just quoted. Meanwhile, however, their forms are sufficient to place the history on a firm basis, and to explain the origin and early progress of the style with sufficient distinctness.

From the inscriptions and literary evidence, it seems hardly doubtful that the date of the Karli cave is about 78 B.C., and that at Nassick about 129 B.C. We have no literary authority for the date of the two earlier ones, but the archæological evidence appears irresistible. The Bhaja cave is so absolutely identical in style with the Lomas Rishi cave at Behar (Woodcut No. 43) that they must be of very nearly the same age. Their pillars and their doorways slope so nearly at the same angle, and the essential woodenness--if the expression may be used--of both is so exactly the same, that, the one being of the age of Asoka, the other cannot be far removed from the date of his reign. The Bedsa cave exhibits a degree of progress so nearly halfway between the Bhaja and Nassick examples, that it may safely be dated 150 to 200 B.C., and the whole four thus exhibit the progress of the style during nearly two centuries in the most satisfactory manner, and form a basis from which we may proceed to reason with very little hesitation or doubt.

AJUNTA.[146]

There are four chaitya caves in the Ajunta series which, though not so magnificent as some of the four just mentioned, are nearly as important for the purposes of our history. The oldest there (No. 9) is the lowest down on the cliff, and is of the smallest class, being only 45 ft. by 23 ft. in width. All its woodwork has perished, though it would not be difficult to restore it from the mortices left and the representations of itself on the façade. There are several inscriptions, but they do not seem integral. They are painted on the walls, and belong, from the form of their characters, to the 2nd or 3rd century of our era, when the frescoes seem to have been renewed, so that the real tests of its age are, first, its position in the series, which make it, with its accompanying vihara (No. 12), undoubtedly the oldest there; the other test is the architecture of its façade, which so much resembles that of the Nassick chaitya (B.C. 129) that it cannot be far off in date. It may, however, be somewhat earlier, as the pillars in the interior slope inwards at a somewhat greater angle, and, in so far as that is a test of age, it indicates a greater antiquity in the Ajunta example.

The next chaitya (No. 10) is situated very near to the last, a little higher up in the rock, however, and of nearly twice its dimensions. It is 94 ft. 6 in. in depth by 41 ft. 3 in. in width internally. As may be seen from the annexed view (Woodcut No. 57), the nave is separated from the aisles by a range of plain octagonal shafts, perfectly upright, but without capitals or bases. The triforium belt is of unusual height, and was originally plastered and painted. Traces of this can still be seen, though the design cannot be made out (Woodcut No. 58). One of the most remarkable characteristics of the cave is that it shows signs of transition from wood to stone in its architectural details. The ribs of the aisle are in stone cut in rock, but copied from the wooden forms of previous examples. The vault of the nave was adorned with wooden ribs, the mortices for which are still there, and their marks can still be traced in the roof, but the wood itself is gone.

There are two inscriptions in this cave which seem to be integral, but unfortunately neither of them contain names that can be identified; but from the form of their characters a palæographist would almost certainly place them anterior to the Christian Era.[147] Taking, however, all the circumstances of the case into consideration, and so as to avoid stretching any point too far, it would, perhaps, be better to assume for the present that the cave belongs to the 1st century of our era.

The façades of both these caves are so much ruined by the rock falling away that it is impossible to assert that there was no sculpture on the lower parts. None, certainly, exists in the interior, where everything depends on painting; and it is, to say the least of it, very improbable that any figure-sculpture ever adorned the oldest, while it seems likely that even No. 10 depended wholly on conventional architectural forms for its adornment.

The next chaitya cave in this series (No. 19) is separated from these two by a very long interval of time. Unfortunately, no inscription exists upon it which would assist in assigning it any precise date; but it belongs to a group of viharas, Nos. 16 and 17, whose date, as we shall afterwards see, can be fixed with tolerable certainty as belonging to the 5th century of our era. The cave itself, as will be seen from the plan (Woodcut No. 59), is of the smallest size, nearly the same as No. 9, or 46 ft. 4 in. by 23 ft. 7 in., and its arrangements do not differ much, but its details belong to a totally different school of art. All trace of woodwork has disappeared, but wooden forms are everywhere repeated in stone, like the triglyphs and mutules of the Doric order, long after their original meaning was lost. More than this, painting in the interval had to a great extent become disused as a means of decoration, both internally and externally, and sculpture substituted for it in all monumental works; but the greatest change of all is that Buddha, in all his attitudes, is introduced everywhere. In the next woodcut (No. 60)--the view of the façade--it will be seen how completely figure-sculpture had superseded the plainer architectural forms of the earlier caves. The rail ornament, too, has entirely disappeared; the window heads have been dwarfed down to mere framings for masks; but, what is even more significant than these, is that from a pure theism or rather atheism we have passed to an overwhelming idolatry. At Karli, the eight figures that originally adorned the porch are chiefs with their wives, in pairs. All the figures of Buddha that appear there now are long subsequent additions. None but mortals were sculptured in the earlier caves, and among these mortals Sakya Muni nowhere appears. Here, on the contrary, he is Bhagavat--the Holy One--the Deity--the object of worship, and occupies a position in the front of the dagoba or altar itself (Woodcut No. 61, p. 126), surmounted by the triple umbrella and as the Numen of the place.

At a future stage of our inquiries we may be able to fix more nearly the time in which this portentous change took place in Buddhist ritual. For the present it is sufficient to remark that images of Buddha, and their worship, were not known in India in the 1st century of our era, and that the revolution was complete in the 5th century.

Before leaving this cave, however, it may be well to remark on the change that had taken place in the form of the dagoba during these 500 years. If Woodcut No. 61 is compared with the dagobas in Nos. 56 and 57, it will be seen how much the low rounded form of the early examples had been conventionalised into a tall steeple-like object. The drum had become more important than the dome, and was ornamented with architectural features that have no meaning as applied. But more curious still is the form the triple umbrella had assumed. It had now become a steeple reaching to the roof of the cave, and its original form and meaning would hardly be suspected by those who were not familiar with the intermediate steps.

I am not aware of more than three umbrellas being found surmounting any dagoba in the caves, but the annexed representation of a model of one found at Sultanpore, near Jelalabad (Woodcut No. 62), probably of about the same age, has six such discs; and in Behar numerous models are found with seven, making with the base and finial nine storeys,[148] which afterwards in China became the conventional number for the nine-storeyed towers of that land.

The last chaitya at Ajunta (No. 26) is of a medium size, 66 ft. by 36, and has a long inscription, but which unfortunately contains nothing to enable us to fix its date with certainty. It is certainly more modern than the last-named, its sculptures are coarser, and their meaning more mythological. We shall probably not err in assuming that it was excavated towards the end of the 6th or beginning of the 7th century; and that the year 600 is not far from its true date. Its chief interest is in showing how nearly Buddhism was approximating to Brahmanism when the catastrophe took place which expelled the former from the country of its birth.

ELLORA.

The celebrated Viswakarma cave at Ellora is a chaitya of the first class, intermediate in age between the two last-described caves at Ajunta, or it may be as modern as the last. There are unfortunately no inscriptions nor any traditions[149] that would assist in fixing its age, which must consequently depend wholly on its position in the series and its architectural peculiarities.

The dimensions of this cave are considerable, 85 ft. by 43 ft., and the inner end is entirely blocked up by the dagoba which, instead of being circular as in all the older examples, has a frontispiece attached to it larger than that in cave No. 19 at Ajunta, which, as shown in Woodcut No. 60, makes it square in front. On this addition is a figure of Buddha seated with his feet down, and surrounded by attendants and flying figures in the latest style of Buddhist art. In the roof, all the ribs and ornaments are cut in the rock, though still copied from wooden prototypes, and the triforium has sculptured figures as in Nos. 19 and 26 of Ajunta. Its most marked characteristic, however, is the façade, where for the first time we miss the great horseshoe opening, which is the most marked feature in all previous examples. We can still trace a reminiscence of it in the upper part of the window in the centre (Woodcut No. 63, p. 128); but it was evidently considered necessary, in this instance, to reduce the size of the opening, and it is easy to see why this was the case. At Bedsa, Karli, Kenheri and elsewhere, there was a verandah or porch with a screen in front of the great window, which prevented the direct rays of the sun from reaching it, and all the older caves had wooden screens, as at Karli, from which curtains could be hung so as to modify the light to any desired extent. At Ellora, no screen could ever have existed in front, and wooden additions had long ceased to be used, so that it consequently became necessary to reduce the size of the opening. In the two later chaityas at Ajunta, this is effected by simply reducing their size. At Ellora it was done by dividing it. If we had the structural examples in which this change was probably first introduced, we might trace its progress; but, as this one is the only example we have of a divided window, we must accept it as one of the latest modifications of the façades of these chaityas. Practically, it may be an improvement, as it is still sufficiently large to light the interior in a satisfactory manner; but artistically it seems rather to be regretted. There is a character and a grandeur about the older design which we miss in this more domestic-looking arrangement, though it is still a form of opening not destitute of beauty.

Owing to the sloping nature of the ground in which it is excavated this cave possesses a forecourt of considerable extent and of great elegance of design, which gives its façade an importance it is not entitled to from any intrinsic merit of its own.

KENHERI.

One of the best known and most frequently described chaityas in India is that on the island of Salsette, in Bombay Harbour, known as the great Kenheri cave. In dimensions it belongs to the first rank, being 88 ft. 6 in. by 39 ft. 10 in., and it has the advantage that its date is now almost absolutely fixed. In the verandah there is an inscription recording that the celebrated Buddhaghosha dedicated one of the middle-sized statues in the porch to the honour of the lord Bhagawan,[150] and in the same porch another inscription records the execution of the great statues of Buddha by “Gotamiputra’s imperial descendant Sri Yadnya Sat Karni.”[151] Now we know that the first-named, Buddhaghosha, went on his mission to Ceylon, B.C. 410,[152] and he is not known ever to have returned to India; and Yadnya Sri has always been assumed to have lived 408-428, generally it must be confessed on the mistaken etymology of confounding his name with that of Yuegai of the Chinese. That, however, is apparently only a translation of the “Moon beloved king,” and more applicable, consequently, to Chandra Sri or Chandragupta, who was his contemporary. The true basis for the determination of his date is the Puranic chronology, which, for this period seems indisputable.[153] Be all this as it may, the conjunction of these two names here in this cave settles their date, and settles also the age of the cave as belonging to the early years of the 5th century, at the time when Fa Hian was travelling in India.

This being so, one would naturally expect that the architecture of the cave should exhibit some stage of progress intermediate between cave No. 10 and cave No. 19 of Ajunta, but nothing of the sort is apparent here; the Kenheri cave is a literal copy of the great cave at Karli, but in so inferior a style of art that, when I first saw it, I was inclined to ascribe it to an age of Buddhist decrepitude, when the traditions of true art had passed away, and men were trying by spasmodic efforts to revive a dead art. This being now proved not to be the case, the architecture of this cave can only be looked upon as an exceptional anomaly, the principles of whose design are unlike anything else to be found in India, emanating probably from some individual caprice, the origin of which we may probably never now be able to recover.

Internally the roof was ornamented with timber rafters, and though these have fallen away, the wooden pins by which they were fastened to the rock still remain; and the screen in front has all the mortices and other indications, as at Karli, proving that it was intended to be covered with wooden galleries and framework. What is still more curious, the figures of chiefs with their wives, which adorn the front of the screen at Karli, are here repeated literally, but copied so badly as not at first sight to be easily recognisable. This is the more strange as it occurred at an age when their place was reserved for figures of Buddha, and when, at Karli itself, they were cutting away the old sculptures and old inscriptions, to introduce figures of Buddha, either seated cross-legged, or borne on the lotus, supported by Naga figures at its base.[154]

In front of this cave is a dwarf rail which, with the knowledge we now have, would in itself be almost sufficient to settle the age, in spite of these anomalies (Woodcut No. 64). Unfortunately it is so weather-worn that it is difficult to make out all its details; but comparing it with the Gautamiputra rail (Woodcut No. 32) and the Amravati rail (Woodcut No. 36), it will be seen that it contains all those complications that were introduced in the 3rd and 4th centuries, but which were discontinued in the 5th and 6th, when the rail in any shape fell into disuse as an architectural ornament.[155]

The evidence in fact seems complete that this cave was excavated in the early years of the 5th century; but, admitting this, it remains an anomaly, the like of which only occurs once again so far as I know in the history of Indian architecture, and that in a vihara at Nassick of the same age, to be described hereafter.

DHUMNAR.

About half way between Kotah and Ujjain, in Rajputana, there exists a series of caves at a place called Dhumnar which are of considerable extent, but the interest that might be felt in them is considerably diminished by their being cut in a coarse laterite conglomerate, so coarse that all the finer architectural details had to be worked out in plaster, and that, having perished with time, only their plans and outlines can now be recognised. Among the sixty or seventy excavations here found one is a chaitya of some extent, and presenting peculiarities of plan not found elsewhere. It is practically a chaitya cella situated in the midst of a vihara (Woodcut No. 65). The cell in which the dagoba is situated is only 35 ft. by 13 ft. 6 in., but to this must be added the porch, or ante-chapel, extending 25 ft. further, making the whole 60 ft. On two sides, and on half the third, it is surrounded by an open verandah leading to the cells. The third side never was finished, but in two of the side cells are smaller dagobas--the whole making a confused mass of chambers and chaityas in which all the original parts are confounded, and all the primitive simplicity of design and arrangement is lost, to such an extent that, without previous knowledge, they would hardly be recognisable.

There are no exact dates for determining the age of this cave, but like all of the series it is late, probably between the years 500 and 600 A.D., or even later, and its great interest is that, on comparing it with the chaitya and vihara at Bhaja or Bedsa (Woodcuts Nos. 46 and 49), we are enabled to realise the progress and changes that took place in designing these monuments during the seven or eight centuries that elapsed between them.

KHOLVI.

Not far from Dhumnar is another series of caves not so extensive, but interesting as being probably the most modern group of Buddhist caves in India. No very complete account of them has yet been published,[156] but enough is known to enable us to feel sure how modern they are. One, called Arjun’s House, is a highly ornamented dagoba, originally apparently some 20 ft. in height, but the upper part being in masonry has fallen away. Inside this is a cell open to the front, in which is a cross-legged seated figure of Buddha, showing an approach to the Hindu mode of treating images in their temples, which looks as if Buddhism was on the verge of disappearing.

The same arrangement is repeated in the only excavation here which can be called a chaitya hall. It is only 26 ft. by 13 ft. internally; but the whole of the dagoba, which is 8 ft. in diameter, has been hollowed out to make a cell, in which an image of Buddha is enshrined. The dagobas, in fact, here--there are three standing by themselves--have become temples, and only distinguishable from those of the Hindus by their circular forms.[157]

It is probably hardly necessary to say more on this subject now, as most of the questions, both of art and chronology, will be again touched upon in the next chapter when describing the viharas which were attached to the chaityas, and were, in fact, parts of the same establishments. As mere residences, the viharas may be deficient in that dignity and unity which characterises the chaityas, but their number and variety make up to a great extent for their other deficiencies; and altogether their description forms one of the most interesting chapters in our history.

VI. VIHARAS,[158] OR MONASTERIES

CONTENTS.

Structural Viharas--Bengal and Western Vihara Caves--Nassick, Ajunta, Bagh, Dhumnar, Kholvi, and Ellora Viharas--Circular Cave at Junir.

STRUCTURAL VIHARAS.

We are almost more dependent on rock-cut examples for our knowledge of the Viharas or monasteries of the Buddhists than we are for that of their Chaityas or churches: a circumstance more to be regretted in this instance than in the other. In a chaitya hall the interior is naturally the principal object, and where the art of the architect would be principally lavished. Next would come the façade. The sides and apse are comparatively insignificant and incapable of ornament. The façades and the interior can be as well expressed in the rock as when standing free; but the case is different with the viharas. A court or hall surrounded with cells is not an imposing architectural object. Where the court has galleries two or three storeys in height, and the pillars that support these are richly carved, it may attain an amount of picturesqueness we find in our old hostelries, or of that class of beauty that prevails in the courts of Spanish monasteries.[159] Such was, I believe, the form many of the Indian structural viharas may have taken, but which could hardly be repeated in the rock; and, unless some representations are discovered among the paintings or sculptures, we shall probably never know, though we may guess, what the original appearances may have been.

There was, however, I believe, another form of Vihara even less capable of being repeated in the rock. It was pyramidal, and is the original of all the temples of southern India. Take, for instance, a description of one mentioned both by Fa Hian and Hiouen Thsang,[160] though neither of them, it must be confessed, ever saw it, which accounts in part for some absurdities in the description:--“The building,” says Fa Hian, “has altogether five storeys. The lowest is shaped into the form of an elephant, and has 500 stone cells in it; the second is in the form of a lion, and has 400 chambers; the third is shaped like a horse, and has 300 chambers; the fourth is in the form of an ox, and has 200 chambers; and the fifth is in the shape of a dove, and has 100 chambers in it”--and the account given of it by Hiouen Thsang is practically the same.[161] At first sight this looks wild enough; but if we substitute the assertion that the several storeys were adorned with elephants, lions, horses, &c., we get a mode of decoration which began at Karli, where a great range of elephants adorn the lower storey, and was continued with variations to Hullabîd, where, as we shall see further on, all these five animals are, in the 13th century, superimposed upon one another exactly as here recounted.

The opposite woodcut (No. 66), taken from one of the raths at Mahavellipore, probably correctly represents such a structure, and I believe also the form of a great many ancient viharas in India. The diagram (No. 67) is intended to explain what probably were the internal arrangements of such a structure. As far as it can be understood from the rock-cut examples we have, the centre was occupied by halls of varying dimensions according to height, supported by wooden posts above the ground-floor, and used as the common day-rooms of the monks. The sleeping-cells (Woodcuts Nos. 68, 69) were apparently on the terraces, and may have been such as are frequently represented in the bas-reliefs at Bharhut and elsewhere. Alternately they seem to have been square and oblong, and with smaller apartments between. Of course we must not take too literally a representation of a monastery, carried out solidly in the rock for a different purpose, as an absolutely correct representation of its original. The importance, however, of this form, as explaining the peculiarities of subsequent Buddhist and Dravidian architecture, is so great that it is well worth quoting here, though this will be more evident in the sequel than it can be at present. In construction the breadth, in a structural building, would probably have been greater in proportion to the height than in this example, but that is of little consequence for our present purposes.

It is, of course, always difficult, sometimes impossible, to realise the form of buildings from verbal descriptions only, and the Chinese Pilgrims were not adepts at architectural definitions. Still Hiouen Thsang’s description of the great Nalanda monastery is important, and so germane to our present subject that it cannot well be passed over.

This celebrated monastery, which was the Monte Cassino of India for the first five centuries of our era, was situated thirty-four miles south of Patna, and seven miles north of the old capital of Rajagriha. If not founded under the auspices of the celebrated Nagárjuna in the 1st century, he at all events resided there, introducing the Mahayana or great translation, and making it the seat of that school for Central India. After his time six successive kings had built as many viharas on this spot, when one of them surrounded the whole with a high wall, which can still be traced, measuring 1600 ft. north and south, by 400 ft., and enclosing eight separate courts. Externally to this enclosure were numerous stupas or tower-like viharas, ten or twelve of which are easily recognised, and have been identified, with more or less certainty, by General Cunningham, from the Pilgrim’s description.[162] The general appearance of the place may be gathered from the following:--“In the different courts the houses of the monks were each four storeys in height. The pavilions had pillars ornamented with dragons, and had beams resplendent with all the colours of the rainbow--rafters richly carved--columns ornamented with jade, painted red and richly chiselled, and balustrades of carved open work. The lintels of the doors were decorated with elegance, and the roofs covered with glazed tiles of brilliant colours, which multiplied themselves by reflection, and varied the effect at every moment in a thousand manners.” Or as he enthusiastically sums up:--“The Sangharamas of India are counted by thousands, but there are none equal to this in majesty or richness, or the height of their construction.”[163]

From what we know of the effects of Burmese monasteries at the present day this is probably no exaggeration; and with its groves of Mango-trees, and its immense tanks, which still remain, it must have been, as he says, “an enchanting abode.” Here there resided in his time--within and without the walls--10,000 priests and neophytes, and religion and philosophy were taught from a hundred chairs, and here consequently our Pilgrim sojourned for five years, imbibing the doctrines of the Law of Buddha. What Cluny and Clairvaux were to France in the Middle Ages, Nalanda was to Central India, the depository of all true learning, and the foundation from which it spread over all the other lands of the faithful; but still, as in all instances connected with that strange parallelism which existed between the two religions, the Buddhists kept five centuries in advance of the Christians in the invention and use of all the ceremonies and forms common to both religions.

It would indeed be satisfactory if the architecture of this celebrated monastery could be restored and its arrangements made clear. Something has been done by Cunningham[164] towards this, and excavations have been made by Mr. Broadley and Captain Marshall. The former it is feared has destroyed more than he has restored, and his drawings are so imperfect as to be utterly unintelligible. The latter has not yet published his discoveries. Nothing, however, would probably better repay a systematic exploration than this celebrated spot, if undertaken by some one accustomed to such researches, and capable of making detailed architectural drawings of what is found.

If, however, it should turn out, as hinted above, that the whole of the superstructure of these viharas was in wood, either fire or natural decay may have made such havoc among all that remains of them, as to leave little to reward the labours of the explorer. What has been done in this direction certainly affords no great encouragement to hope for much. At Sultangunge, near Monghyr, a large vihara was cut through by the railway, but except one remarkable bronze statue of Buddha[165] nothing was found of importance. The monastery apparently consisted of two large courtyards surrounded by cells. What was found, however, could only have been the foundations, as there were no doorways to the apartments or means of communication between each other or with the exterior.[166]

The vihara excavated by Captain Kittoe and Mr. Thomas, at Sarnath, seems certainly to have been destroyed by fire. All that remained was a series of some twenty cells and four larger halls surrounding a pillared court 50 ft. square. On one side were three cells evidently forming a sanctuary, as is frequently found in the later rock-cut examples.[167]

The excavations conducted by General Cunningham, at the same place, are hardly more satisfactory in their result. The two buildings he explored seem to bear the relation to one another of a vihara 60 ft. square over all, and a temple of little more than half these dimensions with a projecting porch on each face.[168] Only the foundation of these buildings now remains, and nothing to indicate how they were originally finished.

We may eventually hit on some representation which may enable us to form definite ideas on this subject, but till we do this we probably must be content with the interiors as seen in the rock-cut examples.

BENGAL CAVES.

None of the Behar caves can, properly speaking, be called viharas, in the sense in which the word is generally used, except perhaps the Son Bhandar, which, as before mentioned, General Cunningham identifies with the Sattapanni cave, in front of which the first convocation was held 543 B.C. It is a plain rectangular excavation, 33 ft. 9 in. long by 17 ft. wide, and 11 ft. 7 in. to the springing of the curved roof.[169] It has one door and one window, but both, like the rest of the cave, without mouldings or any architectural features that would assist in determining its age. The jambs of the doorway slope slightly inwards, but not sufficiently to give an idea of great antiquity. In front there was a wooden verandah, the mortice holes for which are still visible in the front wall.

The other caves, at Barabar and Nagárjuna, if not exactly chaityas in the sense in which that term is applied to the western caves, were at least oratories, places of prayer and worship, rather than residences. One Arhat or ascetic may have resided in them, but for the purpose of performing the necessary services. There are no separate cells in them, nor any division that can be considered as separating the ceremonial from the domestic uses of the cave, and they must consequently, for the present at least, be classed as chaityas rather than viharas.

The case is widely different when we turn to the caves in Orissa, which are among the most interesting, though at the same time the most anomalous, of all the caves in India. They are situated in two isolated hills of sandstone rock, about twenty miles from Cuttack and five from Bhuvaneswar. The oldest are in the hill called Udayagiri; the more modern in that portion designated Khandagiri. They became Jaina about the 10th or 11th century, and the last-named hill is crowned by a Jaina temple, erected by the Maharattas in the end of the last century.

What we know of the age of the older caves is principally derived from a long inscription on the front of the oldest, known as the Hathi Gumpha, or Elephant Cave.[170] From it we learn that it was engraved by a king called Aira, who ascended the throne of Kalinga in his twenty-fourth year, and spread his power by conquest over neighbouring rajas. He seems at first to have vacillated between the Brahmanical and Buddhist faiths, but finally to have adopted the latter and distributed infinite alms. Among other good works, he is said “to have constructed subterranean chambers--caves containing a chaitya temple, and pillars.”

Palæographically, the forms of the letters used in this inscription are identical with those used by Asoka in the copy of his edicts on the Aswatama rock close by, and that recently found at Aska, near the northern corner of the Chilkya lake. The first presumption, therefore, is that they may be of about the same date. This is justified by the mention of Nanda in the past tense, while there seems no reason for doubting that he was one of the kings of that name who immediately preceded the revolution that placed Chandragupta on the throne. Beside these, there are other indications in this inscription which seem to make it almost certain that Aira was contemporary with the great Mauryan dynasty of Magadha; but whether he preceded or followed Asoka is not quite so clear. Still it appears unlikely that Asoka would have been allowed to set up two copies of his edicts in the dominions of such powerful kings as Aira and his father seem to have been, and as unlikely that Aira should make such a record without some allusion to the previously promulgated edicts, had they then existed. On the whole, I am inclined to believe that Aira lived before Asoka, and, if so, that this is the oldest inscription yet found in India. Be this as it may, the cave in which it is found is certainly the oldest here. It is a great natural cavern, the brow of which has been smoothed to admit of this inscription, but all the rest remains nearly in a state of nature. Close to it is a small cave, the whole “fronton” of which over the doorway is occupied by a great three-headed Naga, and may be as old as the Hathi cave. The inscription on it merely says that it is the unequalled chamber of Chulakarma, who seems also to have excavated another cave, here called the Pawan Gabha,[171] or Purification Cave.

Besides these, and smaller caves to be noticed hereafter, the great interest of the Udayagiri caves centres in two--the so-called Ganesa cave, and that called the Raj Rani, or Rani Hanspur, from a tradition--Hindu--that it was excavated by the Rani of Lelat Indra Kesari, the celebrated builder of the Bhuvaneswar temple in the 7th century.

The former is a small cave, consisting of two cells, together 30 ft. long by 10 ft. wide, in front of which is a verandah, slightly longer, that was once adorned with five pillars, though only three are now standing (Woodcut No. 70). There is an inscription on this cave in the Kutila characters, dedicating it to Jaganath; but this is evidently an addition in modern times.[172] The style of the architecture may be judged of from the annexed woodcut, representing one of its pillars (Woodcut No. 71). They are of extreme simplicity, being square piers, changing into octagons in the centre only, and with a slight bracket of very wooden construction on each face. The doorways leading into the cells are adorned with the usual horseshoe formed canopies copied from the fronts of the chaitya halls, and which we are now so familiar with from the Bharhut sculptures, and from the openings common to all wooden buildings of that age.

The other cave is very much larger, being two storeys in height, both of which were originally adorned by verandahs: the upper 62 ft. long, opening into four cells (Woodcut No. 72), the lower, 44 ft., opening into three. All the doors leading into these cells have jambs sloping slightly inwards, which is itself a sufficient indication that the cave is anterior to the Christian Era, it may be, by a century or thereabouts. Of the nine pillars of the upper verandah only two remain standing, and these much mutilated, while all the six of the lower storey have perished. It seems as if from inexperience the excavators had not left sufficient substance to support the mass of rock above; and probably, in consequence of some slight shocks of an earthquake, the mass above fell in, bearing everything before it. Either then, or at some subsequent period, an attempt has been made to restore the lower verandah in wood, and for this purpose a chase has been cut through the sculptures that adorned its back wall, and they have been otherwise so mutilated that it is almost impossible to make out their meaning. Fortunately, those of the upper verandahs are tolerably entire, though in some parts they, too, have been very badly treated.

Besides this, which may be called the main body of the building, two wings project forward; that on the left 40 ft., that on the right 20 ft.; and, as these contained cells on both storeys, the whole afforded accommodation for a considerable number of inmates.

The great interest of these two caves, however, lies in their sculptures. In the Ganesa cave there are two bas-reliefs. The first represents a man asleep under a tree, and a woman watching over him. To them a woman is approaching leading a man by the hand, as if to introduce him to the sleeper. Beyond them a man and a woman are fighting with swords and shields in very close combat, and behind them a man is carrying off a naked female in his arms.[173]

The second bas-relief comprises fifteen figures and two elephants. There may be in it two successive scenes, though my impression is, that only one is intended, while I feel certain this is the case regarding the first. In the Raj Rani cave the second bas-relief is identical, in all essential respects, with the first in the Ganesa, but the reliefs that precede and follow it represent different scenes altogether. It is, perhaps, in vain to speculate what episode this rape scene represents, probably some local tradition not known elsewhere; its greatest interest for our present purposes is that the first named is singularly classical in design and execution, the latter wilder, and both in action and costume far more purely Indian. Before the discovery of the Bharhut sculptures, it is hardly doubtful that we would have pronounced those in the Ganesa cave the oldest, as being the most perfect. The Bharhut sculptures, however, having shown us how perfect the native art was at a very early date, have considerably modified our opinions on this subject; and those in the Rani cave, being so essentially Indian in their style, now appear to me the oldest. Those in the Ganesa Gumpha, as more classical, may have been executed by some Yavana artist at a subsequent age, but still both seem anterior to the Christian Era.[174] The other bas-reliefs in the Raj Rani cave represent scenes of hunting, fighting, dancing, drinking, and love-making--anything, in fact, but religion or praying in any shape or form. From the sculptures at Sanchi and Bharhut, we were prepared to expect that we should not find any direct evidence of Buddhism in any sculptures anterior to the first century of the Christian Era; but those at this place go beyond these in that respect. Nothing here can be interpreted as referring to any scenes in the life of Sakya Muni, or to any known jataka, and it is by no means clear whether we shall ever discover the legends to which they refer. Besides these bassi-relievi, there is in the Rani cave a figure, in high relief, of a female (?) riding on a lion. Behind him or her, a soldier in a kilt, or rather the dress of a Roman soldier, with laced boots reaching to the calf of the leg--very similar, in fact, to those represented Plate 28, fig. 1, of ‘Tree and Serpent Worship,’ as strangers paying their addresses to the three-storeyed dagoba--and behind this, again, a female of very foreign aspect.

In another cave of the same group, called the Jodev Garbha, and of about the same age, between the two doorways leading to the cell, a sacred tree is being worshipped. It is surrounded by the usual rail, and devotees and others are bringing offerings.[175]

In another, probably older than either of the two last-mentioned, called Ananta Garbha, are two bassi-relievi over the two doorways: one is devoted, like the last, to Tree worship, the other to the honour of Sri (vide ante, p. 51). She is standing on her lotus, and two elephants, standing likewise on lotuses, are pouring water over her.[176] The same representation occurs once, at least, at Bharhut, and ten times at Sanchi, and, so far as I know, is the earliest instance of honour paid to god or man in Indian sculptures.

One other cave deserves to be mentioned before leaving Udayagiri. It is a great boulder, carved into the semblance of a tiger’s head, with his jaws open, and his throat, as it should be, is a doorway leading to a single cell (Woodcut No. 73). It is a caprice, but one that shows that those who conceived it had some experience in the plastic arts before they undertook it. From the form of the characters which are engraved upon it, it is undoubtedly anterior to the Christian Era, but how much earlier it is difficult to say.

* * * * *

From whatever point of view they are looked at, these Orissan caves are so unlike anything that we have previously been in the habit of considering Buddhist, that it may well be asked whether we are justified in ascribing their excavation to the followers of that religion at all. Not only is there no figure of Buddha, in the conventional forms and attitudes by which he was afterwards recognised, but there is no scene which can be interpreted as representing any event in his life, nor any of the jatakas in which his future greatness was prefigured. There is no dagoba in the caves[177] or represented in the sculptures, no chaitya cave, no wheel emblem, nor anything in fact that is usually considered emblematical of that religion.

When we look a little more closely into it, however, we do detect the Swastica and shield emblem attached to the Aira inscription, and the shield and trisul ornament over the doorways in the older caves, and these we know, from what we find at Bharhut and Sanchi, and at Bhaja (ante, p. 112), were considered as Buddhist emblems in these places. But were they exclusively so? The trisul ornament is found on the coins of Kadphises, in conjunction with the bull and trident of Siva,[178] and we have no reason for assuming that the Swastica, and it may be even the shield, were not used by other and earlier sects.

The truth of the matter appears to be that hitherto our knowledge of Buddhism has been derived almost exclusively from books, which took their present form only in the fourth or fifth century of our era, or from monuments erected after the corruptions of the Mahayana introduced by Nagárjuna, and those who assisted at the fourth convocation held by Kanishka in the first century of our era. We now are able to realise from the sculptures of Bharhut, of these caves, and of the Sanchi gateways, and the older western caves, what Buddhism really was between the ages of Asoka and Kanishka, and it is a widely different thing from anything written in the books we possess, or represented afterwards in sculptures or paintings. Whether we shall ever recover any traces of what Buddhism was between the death of Sakya Muni and Asoka, is more than doubtful. If found, it would probably be even more unlike the present Buddhism than that of the intermediate period. Judging from what we have hitherto found, it looks as if it would turn out to be a pure worship of trees by a Naga or serpent-reverencing race, on whose primitive faith Asoka engrafted the teachings of Sakya Muni. There were Buddhists, of course, in India before Asoka’s time, but it seems doubtful if they were sufficiently powerful to dig caves or erect monuments. None at least have yet been discovered, and till they are we must be content to stop our backward researches with such a group of monuments as these Udayagiri caves.

WESTERN VIHARA CAVES.

There are at least four Viharas which we know for certainty were excavated before the Christian Era. There are probably forty, but they have not yet been edited with such care as to enable us to feel confident in affixing dates to them. The four that are known are those attached to the chaityas at Bhaja and Bedsa (Woodcuts Nos. 45, 49), and the two oldest at Ajunta, Nos. 12 and 11. Those at Karli are probably coeval with the great chaitya itself, but, strange to say, they have never been drawn or investigated, so that we really know little or nothing about them. At Junir there are several, which are very old, and at Sana and Tulaja, in Gujerat, there are several of very ancient date, but they, like those at Junir, are too imperfectly known to be quoted as authenticated examples of the period.

The oldest of these is that attached to the chaitya at Bhaja (ante, Woodcut No. 45). It is five-celled; three of these have single stone beds in them, one is double-bedded, and one, apparently the residence of the superior, is without that uncomfortable piece of furniture. In front of these are two long stone benches at either end of a hall 33 ft. in length. It is not clear whether this hall was always open as at present, but, if it was closed, it was by a wooden screen like the chaitya beside it, which is undoubtedly of the same age. They are indeed parts of one design. The same may be said of the Bedsa vihara, though placed a little further apart. In this case, however, there are three cells with stone beds in the verandah of the chaitya, and a fourth was commenced when apparently it was determined to remove the residence a little further off, and no instance, I believe, occurs afterwards in which they were so conjoined, till at least a very late date, when, as at Dhumnar (Woodcut No. 65), all the parts got again confounded together. As will be seen from the plan (Woodcut No. 49) it is exceptional in form, being apsidal like the chaitya itself. It is not clear whether this is a copy of any existing wooden erection, or whether it was that, being the first attempt at an independent vihara in the rock, they thought it ought to resemble a chaitya in plan. My impression is that the latter is the true explanation; such an arrangement in a free-standing structure intended for a residence would be absurd, but we are here assisting at the “incunabula” of the style, and must not be surprised at anomalies.

Number 12 at Ajunta is merely a square hall, measuring 36 ft. 7 in. each way. It has no pillars, and its only ornament consists of seven horseshoe arches, four of which are over the doors of cells, the other three only ornamental. Unfortunately, the rock over its front has given way, and carried with it the façade, which probably was the most ornamental part of the design.

Number 11 is a step in advance of this one, there being four pillars in its centre (Woodcut No. 74). It has nine cells, but is without any sanctuary or ritual arrangement. In age, it seems to be contemporary with the chaitya No. 10, to which it evidently belongs, and like it may be considered as a transitional example, dating about the Christian Era, or rather before that time.

The most marked characteristic of these early viharas on the western side of India, is that unlike their eastern contemporaries, they are wholly devoid of figure-sculpture: no bassi-relievi, not even an emblem, relieves the severity of their simplicity. Over the doorways of the cells there are the usual horseshoe arches, copied from the windows of the great chaityas, and the invariable Buddhist rail repeated everywhere as a stringcourse, with an occasional pillar or pilaster to relieve the monotony.

There do not at present seem to exist any data sufficient to account satisfactorily for this curious difference between the exuberance of figure-sculpture in the east, and its total absence in the west in the pre-Christian Era caves, and the problem must be relegated for further inquiries. Looking, however, at the progress made of late years in these subjects, there is little doubt that its solution is not far off, and will, when reached, throw fresh light on the early history of Buddhism. Meanwhile, it may be worthy of remark, that the only living representation that is common to both sides of India, is the presence of the three-headed Naga on the façade of the Nassick chaitya (Woodcut No. 52), and its appearance in a similar position on the Chulakarma and Ananta caves at Udayagiri in Orissa. It points to an important feature in early Buddhist history, but not exactly what we are now looking for. Besides this the three, five, or seven-headed Naga occurs so frequently at Bharhut, Sanchi and elsewhere, that his presence here can hardly be called a distinctive peculiarity.

The next step after the introduction of four pillars to support the roof, as in cave No. 11 at Ajunta (Woodcut No. 74), was to introduce twelve pillars to support the roof, there being no intermediate number which would divide by four, and admit of an opening in the centre of every side. This arrangement is shown in the woodcut (No. 75), representing the plan of the cave No. 2 at Ajunta. Before this stage of cave architecture had been reached, the worship had degenerated considerably from its original purity; and these caves always possess a sanctuary containing an image of Buddha. There are frequently, besides this, as in the instance under consideration, two side chapels, like those in Catholic churches, containing images of subordinate saints, sometimes male, sometimes female.

The next and most extensive arrangement of these square monastery-caves is that in which twenty pillars are placed in the floor, so as to support the roof, six on each side, counting the corner pillars twice. There are several of these large caves at Ajunta and elsewhere; and one at Bagh, on the Tapty, represented in the last woodcut (No. 76), has, besides the ordinary complement, four additional pillars in the centre; these were introduced evidently in consequence of the rock not being sufficiently homogeneous and perfect to support itself without this additional precaution.

These--which might be classed, according to the terms used in Greek architecture, as astyle, when having no pillars; distyle, when with two pillars in each face; tetrastyle, with four; and hexastyle with six--form the leading and most characteristic division of these excavations, and with slight modification are to be found in all the modern series.

The forms, however, of many are so various and so abnormal, that it would require a far more extended classification to enable us to describe and include them all. In many instances the great depth of the cave which this square arrangement required was felt to be inconvenient; and a more oblong form was adopted, as in the Durbar cave at Salsette (Woodcut No. 77), where, besides, the sanctuary is projected forward, and assists, with the pillars, to support the roof. In some examples this is carried even further, and the sanctuary, standing boldly forward to the centre of the hall, forms in reality the only support. This, however, is a late arrangement, and must be considered more as an economical than an architectural improvement. Indeed by it the dignity and beauty of the whole composition are almost entirely destroyed.

NASSICK VIHARAS.

The two most interesting series of caves for the investigation of the history of the later developments of the Vihara system, are those at Nassick and Ajunta. The latter is by far the most extensive, consisting of twenty-six first-class caves, four of which are chaityas. The latter group numbers, it is true, seventeen excavations, but only six or seven of these can be called first-class, and it possesses only one chaitya. The others are small excavations of no particular merit or interest. Ajunta has also the advantage of retaining the greater portion of the paintings which once adorned the walls of all viharas erected subsequently to the Christian Era, while these have almost entirely disappeared at Nassick, though there seems very little doubt that the walls of all the greater viharas there were once so ornamented. This indeed was one of the great distinctions between them and the earlier primitive cells of the monks before the Christian Era. The Buddhist church between Asoka and Kanishka was in the same position as that of Christianity between Constantine and Gregory the Great. It was the last-named pontiff who inaugurated the Middle Ages with all their pomp and ceremonial. It might, therefore, under certain circumstances be expedient to describe the Ajunta viharas first; but they are singularly deficient in well-preserved inscriptions containing recognisable names. Nassick, on the other hand, is peculiarly rich in this respect, and the history of the series can be made out with very tolerable approximative certainty.[179]

The only difficulty is at the beginning of the series. If the chaitya cave was, as above stated, commenced 129 years before Christ, there ought to have been a vihara of the same age attached to it, but such does not seem to exist. There is indeed a small vihara close to it, and on a lower level than those now on each side of it, and consequently more likely to be what we are looking for, than they are. It is a simple square hall measuring 14 ft. each way, with two square cells in three of its sides, the fourth opening on a verandah with two octagon pillars in front. The only ornament of the interior is a horseshoe arch over each opening, connected with a simple Buddhist rail. In every detail it is in fact identical with the two old viharas Nos. 12 and 11 Ajunta, and certainly anterior to the Christian Era; but it bears an inscription of Krishna Raja, and he seems almost certainly to be the second of the Andrabritya race, and he ascended the throne B.C. 8, or 120 years after the time we are looking for.[180] But for this the architectural details would accord perfectly with those of the chaitya, and the age ascribed to it; but the inscriptions may have been added afterwards. If this is not so, the only suggestion that occurs to me is that, as originally executed, the chaitya had a forecourt, and that the cells were in this, as at Bedsa and Sana, but that having fallen away, from some flaw in the rock, was entirely removed, and at a subsequent time that on the right was added at a height of 6 ft. above the level of the floor of the chaitya, that on the left at 12 ft., about the same datum,[181] which could hardly have been the case if they were part of the original conception.

Turning from these, which practically belong to the last chapter rather than to this, the interest is centred in three great viharas, the oldest of which bears the name of Nahapana (Woodcut No. 78), the second that of Gautamiputra, and the third that of Yadnya Sri--if my chronology is correct, their dates are thus fixed, in round numbers, as A.D. 100, 300, and 400.

The two principal viharas at Nassick, Nos. 3 and 8, are so similar in dimensions and in all their arrangements, that it is almost impossible to distinguish between their plans on paper. They are both square halls measuring more than 40 ft. each side, without any pillars in the centre, and are surrounded on three sides by sixteen cells of nearly the same dimensions. On the fourth side is a six-pillared verandah, in the one case with a cell at each end, in the other with only one cell, which is the most marked distinction between the two plans. The architecture, too, is in some respects so similar that we can hardly hesitate in assuming that the one is an intentional copy of the other. It is in fact the problem of the great cave at Kenheri, being a copy of that at Karli repeated here.[182] Only the difference in age between the two chaityas being five centuries, the degradation in style is greater than here, where it appears to be little more than two.

The pillars in the verandah of cave No. 8 (Woodcut No. 79, p. 150) are so similar to those in the great Karli chaitya, that if it should turn out, as Justice Newton[183] supposes, that Nahapana was the founder of the Samvat era, 56 B.C., there would be nothing in the architecture to contradict such a date. According to Mr. West, “the pillars are shorter in proportion, and the human figures more rudely designed;”[184] but whether to such an extent as to justify an interval of nearly two centuries is not quite clear. On the other hand no vihara I know of on this side of India has a facade so richly ornamented as this. Those at Bhaja and Bedsa are quite plain, and those around Karli, though richer, are far inferior to this, so that on the whole the architectural evidence tends strongly to a date subsequent to the Christian Era.

The inscription on this cave says, that it was excavated by Ushavadata, son-in-law of Nahapana, viceroy under King Kshaharatra,[185] evidently a foreigner, whose proper name has not yet been discovered, but for reasons given in the Appendix, there seems little doubt but that the Saka era (A.D. 78-9) dates from his coronation, and as some years must have elapsed before the son-in-law of the viceroy could have been in a position to undertake such a work as this, I presume A.D. 100 is not far from the date of the cave.

The pillars of the Gautamiputra cave No. 3 have, as will be seen from the last woodcut (No. 80), lost much of the elegance of those last described. Instead of the graceful bell-shaped Persian capitals, we have the pudding forms that afterwards became so prevalent. The shafts are straight posts, and have no bases, and the whole shows an inferiority not to be mistaken. The richly carved and sculptured doorway also belongs to a much more modern age. Besides this, there are three things here which prove almost incontestably that it belongs to the same age as the Amravati tope erected in the 4th century--the rail in front, already given (Woodcut No. 36), the pilaster at the end of the verandah,[186] and the bas-relief of a dagoba, which occupies the same position on the back wall in this cave that the man with the club occupies in No. 8. It has the same attendants, and the same superfluity of umbrellas, as are found there,[187] so that altogether the age of the excavation can hardly be considered doubtful.

Cave No. 12 is a small vihara, the central hall being 30 ft. by 23 ft., and with only four cells on one side. Considerable alterations have been attempted in its interior at some date long subsequent to its first excavation, to adapt it apparently to Hindu worship. Its verandah, however, consisting of two attached and two free-standing columns, is undoubtedly of the same age as the Nahapana cave No. 8. An inscription upon it states that it was excavated by Indragnidatta, prince regnant under Patamitraka of the northern region.[188] None of these names can be recognised, but they point to an age when foreign kings, possibly of the Punjab, ruled this country by satraps.

The great vihara beyond the chaitya cave, and 12 ft. above its level, is one of the most important of the series, not only from its size, but from its ordinance and date (Woodcut No. 81). The hall is 60 ft. in depth by 40 ft. wide at the outer end, increasing to 45 ft. at the inner, and with eight cells on either side. The most marked peculiarity, however, is that it has a regular sanctuary at its inner end, with two richly-carved pillars in front (Woodcut No. 82, p. 152), and within, a colossal figure of Buddha, seated, with flying and standing attendants, dwarpals, dwarfs, and all the usual accompaniments usually found in the fifth and subsequent centuries, but never, so far as I know, before.

Fortunately we have in this cave an inscription containing a well-known name. It is said to have been excavated by the wife of the commander-in-chief of the Emperor Yadnya Sri, Sat Karni, descendant of King Gautamiputra, in the seventh year.[189] We are not able to fix the exact year to which this date refers; probably it was only regnal, but it does not seem doubtful that this king reigned in the first quarter of the 5th century, and we consequently have in this cave a fixed point on which to base our calculations for the period about the time.

Beyond this there is still another excavation, No. 17--it can hardly be called a vihara--of very irregular shape, and covered with sculpture of a date at least a century more modern than that of the cave last described. Buddha is there represented in all his attitudes, standing or sitting, accompanied by chowrie bearers, flying figures, dwarfs, &c. On one side is a colossal recumbent figure of him attaining Nirvana, which is a sure sign of a very modern date. Besides these, there are Dyani Buddhas, Bodhisatwas, and all the modern pantheon of Buddhism, arranged in most admired confusion, as in all the most modern caves. There is no inscription, but from its sculpture and the form of its pillars we may safely ascribe it to the last age of Buddhist art, say about the year 600 or later. The pillars approximate closely in style to those found at Elephanta, and in the Brahmanical caves at Ellora, which from other evidence have been assigned to dates varying from 600 to 800 years of our era.

More has perhaps been said about the Nassick caves than their architectural importance would seem at first sight to justify, but they are one of the most important of the purely Buddhist groups, and they have hardly yet been alluded to in European books. Their great merit, however, is that they belong to one of the most important of the older Indian dynasties, known as the Andrabrityas, Sata Karnis, or Satavahanas. Being of purely Indian extraction, they, however, did not coin money like the Punjab dynasties, nor their contemporaries and rivals the Sah kings of Gujerat, who brought the art with them when they came as conquerors from the north-west, where they had learnt the art from the Greeks. This dynasty has, consequently, been overlooked by numismatists and others, and can only be rehabilitated by their inscriptions and their architectural work, on which these are found inscribed.

AJUNTA VIHARAS.

As before mentioned, the central group of the four oldest caves at Ajunta forms the nucleus from which the caves radiate north and south--eight in one direction, and fourteen in the other. It seems, however, that there was a pause in the excavation of caves after the first great effort, and that they were then extended, for some time at least, in a southern direction. Thus caves Nos. 13 to 20 form a tolerably consecutive series, without any violent break. After that, or it may be contemporaneously with the last named, may be grouped Nos. 8, 7, and 6; and, lastly, Nos. 21 to 26 at one end of the series, and Nos. 1 to 5 at the other, form the latest and most ornate group of the whole series.[190]

As above explained of the central four, three are certainly anterior to the Christian Era. One, No. 10, being transitional in some of its features, may belong to the 1st century, and be consequently contemporary with the gateways at Sanchi. After this first effort, however, came the pause just alluded to, for Nos. 13, 14, and 15, which are the only caves we can safely assign to the next three centuries, are comparatively insignificant, either in extent or in richness of detail.

Leaving these, we come to two viharas, Nos. 16 and 17, which are the most beautiful here, and, taken in conjunction with their paintings, probably the most interesting viharas in India.

No. 16 is a twenty-pillared cave, measuring about 65 ft. each way (Woodcut No. 83, p. 154), with sixteen cells and a regular sanctuary, in which is a figure of Buddha, seated, with his feet down. The general appearance of the interior may be judged of by the following woodcut (No. 84) in outline, but only a coloured representation in much greater detail could give an idea of the richness of effect produced by its decoration. All the walls are covered with frescoes representing scenes from the life of Buddha, or from the legends of saints, and the roof and pillars by arabesques and ornaments, generally of great beauty of outline, heightened by the most harmonious colouring.

No. 17, which is very similar in plan, is generally known as the Zodiac cave, from the figure of a Buddhist chakra or wheel painted at one end of its verandah, which was mistaken by early visitors for a celestial emblem. The general effect of its architecture internally may be gathered from the above woodcut (No. 85) from a photograph, or from the next woodcut (No. 86) representing one of its pillars to a larger scale, from which the curiously wooden construction of the roof will be better observed than from the photograph. It is, in fact, the usual mode of forming flat or terraced roofs at the present day throughout India, and which consequently does not seem to have varied from the 5th century at all events. As may be gathered from these illustrations the pillars in these caves are almost indefinitely varied, generally in pairs, but no pillars in any one cave are at all like those in any other. In each cave, however, there is a general harmony of design and of form, which prevents their variety from being unpleasing. The effect on the contrary is singularly harmonious and satisfactory. The great interest of these two caves lies, however, in their frescoes, which represent Buddhist legends on a scale and with a distinctness found nowhere else in India. The sculptures of Amravati--some of which may be contemporary, or only slightly earlier--are what most nearly approach them; but, as in most cases, painting admits of greater freedom and greater variety of incident than sculpture ever does, and certainly in this instance vindicates its claim to greater phonetic power. Many of the frets and architectural details painted on the roofs and pillars of these and in viharas are also of great elegance and appropriateness, and, when combined with the architecture, make up a whole unrivalled in India for its ethnographic as well as for its architectural beauty.

Fortunately the age of these two caves is not doubtful; there is a long inscription on each, much mutilated it must be confessed, but of which enough can be made out to show that they were excavated by kings of the Vindhyasacti race, one of whom, Pravarasena, whose name appears in the inscription on No. 16, married a daughter of Maharaja Deva, alias Chandra-gupta.[191] We have inscriptions of the last king dated 82 and 93 of the Gupta era, or in A.D. 400 and 411, and his son-in-law may probably have reigned a few years later. We may consequently safely place these two caves in the first half of the 5th century. They are thus slightly more modern than the Yadnya Sri cave, No. 15, at Nassick, which is exactly the result we would expect to arrive at from their architecture and the form of their sanctuaries.

Their great interest, therefore, from a historical point of view, consists in their being almost unique specimens of the architecture and arts of India during the great Gupta period, when Theodosius II. was emperor of the East, and at a time when Bahram Gaur, the Sassanian, is said to have visited India. He reigned 420 to 440; if he did visit India, it must have been while they were in course of being excavated.[192]

Nos. 18, 19, and 20 succeed this group, both in position and in style, and probably occupied the remaining half of the 5th century in construction, bringing down our history to about A.D. 500.

Before proceeding further in this direction, the cave-diggers seem to have turned back and excavated Nos. 8, 7, and 6. The last named is the only two-storeyed cave at Ajunta, and would be very interesting if it were not so fearfully ruined by damp and decay, owing to the faulty nature of the rock in which it is excavated. No. 7 has a singularly elegant verandah, broken by two projecting pavilions.[193] Internally, it is small, and occupied by a whole pantheon of Buddhas. It resembles, in fact, in almost every respect, No. 17 at Nassick, with which it is, no doubt, contemporary.

There still remain the five first caves at the northern end, and the six last at the southern: one of these is a chaitya, the other ten are viharas of greater or less dimensions. Some are only commenced, and two, Nos. 4 and 24, which were intended to have been the finest of the series, are left in a very incomplete state: interesting, however, as showing the whole process of an excavation from its commencement to its completion. Both these were intended to be 28-pillared caves, and the hall of No. 4 measures 84 ft. by 89 ft.

Caves Nos. 1 and 2 are among the most richly-sculptured of the caves. The façade, indeed, of No. 1 is the most elaborate and beautiful of its class at Ajunta, and with the corresponding caves at the opposite end conveys a higher idea of the perfection to which decorative sculpture had attained at that age than anything else at Ajunta. With the last chaitya, which belongs to this group, these caves carry our history down certainly into the 7th century. The work in the unfinished caves, I fancy, must have been arrested by the troubles which took place in Central India about the year 650, or shortly afterwards, when, I fancy, the persecution of the Buddhists commenced, and after which it is hardly probable that any community of that faith would have leisure or means to carry out any works, on such a scale at least, as these Ajunta viharas.

* * * * *

It is, of course, impossible, without a much greater amount of illustration than is compatible with the nature of this work, to convey to those who have not seen them any idea of the various points of interest found in these caves; but it is to be hoped that a complete series of illustrations of them may be one day given to the world. The materials for this nearly existed when the disastrous fire at the Crystal Palace, in 1860, destroyed Major Gill’s facsimiles of the paintings, which can hardly now be replaced.[194] A good deal, however, may be, and it is hoped will be, done, as they afford a complete series of examples of Buddhist art without any admixture from Hinduism, or any other religion extending from 200 years before Christ to 600 or 700 years after his era; and besides illustrating the arts and feelings of those ages, they form a chronometric scale by which to judge of, and synchronise other known series with which, however, they differ in several important particulars. For instance, at Ajunta there is no single example of those bell-shaped Persian capitals to pillars, with waterpot bases; nor is there any example of animals with riders crowning the capitals, such as are found at Bedsa, Karli, Nassick, Salsette, and elsewhere in the Ghâts. These differences seem to point to a western influence, Persian, Saka, or Scythian, or by whatever name we like to designate it, which did not penetrate so far inland as Ajunta or Ellora, but was confined to those regions where we know the foreign influence prevailed.

These, and many more ethnographic distinctions in architecture will, no doubt, be brought out by careful examination and comparisons, from which, when made, it can hardly be doubted that the most important results will be derived.

BAGH.

At a distance about 150 miles a little west of north from Ajunta, and thirty miles west of Mandu, near a little village of the name of Bagh, there exists a series of viharas only little less interesting than the later series at Ajunta. They are situated in a secluded ravine in the side of the range of hills that bounds the valley of the Nerbudda on the north, and were first visited or at least first described by Lieutenant Dangerfield, in the second volume of the ‘Transactions of the Literary Society of Bombay.’ They have since been described more in detail by Dr. Impey in the fifth volume of the ‘Journal Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society.’ Unfortunately the plates that were to accompany that paper were not published with it, but being deposited by the author in the library of the India Office, they are now before me, and from them and from this paper the principal details that follow have been gleaned.

The series consists of eight or nine viharas, some of them of the very first class, but no chaitya hall, nor does any excavation of that class seem ever to have been attempted here. On the other hand, the larger viharas seem to have had a shala or schoolroom attached to them, which may also have been employed for divine service. The fact, however, that the sanctuaries of the viharas generally have a dagoba in them, instead of an image of Buddha, points to a distinction which may hereafter prove of value. On the whole they are purer and simpler than the latest at Ajunta, though most probably of about the same age.

The plan of one has already been given, but it is neither so large nor architecturally so important as the great vihara, shown in plan, Woodcut No. 87. Its great hall is 96 ft. square, and would at Ajunta rank as a twenty-eight pillared cave, like No. 4 there, but inside this are eight pillars ranged octagonally; and at a later age, apparently in consequence of some failure of the roof, four structural pillars--shaded lighter--were introduced. It is not clear from Dr. Impey’s description how the central octagon was originally roofed. He seems to have believed that a dagoba originally stood in the centre, and having been destroyed brought down the roof with it. As, however, there is a dagoba in the sanctuary, this is hardly probable, and it seems much more likely that it was a copy of a structural octagonal dome, such as we find the Jains invariably employing a few centuries afterwards. If this is so, it would be highly interesting that it should be examined by some architect capable of restoring it constructively from such indications as remain. We have hundreds, almost thousands, of these domes supported on eight pillars after the revival in the 10th century, but not one before. If this is one, it might help to restore a missing link in our chain of evidence.

The shala connected with this vihara measures 94 ft. by 44 ft., and the two are joined together by a verandah measuring 220 ft. in length, adorned by twenty free-standing pillars. At one time the whole of the back wall of this gallery was adorned with a series of frescoes, equalling in beauty and in interest those of Ajunta. As in those at Ajunta, the uninitiated would fail to trace among them any symptoms of Buddhism as generally understood. The principal subjects are processions on horseback, or on elephants. In the latter the number of women exceeds that of the men. Dancing and love-making are as usual prominently introduced, and only one small picture, containing two men, can be said to be appropriated to worship.

With one exception, no man or woman has any covering on their heads, and the men generally have the hair cropped short, and with only very small moustaches on the face. Some half-dozen are as dark as the Indians of the present day. The rest are very much fairer, many as fair as Spaniards, and nearly all wear coloured dresses.

We are not at present in a position to say, and may not for a long time be able to feel sure, who the races are that are represented in these frescoes or in those at Ajunta. Negatively we may probably be justified in asserting that they are not the ancestors of the present inhabitants of Rajputana, nor of any of the native races--Bhîls, Gonds, or such like. Are they Sakas, Yavanas, or any of the trans-Indus tribes who, in the first centuries of the Christian Era flowed into India across that river, bringing with them their arts and religious forms? The style of art, especially at Bagh, is very similar to that of Persia at about the same date.

The date of this group of caves seems hardly doubtful. The earliest could not well have been commenced much before A.D. 500; the date of the latest, if our chronology is correct, could not well be carried down beyond 650 or 700, unless it was, that the troubles that convulsed the rest of India after that date did not reach those remote valleys in Rajputana till some time afterwards.

SALSETTE.

One of the most extensive, but one of the least satisfactory of all the groups of Indian caves, is that generally known as the Kenheri Caves on the Island of Salsette in Bombay Harbour. The great chaitya cave there, as mentioned above, is only a bad copy of the Karli cave, and was excavated in the beginning of the 5th century, and none of the viharas seem to be earlier. The place, however, must have had some sanctity at an earlier date, for there seems no doubt that a tooth of Buddha was enshrined here in the beginning of the 4th century, when these relics were revolutionising the Buddhist world at least at two diametrically opposite points of the coast of India, at Puri, and in this island.[195] It may have been in consequence of the visit of this relic that the island became holy, and it may have been because it was an island, that it remained undisturbed by the troubles of the mainland, and that the practice of excavating caves lasted longer here than in any series above described. Be this as it may, the caves here go straggling on till they fade by almost imperceptible degrees into those of the Hindu religion. The Hindu caves of Montpezir, Kundoty, and Amboli are so like them, and the change takes place so gradually, that it is sometimes difficult to draw the line between the two religions.

Although, therefore, we have not at Salsette any viharas that can compare with those of Nassick, Ajunta, or Bagh, and they nowhere form a series which might assist us in guessing their dates, yet, just because they are so late, and because they do fade so gradually into the next phase, are they worthy of more attention than has been bestowed upon them.

As these caves are so near Bombay, and so easily accessible, it seems strange that they have lately been so much neglected, and no one seems to have visited, or at least described, the outlying groups. What we know of those of Montpezir or Amboli is derived from Daniell’s drawings,[196] made at the end of the last century, or from the travels of Lord Valentia or Niebuhr.[197] The Kenheri group is better known, and I can speak of them from personal knowledge.

A plan of one has already been given (Woodcut No. 77). It is a two-storeyed vihara, and one of the finest here, though it would not be considered remarkable anywhere else. Another, of which a representation is given in my ‘Rock-cut Temples,’ plate 19, represents Avalokiteswara with ten heads,--the only instance I know of in India, though it is common in Thibet in modern times.[198] The others are generally mere cells, or natural caverns slightly improved by art, and hardly worthy of illustration in a general history, though a monograph of these caves would be a most valuable addition to our scanty stock of knowledge.

DHUMNAR AND KHOLVI.

There are no viharas at either of these places which can at all compare, either in dimensions or in interest, with those already described. The largest, at Dhumnar, is that already given in combination with the chaitya, Woodcut No. 65, and, though important, is evidently transitional to another state of matters. Next to this is one called the Great Kacheri; but it is only a six-celled vihara, with a hall about 25 ft. square, encumbered by four pillars on its floor; and near the chaitya above alluded to is a similar hall, but smaller and without cells. At Kholvi there is nothing that can correctly be called a vihara at all. There is, indeed, one large hall, called Bhim’s home, measuring 42 ft. by 22 ft.; but it has no cells, and is much more like what would be called a shala at Bagh than a vihara. The others are mere cells, of no architectural importance.[199]

The fact seems to be that when these two groups of caves were being excavated Buddhism was fast losing its original characteristics, and fading into the bastard Brahmanism that succeeded it. When that took place, we cannot at present exactly say; but I cannot help fancying that this religion may have lingered on, and flourished in the remote wilds of Rajputana[200] or in the island of Salsette long after it had been driven from the neighbourhood of the great cities and from the populous and well-cultivated plains; and these caves, especially those of Kholvi, may have been excavated in the 8th or even in the 9th century of our era.

ELLORA.

At Ellora there are numerous viharas attached to the Viswakarma, or the great chaitya above described (p. 128). Like it, however, they are all modern, but on that very account interesting, as showing more clearly than elsewhere the steps by which Buddhist cave-architecture faded into that of the Hindus. Every step of the process can be clearly traced here, though the precise date at which the change took place cannot yet be fixed with certainty.

The great vihara, which is also evidently contemporary with the chaitya, is known as the Dehrwarra, and, as will be seen from the plan (Woodcut No. 88), differs considerably from any of those illustrated above. Its dimensions are considerable, being 110 ft. in depth by 70 ft. across the central recesses, its great defect being the lowness of its roof. Its form, too, is exceptional. It looks more like a flat-roofed chaitya, with its three aisles, than an ordinary vihara; and such it probably was intended to be, and, if so, it is curious to observe that at Bedsa (Woodcut No. 49) we had one of the earliest complete viharas, looking like a chaitya in plan; and here we have one of the latest, showing the same confusion of ideas; a thing very common in architectural history, where a new style or a new arrangement generally hampers itself with copying some incongruous form, which it casts off during its vigorous manhood, but to which it returns in its decrepitude--a sure sign that it is passing away.

Close to the Viswakarma is a small and very pretty vihara, in which the sanctuary stands free, with a passage all round it, as in some of the Saiva caves further on; and the appearance of the warders on each side of the door would lead one rather to expect an image of Siva inside than the Buddha which actually occupies it. The details, however, of its architecture are the same as in the great cave.

Communicating with this one is a small square vihara, the roof of which is supported by four pillars of the same detail as the Dookya Ghur, which is the cave next it on the north; but though surrounded by cells it has no sanctuary or images.

Higher up the hill than these are two others containing numerous cells, and one with a very handsome hall, the outer half of which has unfortunately fallen in; enough, however, remains to show not only its plan, but all the details, which very much resemble those of the last group of viharas at Ajunta.

In the sanctuaries of most of these caves are figures of Buddhas sitting with their feet down. On each side of the image in the principal one are nine figures of Buddhas, or rather Bodhisatwas, seated cross-legged, and below them three and three figures, some cross-legged, and others standing, probably devotees, and one of them a woman.

Neither of these caves have been entirely finished.

There is still another group of these small viharas, called the Chumarwarra, or (if I understand correctly) the Chumars’ (or ‘shoe-makers’) quarter. The first is square, with twelve pillars on the same plan as those at Ajunta, though the detail is similar to the Viswakarma. There are cells, and in the sanctuary Buddha sitting with the feet down; it never has been finished, and is now much ruined.

The second is similar in plan, though the pillars are of the cushion form of Elephanta and the Dehrwarra, but the capitals are much better formed than in the last example, and more ornamented; the lateral galleries here contain figures of Buddha, all like the one in the sanctuary, sitting with their feet down, and there are only two cells on each side of the sanctuary.

The last is a small plain vihara with cells, but without pillars, and much ruined.

The whole of the caves in this group resemble one another so much in detail and execution that it is difficult to make out any succession among them, and it is probable that they were all excavated within the same century as the Viswakarma.

The next three temples are particularly interesting to the antiquarian, as pointing out the successive steps by which the Buddhistical caves merged into the Brahmanical.

The first is the Do Tal, or Dookya Ghur, a Buddhist vihara of two storeys; most of its details are so similar to those above described that it may be assumed to be, without doubt, of the same age. It is strictly Buddhistic in all its details, and shows no more tendency towards Brahmanism than what was pointed out in speaking of the Viswakarma. It apparently was intended to have had three storeys, but has been left unfinished.

The next, or Teen Tal, is very similar to the last in arrangement and detail, and its sculptures are all Buddhistical, though deviating so far from the usual simplicity of that style as almost to justify the Brahmans in appropriating them as they have done.

The third, the Das Avatar, is another two-storeyed cave, very similar in all its architectural details to the two preceding, but the sculptures are all Brahmanical. At first sight, it seems as if the excavation had been made by the Buddhists, and appropriated and finished by their successors. This may be true to a certain extent, but on a more careful examination it appears more probable that we owe it entirely to the Brahmans. It is evidently the earliest Brahmanical temple here, and it is natural to suppose that when the Saivites first attempted to rival their antagonists in cave-temples they should follow the only models that existed, merely appropriating them to their own worship. The circumstance, however, that makes this most probable, is the existence of a pseudo-structural mantapa, or shrine of Nundi, in the courtyard; this evidently must have been a part of the original design, or the rock would not have been left here for it, and it is a model of the usual structural building found in Saiva temples in different parts of India. This is a piece of bad grammar the Buddhists never were guilty of; their excavations always are caves, whilst the great characteristic of Brahmanical excavations, as distinguished from that of their predecessors, is that they generally copied structural buildings: a system that rose to its greatest height in the Kylas, to be described further on. The Buddhist excavations, on the contrary, were always caves and nothing else.

It is not easy, in the present state of our knowledge, to determine whether the Ellora Buddhist group is later or earlier than those of Dhumnar and Kholvi. It is certainly finer than either, and conforms more closely with the traditions of the style in its palmiest days; but that may be owing to local circumstances, of which we have no precise knowledge. The manner, however, in which it fades into the Hindu 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 meanwhile 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.

JUNIR.

When the history of the cave-temples of western India comes 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 dimensions, 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 1833 Colonel Sykes published a series of inscriptions copied from them, but without any description of the caves themselves.[201] In 1847, 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 still without drawings or photographs which would enable us to understand their peculiarities. The late Dr. Bhau Daji had a set of negatives taken, but never would allow any prints to be made from them; and, when Mr. Burgess visited the caves last autumn, he did not take a photographic apparatus with him, as he depended on obtaining, through Government, the use of Dr. Bhau Daji’s negatives. This has not yet been effected, and till it is this series is hardly available for the purposes of our history, yet it can hardly be passed over in silence.

The great peculiarity of the group is the extreme simplicity of the caves composing it. They are too early to have any figures of Buddha himself, but there are not even any of these figures of men and women which we meet with at Karli and elsewhere. Everything at Junir wears an aspect of simplicity and severity, due partly to the antiquity of the caves of course, but, so far as at present known, unequalled elsewhere. One exception--but it is in the most modern cave here--is that Sri, with her two elephants pouring water over her, occupies the frontispiece of a chaitya cave.[202] Though so ubiquitous and continuous through all ages, it is seldom this goddess occupies so very important a position as she does here; but her history has still to be written.

The annexed plan and section (Woodcuts Nos. 89, 90) will explain the form of the circular cave above alluded to. It is not large, only 25 ft. 6 in. across, while its roof is supported by twelve plain octagonal pillars which surround the dagoba. The tee has been removed from the dagoba to convert it into a lingam of Siva, in which form it is now worshipped; a fact that suggests the idea--I fancy a very probable one--that the lingam is really a miniature dagoba, though bearing a different meaning now, and that it was really originally copied from that Buddhist emblem. The interest of the arrangement of this cave will be more apparent when we come to describe the dagobas at Ceylon, which were encircled with pillars in the same manner as this one. Meanwhile the annexed representation (Woodcut No. 91) of a circular temple from the Buddhist sculptures at Bharhut may enable us to realise, to some extent at least, the external form of these temples, which probably were much more common in ancient times than any remains we now possess would justify us in assuming.

Besides this group at Junir, there is one apparently equally extensive near Aurungabad, and two others, still more extensive, at Daraseo, or Darasinha, and at Hazar Kotri, in the Nizam’s territories; but they are even less known than the Junir group, and there are several others whose existence is only known to us by hearsay. If Mr. Burgess is enabled to continue his explorations a few years longer, they may be brought within the domain of history. At present, like those at Junir, they are not available for any historical or scientific purpose.

VII. GANDHARA MONASTERIES

CONTENTS.

Monasteries at Jamalgiri, Takht-i-Bahi, and Shah Dehri.

Few of the recent discoveries in India promise to be more fruitful of important results for the elucidation of the archæology of India than those obtained from the recent excavations of ruined monasteries in the neighbourhood of Peshawur. A great deal still remains to be done before we can speak with certainty with regard either to their age or origin, but enough is known of them to make it certain that the materials there exist for settling not only the question of the amount of influence classical art exercised on that of India, but also for solving many problems of Buddhist archæology and art.

As mentioned above, it is from their coins, and from them only, that the names of most of the kings of Bactria and their successors have been recovered; but we have not yet found a vestige of a building that can be said to have been erected by them or in their age, nor one piece of sculpture that, so far as we now know, could have been executed before their downfall, about B.C. 130. This, however, may be owing to the fact that Bactria proper has long been inhabited by fanatic Moslems, who destroy any representations of the human form they meet with, and no excavations for hidden examples have yet been undertaken in their country; while it is still uncertain how far the influence of the true Bactrians extended eastward, and whether, in fact, they ever really possessed the valley of Peshawur, where all the sculptures yet discovered have been found. No one, in fact, suspected their existence in our own territory till Lieutenants Lumsden and Stokes, in 1852, partially explored the half-buried monastery at Jamalgiri, which had been discovered by General Cunningham in 1848. It is situated about thirty-six miles north-east from Peshawur, and from it these officers excavated a considerable number of sculptures, which afterwards came into the possession of the Hon. E. Clive Bayley. He published an account of them in the ‘Journal of the Bengal Asiatic Society,’ in 1853, and brought the collection itself over to this country. Unfortunately, they were utterly destroyed in the disastrous fire that occurred at the Crystal Palace, where they were being exhibited in 1860, and this before they had been photographed, or any serious attempt made to compare them with other sculptures.

Since that time other collections have been dug out of another monastery eight miles further westward, at a place called Takht-i-Bahi, and by Dr. Bellew at a third locality, ten miles southward, called Sahri Bhalol, some of which have found their way to this country; and two years ago Dr. Leitner brought home an extensive collection, principally from Takht-i-Bahi. The bulk of the sculptures found in these places have been deposited in the Lahore Museum, where upwards of 800 specimens of this class of art now exist, and many are being added every season. Some of these have been photographed,[203] and these representations, together with the specimens brought home, are sufficient to enable a student to obtain a fair general idea of the art they represent. The worst thing is, that the excavations have been so unsystematically carried on that it is impossible to ascertain in most instances where the sculptures came from,[204] and in almost no instance can the position of any one piece of sculpture be fixed with anything like certainty.[205]

* * * * *

The following plans (Woodcuts Nos. 92, 93), of the two principal monasteries which have been excavated in the vicinity of Peshawur, will explain their arrangements in so far as they have yet been made out. As will be seen at a glance, they are very similar to each other, or at least consist of the same parts. First a circular or square court, AA, surrounded by cells, too small for residence, and evidently intended to contain images, though none were found in situ. In the centre of each stands a circular or square platform or altar, approached by steps. The circular one at Jamalgiri is adorned with cross-legged, conventional, seated figures of Buddha, the square one at Takht-i-Bahi by two rows of pilasters one over the other.[206] Beyond this is an oblong court, BB, called the pantheon, from the number of images, small models of topes, and votive offerings of all sorts, that are found in it. It, like the last court, is surrounded by niches for images. Beyond this again the vihara or residence, CC, with the usual residential cells. At Takht-i-Bahi there is a square court, D, surrounded by a high wall with only one door leading into it. A corresponding court exists at Jamalgiri; but so far detached that it could not be included in the woodcut. It is called the cemetery, and probably not without reason, as Turner in his ‘Embassy to Thibet’[207] describes a similar enclosure at Teshoo Loomboo in which the bodies of the deceased monks were exposed to be devoured by the birds, and what happened there in 1800 may very well have been practised at Peshawur at a much earlier age.

When we attempt to compare these plans with those of our rock-cut examples in India, we at once perceive the difficulty of comparing structural with rock-cut examples. The monastery or residential parts are the only ones readily recognised. The pantheon does not apparently exist at Ajunta, nor is anything analogous to it attached to other series of caves, but a group of small rock-cut dagobas exists just outside the cave at Bhaja, and a much more extensive one at Kenheri,[208] and similar groups may have existed elsewhere. Numbers of small models of topes and votive offerings are found in the neighbourhood of all Buddhist establishments, and were originally no doubt deposited in some such place as this. The circular or square altar is, however, a feature quite new to us, and takes the place of the dagoba in all the rock-cut chaitya halls. From its having steps to ascend to it, it seems as if it was intended either for a platform from which either a congregation could be addressed, or a prayer offered up to a deity. If, however, it was really a dagoba, as General Cunningham supposes, that difficulty disappears, and on the whole I am inclined to believe he may be right in this decision.

One of the most remarkable ornamental features that adorn this monastery is a series of bas-reliefs that adorn the front of the steps of the stairs leading from the so-called Pantheon to the circular court at Jamalgiri. They are sixteen in number, and each is adorned with a bas-relief containing twenty, thirty, or forty figures according to the subject.[209] Among these the Wessantara and Sama jatakas can easily be recognised,[210] and so may others when carefully examined. Besides these there are representations of the chase, processions, dancing, and domestic scenes of various kinds.

In fact such a series of sixteen bas-reliefs, one over another, is hardly known to exist anywhere else, but is here only an appropriate part of an exuberance of sculptural ornamentation hardly to be matched, as existing in so small a space, in any other building of its class.

The architecture of this monastery seems to have been of singular richness. General Cunningham brought away a dozen of capitals of the Corinthian order, and others exist in the Lahore Museum. As will be seen from the last two illustrations (Nos. 94, 95), they are unmistakably classical, but of a form to which it is not at first sight easy to assign a date. They are more Greek than Roman in the character of their foliage, but more Roman than Greek in the form of their volutes and general design. Perhaps it would be correct to say they are more Byzantine than either, but, till we have detailed drawings and know more of their surroundings, it is difficult to give a positive opinion as to their age.

Not one of these was found in situ, nor, apparently, one quite entire, so that their use or position is not at first sight apparent. Some of them were square, and it is consequently not difficult to see they may have formed the caps of the antæ on each side of the cells, and are so represented in General Cunningham’s plate (15). If this is so, the circular ones must have been placed on short circular pillars, one on each side, forming a porch to the cells. One at least seems to have stood free--like a stambha--and, as the General represents it on plate 48, may have carried a group of elephants on its head.

All these capitals were apparently originally richly gilt, and most of them, as well as some of the best of the sculptures, show traces of gilding at the present day,[212] and, as others show traces of colour, the effect of the whole must have been gorgeous in the extreme. From the analogy of what we find in the contemporary caves at Ajunta and Bagh, as well as elsewhere, there can be little doubt that fresco-painting was also employed: but no gilding, as far as I know, has been found in India, nor indeed any analogue to the Corinthian capital. All the capitals found in India are either such as grew out of the necessities of their own wooden construction, or were copied from bell-shaped forms we are familiar with at Persepolis, where alone in Central Asia they seem to have been carried out in stone. There is little doubt, however, that before the time of the Achæmenians the same forms were used in wood by the Assyrians;[213] and they may have been so employed down to the time of Alexander, if not later. Certain it is, at all events, that this was the earliest form we know of employed in lithic architecture in India, and the one that retained its footing there certainly till long after the Christian Era, and also among the Gandhara sculptures probably to a very late date.

It is not difficult to restore, approximately, the front of the cells in these monasteries, from the numerous representations of them found among the ruins, where they are used as conventional frames for sculptures. It probably was owing to the fact that their fronts may have been adorned with paintings representing scenes from the life of Buddha, or emblems of various sorts, that these miniature representations of them were used to convey the same design in sculpture. The form of the wooden framework which filled the upper part of all the great windows of the chaitya halls, from the earliest known examples, is also used for the same purpose in these Gandhara monasteries. Few things among these sculptures are more common than these semicircular frames, filled with sculpture of the most varied design. They are in fact the counterparts of what would have been carried out in painted glass had they possessed such a material.

It is to be feared that it is hardly likely we shall now recover one of these cells or chapels in so perfect a state as to feel sure of its form and ornamentation. It would, however, be an immense gain to our knowledge of the subject if one were found, for it is hardly safe to depend on restorations made from conventional representations.

Meanwhile there is one monument in India which--mutatis mutandis--reproduces them with considerable exactness. The small detached rath at Mahavellipore is both in plan and dimensions, as well as in design, an almost exact reproduction of these Jamalgiri cells. Its lower front is entirely open, flanked by two detached pillars. Above this are two roofs, with a narrow waist between them--somewhat differently arranged it must be confessed, but still extremely similar. In the Jamalgiri representations of these cells everything is simplified to admit of the display of sculpture. At Mahavellipore all the architectural features are retained, but they are still marvellously alike, so much so, that there seems no doubt this little rath (Woodcut No. 181, p. 328), with its circular termination, is as exact a copy of what a Buddhist chaitya hall was at the time it was carved, as that the great rath (Woodcut No. 66) is a correct reproduction of a Buddhist vihara at the same period.

If this is so, these Gandhara sculptures and these raths represent the chaitya hall of the Buddhists in a much more complicated and elaborate form than we find it in the simple but majestic examples at Karli, Nassick, or Ajunta. The Jamalgiri cells need not be so modern as the rath at Mahavellipore, but they are certainly approaching to it[214] as nearly in date as they are in form.

Quite recently, General Cunningham has dug out a small vihara at Shah Dehri, the ancient Taxila, which seems more ancient than these Peshawur monasteries. As will be seen from the plan (Woodcut No. 96), it is not only small in dimensions, but simple in its arrangements--as simple, indeed, as any of those at Cuttack or in the western Ghâts. Like them it has a raised bench, not however divided into beds as there, but more like a continuous seat. It no doubt, however, was used for both purposes. Its most remarkable peculiarity, however, is its Ionic order. As will be seen, the bases of the pillars are of the usual form, and as correct as any that could be found in Greece or Rome, from before the Christian Era to the age of Constantine, and, though the capital is not fully made out, there can be little doubt what was intended (Woodcut No. 97); twelve coins of Azes were found close by, from which it may be inferred the building was of his age, or belonging to the first century B.C.,[215] and there is nothing in the architecture to militate against this idea. It seems the oldest thing yet found in this province.

* * * * *

The extraordinary classical character and the beauty of the sculptures found in these Gandhara monasteries is of such surpassing interest for the history of Indian art, that it is of the utmost importance their age should be determined, if it is possible to do so. At present, sufficient materials do not exist in this country to enable the general public to form even an opinion on any argument that may be brought forward on the subject; nor will they be in a position to do so till the Government can be induced to spend the trifling sum required to bring some of them home. They are quite thrown away where they now are; here, they would hardly be surpassed in interest by any recent discoveries of the same class. Pending this, the reader must be content with such a statement of the argument as may be put forward by those who have access to photographs and such materials as are not available to the general public.[216] It it is understood that General Cunningham intends to publish photographs of the 165 objects in his collection. When this is done, it will supply the want to a certain extent, but a really correct judgment can only be formed on an actual inspection of the objects themselves.

Among Indian antiquaries there are two different views as to the age of these sculptures, regarding either of which a great deal may be urged with a considerable degree of plausibility. The first is, that the Bactrian Greeks carried with them into Asia the principles of Grecian sculpture and the forms of Grecian architecture, and either during their supremacy or after their expulsion from Bactria established a school of classical art in the Peshawur valley. It further assumes that, when Buddhism was established there under Kanishka and his successors, it bloomed into that rich and varied development we find exhibited in these Gandhara monasteries. This is the view adopted by General Cunningham, who, however, admits that, as all the sculptures are Buddhist, the earliest must be limited to the age of Kanishka, which he assumes to be about B.C. 40,[217] and that they extend to A.D. 100, or thereabouts.

The other theory equally admits the presence of the classical element, derived from the previous existence of the Bactrian Greeks, but spreads the development of the classical feeling through Buddhist art over the whole period during which it existed in the valley, or from the 1st to the 7th or 8th century of our era, and ascribes its peculiar forms as much, if not more, to constant communication with the West, from the age of Augustus to that of Justinian, rather than to the original seed planted there by the Bactrians.

Confining the argument as much as possible to the instances above quoted, either it is that these Corinthian capitals are a local development of forms the Greeks took with them to Bactria, or they were executed under Western influence when the classical orders had lost their original form, after the age of Constantine. We know perfectly the history of the Corinthian capitals in Italy, in Greece, and in Syria, between the ages of Augustus and Aurelian at all events (A.D. 270); and we know that it requires a practised and well-educated eye to distinguish between the capitals of the Pantheon of Agrippa and those last executed at Baalbec or Palmyra. The entablatures show considerable progress, but the capitals were so stereotyped that it is evident, if any Greek or Roman artists had designed capitals in Gandhara during the period just alluded to, we could predicate exactly what they would have been. After Constantine, however, the design of the capitals went wild, if the expression may be used. The practice of springing arches from them, instead of their supporting horizontal architraves, required a total change, and in the West it produced exactly the same effects that we find in Gandhara. The capitals, for instance, in the churches of St. Demetrius and that now known as the Eski Jouma at Salonica, both built in the early part of the 5th century, are almost identical in design with these;[218] and many in the churches in Syria and Asia Minor[219] show the same “abandon” of design, though frequently in another direction.

The presence of little cross-legged figures of Buddha among the foliage of the capitals is another sign of a comparatively modern age. The first prominent example of the practice, I believe, in classical art, seems to be found in the Baths of Caracalla, at Rome (A.D. 312-330);[220] but it certainly did not become common till long afterwards, and only general in what may be called mediæval art.[221] It is not, however, so much in the presence of figures of Buddha on these capitals that I would insist on as an indication of age, as on their presence in the monastery at all.

In the first place, I believe it is correct to state that no statue of Buddha, in any of his conventional attitudes, has been found in India executed as early as the Christian Era. Those on the façade at Karli and in the western caves are avowedly insertions of the 4th or 5th centuries or later. There are none belonging to the eastern caves; nor any found at Buddh Gaya, Bharhut, or Sanchi; nor do I know of any one in India that can be dated before A.D. 100. In these Gandhara monasteries they are very frequent, and of a type which in India would be assumed to be certainly as late as the 4th or 5th century; some of them very much later.

It is true Buddhist books tell us frequently of statues of Buddha having been made at much earlier dates.[222] But Indian books have this fatal defect, that they represent facts and beliefs at the time they were written, or acquired the forms in which we now find them, without much reference to contemporary authorities or facts at the time at which they are supposed to have happened. Consequently, till we get some book that assumed its present shape before A.D. 400,[223] their testimony is of very little avail in the controversy.

Besides these figures of Buddha, there are a great number of figures which General Cunningham supposes represent kings. This can hardly be the case, as they have all got nimbuses or glories at the back of their heads. All have the tika on their foreheads, as Buddha has, and none have any kingly attributes, but all wear the same ornaments and amulets. The first impression was, they may represent Bodhisatwas, or Buddhist saints; but, as no similar figures occur anywhere in India, it is not easy to feel certain on this point. If I may be allowed to hazard a guess, I would suggest that they may represent the patriarchs who presided over the Church from the time of Amanda till it ceased to be a living institution in India. Nagárjuna was one of the most important of these, and, if this theory is correct, his statue will certainly be found among the series; but this is, I fear, a point that must be left for future investigation.[224] The misfortune is, that no inscribed statue has yet been found in Gandhara, and, till it is, all identification must be more or less guess-work or conjecture.

A more important point than the mere presence of these conventional figures of Buddha or of saints in these monasteries, is their excessive reduplication, which renders it probable that they are very much more modern than is generally assumed.

In India, no building or cave is known with a date anterior to, say, A.D. 300 or 400, in which more than one such figure is represented. Even at Amravati they do not occur on the great rail which was erected in the beginning of the 4th century (ante, p. 100), but appear first on the inner rail which was added a century afterwards: and they first occur in such caves as No. 19 and No. 26 at Ajunta, and in the later caves in the island of Salsette, none of which seem to be earlier than A.D. 500, if so early.

In the Gandhara monasteries they exist literally in hundreds--on the base of the altars or stupas, on the walls, and in the cells. The latter is, indeed, the most remarkable peculiarity of any. In no Buddhist monument in India, so far as is known, have the monks been thrust out of their cells to make way for images. The practice is universal with the Jains, and in the latest Buddhist monuments the cells are ignored; but here we have what in all earlier Buddhist monuments would be cells surrounding courts or halls, but all filled with images of Buddha or saints. To such an extent is this carried, that if the plans of these monasteries had been submitted to me, with merely a verbal or written description of their sculptures, I would unhesitatingly have pronounced them to be Jaina temples of the 9th or 10th century. The sculptures, of course, negative any such adscription, but the similarity of their plans is most striking.

Considerable allowance must also be made for the fact that the Mahayana, or Greater Translation, introduced in the north of India by Nagárjuna, was considerably in advance of the Hinayana school of Central India in all complications of ritual observances. Making, however, an allowance of one or even two centuries for this, it is difficult to believe that any of these monasteries yet brought to light are earlier than the 4th or 5th century.

If I am correct in assigning the outer casing of the Manikyala tope to the beginning of the 8th century (ante, p. 83), there is certainly no à priori improbability in this view. The pilasters that surround its base are so similar to those represented in the bas-reliefs of the monasteries[225] that they must belong nearly to the same age. Those of the tope are less classical, it is true, than those of the bas-reliefs, and may, therefore, be more modern; but they cannot be very far apart.

All these statues of Buddha, or of Buddhist saints, in the Gandhara monasteries, have a peculiarity which will interest the Christian archæologist. Without exception, they have a nimbus or circular disc behind their heads. This does not occur at Sanchi in the 1st century of our era, nor, so far as is known, in any sculpture, on any rail, or in any cave, before it appears at Amravati on the great rail, in the 4th century of our era. Earlier examples may be found, but till they are, its presence militates against the idea that these sculptures can be so early as the 1st century after Christ, and, with the other evidence, would seem to indicate a much more modern date.

One other argument seems to bear directly on this point. From what has been said above (ante, p. 76), it appears that the erection of the topes in Gandhara was spread pretty evenly over the whole time that elapsed from the Christian Era till Buddhism ceased to be the religion of the country, in the 7th or 8th century; and that the most flourishing period was about the year A.D. 400, when Fa Hian visited the country. It seems reasonable to suppose that the erection of the monasteries would follow the same course, and that we might expect their greatest development to be simultaneous. To compress the monasteries and their sculptures within the limits of the first century after Christ would seem to violate all the probabilities of the case.

In addition to all this local evidence, when we come to compare these sculptures with those of the western world, especially with those of sarcophagi or the ivories of the lower empire, it seems impossible not to be struck with the many points of resemblance they present. There are many of the Gandhara bas-reliefs which, if transferred to the Lateran Museum, and labelled as “Early Christian,” would pass muster with ninety-nine people out of one hundred who visit that collection. There may be one or two that might be described as belonging to as early an age as that of Hadrian, but generally they would seem of later date.

Among the ivories, those about the time of Constantine present about the same jumble of the classical orders, the same reminiscence of classical art in the figure-sculpture, mixed up with the incongruities borrowed from extraneous sources which it is difficult to account for; but both in their perfections and their faults they seem so distinctly to belong to the same class of art that it is difficult to believe they do not belong to the same age. The great difficulty here is to know what equation we ought to allow for distance in space which may have the same effect as time in producing apparent differences; but this hardly seems to have been of much importance here.

Against all this may be urged the difficulty of understanding how such direct and important influence could have been exercised by the Byzantines in this remote province without its leaving any trace of its existence on the arts of the Parthians or Sassanians, whose kingdom lay between, and without our having any written record of such intimate relations. It is difficult, of course, but, if the facts are as stated above, such negative inferences must make way before the positive testimony of the sculptures themselves. Till within the last very few years no one dreamt of classical art having any such influence at any age on the arts of Gandhara. That being established in contradiction of all previously conceived ideas, the time at which it took place ought to be ascertainable with comparative facility; and, in so far as any written evidence is concerned, may have been as probably at or after the time of Constantine, as at or after that of Augustus.

It would be easy to extend this argument to any length; but without producing the data on which it is based, or giving references to drawings and photographs which have not been published, it would hardly carry conviction to the minds of those who have not access to means of information not yet made public.[226] To avoid, therefore, being tedious, perhaps I may be allowed to state that, having given the best attention to the materials at my command, the conclusion I have arrived at is, that though some of these Gandhara sculptures probably are as early as the 1st century of the Christian Era, the bulk of those at Jamalgiri and more especially those at Takht-i-Bahi, are subsequent to the 3rd and 4th, and that the series extends down to the 8th--till, in fact, the time when Buddhism was obliterated in these countries.

The discovery of some new fact, or of an inscription on a piece of sculpture either with a date or a king’s name that can be recognised, may any day settle beyond dispute which of these views is the correct one. Meanwhile, however, as the evidence at present stands, it seems hardly doubtful that the theory which assigns the more modern date to these sculptures, is that which accords best with all that has hitherto been brought to light, or with the history of the Buddhist religion as at present known.

If this is so, it is evident that the term Græco-Bactrian, or Græco-Buddhist, which has been applied to these sculptures, is a misnomer. The Bactrians may have sown the seeds of a classical style in these parts, but the art we now find there would be more properly called Indo-Roman or Indo-Byzantine, and must have been nourished and kept up by constant communication between the East and the West during the period at which it was most flourishing, which may be described as that intervening between the age of Constantine and that of Justinian.

From what has been said above regarding the sculptures of Bharhut and Sanchi, it appears evident that the Indians had a school of art of their own before they knew anything of the arts of the western world; but that native art seems to have had very little influence on the arts of Gandhara. The western arts, on the contrary, acting through that country, seem to have had considerable influence on those of India at periods subsequent to the Christian Era. It seems at least almost impossible to escape the conviction that the arts of Amravati and the later caves, say of the Gupta period, betray most marked evidence of Western influence, and it seems that it is only through Gandhara that it can have reached them.

So strongly marked is all this that it may become a subject of an interesting investigation to inquire whether the Greeks were not the first who taught the Indians idolatry. There is no trace of images in the Vedas or in the laws of Manu, or any of the older books or traditions of the Hindus. As repeatedly mentioned, there is as little trace of any image of Buddha or Buddhist figures being set up for worship before the Christian Era, or for a century after it. But the earliest, the finest, and the most essentially classical figures of Buddha are to be found in Gandhara, and, so far as we at present know, of an earlier date there than any found in India Proper.

If General Cunningham’s sculptures or the contents of the Lahore Museum could only be made available to the learned in Europe, with the requisite local information, they would, I fancy, at once supersede the meagre and most unsatisfactory written details which have alone come down to us, and would throw a flood of light on one of the most interesting but most obscure chapters of the history of the commerce and of the early intercourse between the western and the eastern world.

Pending this being done, we already know enough to open our eyes to many things that promise to result in the most interesting discoveries, and to teach us to cease to wonder at many things which hitherto appeared inexplicable. If, for instance, it is not true that the King of Taxila, in the first century, spoke good Greek, as Apollonius of Tyana would persuade us he did, we know at least that he practised Greek architecture. If St. Thomas did not visit Gondophares, king of Gandhara, in the same century, many, at least, of his countrymen did, and there is no à priori reason why he should not have done so also. If there are traces of Christian doctrine in the ‘Bhagavat Gita,’ and of classical learning in other poetic works of the Hindus, we now know at least where they may have come from. In short, when we realise how strongly European influence prevailed in Gandhara in the first five or six centuries after Christ, and think how many thousands, it may be millions, crossed the Indus, going eastward during that period, and through that country, we ought not to be surprised at any amount of Western thought or art we may find in India. These, however, are problems that are only just dawning upon us, and which are certainly not yet ripe for solution, though it may be most important they should be stated as early as possible, as it seems evident that the materials certainly exist from which an early answer may be obtained.

In the meanwhile the question that bears most directly on the subject now in hand is the inquiry, how far the undoubted classical influence shown in these Gandhara sculptures is due to the seed sown by the Bactrian Greeks during the existence of their kingdom there, and how much to the direct influence of Rome and Byzantium between the times of Augustus and Justinian? Both, most probably, had a part in producing this remarkable result; but, so far as we at present know, it seems that the latter was very much more important than the former cause, and that in the first centuries of the Christian Era the civilisation of the West exercised an influence on the arts and religion of the inhabitants of this part of India far greater than has hitherto been suspected.

VIII. CEYLON

CONTENTS.

Introductory--Anuradhapura--Pollonarua.

INTRODUCTORY.

If the materials existed for writing it in anything like a complete and satisfactory manner, there are few chapters in this history that ought to be so interesting or instructive as that which treats of the architecture of Ceylon. It alone, of all known countries, contains a complete series of Buddhist monuments extending from the time of Asoka to the present day, and in the ‘Mahawanso’ it alone possesses a history so detailed and so authentic, that the dates and purposes of the earlier buildings can be ascertained with very tolerable precision. Besides its own intrinsic interest, if it were possible to compare this unbroken series with its ascertained dates with the fragmentary groups on the continent of India, its parallelisms might throw much light on many questions that are obscure and uncertain, and the whole acquire a consistency that is now only too evidently wanting. Unfortunately, no one has yet visited the island who was possessed of the necessary qualifications to supply the information necessary for these purposes. Sir Emerson Tennent’s book, published in 1859, is still the best work on the subject. He had, however, no special qualifications for the task, beyond what were to be expected from any well-educated gentleman of talent, and his description of the buildings[227] is only meant for popular reading.

The two papers by Captain Chapman, in the third volume of the ‘Transactions,’ and thirteenth volume of the ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society,’ are still the best account of the ruins of Anuradhapura, and beyond these a few occasional notices are nearly all the printed matter we have to depend upon. Some seven or eight years ago, a series of photographs, by the late Mr. Lawton, threw some light on the matter, and quite recently a second series by Captain Hogg, R.E., have added something to our knowledge. But photographs without plans or dimensions or descriptions are most deceptive guides, and, as none of these have been supplied, they add little to our scientific knowledge of the subject. This is the more to be regretted, as quite recently some excavations have been undertaken at Anuradhapura which are calculated to throw considerable light on the structure of the great dagobas there, but regarding which no information, except what is afforded by these photographs, has reached this country.[228]

One of the most striking peculiarities of Ceylonese art, as compared with that of the continent, is the almost total absence of sculpture which it exhibits, and may be a peculiarity that may render it much less useful for comparison than might at first sight appear. The most obvious suggestion to meet this difficulty is to assume that the sculptures are buried in the accumulated ruins, in the cities where the great monuments are found, and will be discovered when excavations are made. It is to be feared, however, that this theory is hardly tenable; Ceylon has never been occupied by Mahomedans, or other hostile races, and there is no reason to suppose that at any time statues would be thrown down, or bas-reliefs destroyed; besides this, such excavations as have been made--and they are in the most likely places--have revealed nothing that would lead us to hope for better results elsewhere. Perhaps this ought not to surprise us, as nearly the same thing occurs in Burmah. In that country there is an unlimited amount of painting and carving, but no sculpture properly so called; and the same thing may have occurred in Ceylon. So far as we can now see, all the great topes were covered with chunam, which may have been painted to any extent, and all the viharas, as in Burmah, were in wood, and consequently unfitted for permanent sculpture. Besides this, such information as we have would lead us to suppose that painting was a more favoured art with the islanders than sculpture. When Fa Hian, for instance, visited the island in 412-413, he describes an accompaniment to the procession of the tooth relic as follows:--“The king next causes to be placed on both sides of the road representations of the 500 bodily forms which Bôdisatwa assumed during his successive births” (the jataka in fact). “These figures,” he adds, “are all beautifully painted in divers colours, and have a very life-like appearance.”[229] It was not that they could not sculpture in stone, for, as we shall presently see, some of their carvings are of great delicacy and cleverness of execution, but they seem to have preferred colour to the more permanent forms of representation. If this is so, it certainly is remarkable, when we think of the wealth of sculpture exhibited by such monuments as Bharhut, Sanchi, or Amravati. In so far as our present information goes, one single monastery in Gandhara, such as Jamalgiri, for instance, possessed more sculpture than is to be found in the whole island of Ceylon. The form, too, of such sculptures as have been discovered, is almost as curious as its rarity. Only one ancient figure of Buddha has yet been discovered at Anuradhapura. It may be of the 3rd or 4th century, and is placed unsymmetrically in a chapel in front of the Ruanwelli dagoba. Everywhere, however, there are statues of five or seven-headed serpents, or of men with serpent-hoods, which may be of any age, and at the foot of every important flight of steps there are two dwarpals or doorkeepers with this strange appendage,[230] and attached to each flight of steps of all the larger and older dagobas are figures of the great Naga himself. In fact, in so far as the testimony of the sculptures alone is concerned, we would be forced to conclude that all the great monuments of the capital were devoted to Serpent worship instead of that of Buddha, with one exception, however; that one is dedicated to the Bo-tree, which is supposed to be the tree originally sent by Asoka from Buddh Gaya more than 2000 years ago. We know, of course, that all this is not so, but it is a testimony to the early prevalence of Tree and Serpent worship in the island, as strange as it was unexpected.

Another peculiarity of the Ceylonese monuments is their situation in the two capitals of the island, for, it will have been observed, none of the remains of Buddhist architecture described in the previous chapters are found in the great capital cities of the Empire. They are detached monuments, spared by accident in some distant corner of the land, or rock-cut examples found in remote and secluded valleys. Buddhist Palibothra has entirely perished--so has Sravasti and Vaisali; and it is with difficulty we can identify Kapilawastu, Kusinara, and other famous cities, whose magnificent monasteries and stupas are described by the Chinese travellers in the fifth or seventh century of our era. In a great measure, this may be owing to their having been built of brick and wood; and, in that climate, vegetation is singularly destructive of the first, and insects and decay of the second. But much is also due to the country having been densely peopled ever since the expulsion of the Buddhists. It may also be remarked that the people inhabiting the plains of Bengal since the expulsion of the Buddhists, were either followers of the Brahmanical or Mahomedan religions--both inimical to them, or, at least, having no respect for their remains.

In Ceylon the case is different. Though the great capitals were early deserted, the people are now Buddhists, as they have been for the last 2000 years, and there, consequently, cities are still found adorned with monuments, which, though in ruins, convey a sufficient impression of what those of India must have been in the days of her glory.

Anuradhapura seems to have become the capital of Ceylon about 400 years before Christ, or about a century and a half after the death of Buddha, and the fabled introduction of his religion into the island. It was not, however, till after the lapse of another 150 years that it became a sacred city, and one of the principal capitals of Buddhism in the East, which it continued to be till about the year 769, when, owing to the repeated and destructive invasions of the Malabars, the capital was removed to Pollonarua. That city reached its period of greatest prosperity and extension, apparently in the reign of Prakrama Bahu, 1153-1186, and then sank during a long and disastrous period into decay. The seat of government was afterwards moved hither and thither, till the country fell into the hands of the Portuguese and Dutch, and finally succumbed to our power.

ANURADHAPURA.

The city of Anuradhapura is now totally deserted in the midst of an almost uninhabited jungle. Its public buildings must have suffered severely from the circumstances under which it perished, exposed for centuries to the attacks of foreign enemies. Besides this, the rank vegetation of Ceylon has been at work for 1000 years, stripping off all traces of plaster ornaments, and splitting the masonry in many places.

The very desolation, however, of its situation has preserved these ancient monuments from other and greater dangers. No bigoted Moslem has pulled them down to build mosques and monuments of his own faith; no indolent Hindu has allowed their materials to be used for private purposes or appropriated as private plunder; and no English magistrate has yet rendered them available for mending station roads and bridges. We may be sure, therefore, that these ruins deserve the greatest attention from the student of Buddhist architecture, and that a vast fund of information may be drawn from them when sufficiently explored and described.

The peculiar fortune of Anuradhapura is that it continued the capital of Ceylon for ten centuries; and, alone of all Buddhist cities, it retains something like a complete series of the remains of its greatness during that period. We possess, moreover, in the ‘Mahawanso’ and other Ceylonese scriptures, a tolerably authentic account of the building of all these monuments, and of the purposes to which they were dedicated. Among the vestiges of its former grandeur still to be found, are the ruins of seven dome-shaped topes or dagobas, of one monastery, of a building erected to contain the sacred Bo-tree, and several other ruins and antiquities. Among these is the great mound called the tomb of the usurper Elaala, but more probably it is a tope erected by the king Duttagaimuni to commemorate the victory over that intruder which he gained on this spot about the year B.C. 161. As it is now a mere mound, without any distinguishable outline, it will not be again alluded to.

Two of the topes are of the largest size known: one, the Abhayagiri, was erected B.C. 88; its dome is exactly hemispherical, and described with a radius of 180 ft., being thus more than 1100 ft. in circumference, and with the base and spire making up a total elevation of 244 ft., which is only 16 ft. less than the traditional height of 120 cubits assigned to it in the ‘Mahawanso.’[231] It was erected by a king Walagambahu, to commemorate his reconquest of his kingdom from a foreign usurper who had deposed him and occupied his throne for about sixteen years.

The second tope is the Jetawana, erected by a king Mahasena A.D. 275. In form and dimensions it is almost identical with the last described, though somewhat more perfect in outline, and a few feet higher, owing probably to its being more modern than its rival. These two were commemorative monuments, and not relic shrines.

Next to these, but far more important from its sacredness, is the Ruanwelli dagoba, erected by king Duttagaimuni, between the years 161 and 137 B.C., over a very imposing collection of relics, of which a full account is given in the 31st chapter of the ‘Mahawanso.’ Its dimensions are very similar to those of the two last described, but it has been so much defaced, partly by violence, and partly, it seems, from a failure of the foundations, that it is not easy to ascertain either its original shape or size. The same king erected another smaller tope, 260 ft. in diameter. It is now known as the Mirisiwellya. Like the last described it is very much ruined, and not particularly interesting either from its form or history.

Some excavations that have recently been undertaken have disclosed the fact that the Ruanwelli dagoba had at its base three offsets, or procession paths, rising like steps, one behind and above the other, but with no ornament now apparent, except a plain Buddhist rail of two bars on the outer edge of the two lower ones, and of an elephant cornice to the upper. It can hardly, however, be doubted that the inner faces were originally plastered, and painted with historical scenes. On each of the four fronts of this dagoba was an ornamental projection containing and partially concealing the flights of steps by which access was had to these galleries.[232] From the photographs, it is not clear where the steps were that lead to the first, but those leading from the first to the second and third were arranged like those at Sanchi (Woodcut No. 11) behind this frontispiece. Without a plan, however, it is difficult to make out exactly what the arrangement may have been.

A precisely similar arrangement of stairs exists on the four faces of the Abhayagiri and Jetawana dagobas, to that shown in the two Woodcuts Nos. 98, 99, and consists first of a plain base, above which is a frieze of elephants’ heads with pateræ between them, very like those used in the metopes of the Roman Doric order; above this are three plain faces divided by ornamental string courses. Then a bracket cornice with pateræ again, and above this two or three more cornices. Above this there was probably a parapet simulating a Buddhist rail.

At each end of this projecting arrangement were two stelæ--at the Ruanwelli the inner covered by a foliaged pattern, the outer by a seven-headed Naga, as will be observed in the Woodcut No. 99; at the Abhayagiri, the inner stele is adorned with a pattern so nearly identical with that on the pillars of the western gateway at Sanchi,[233] that we have no difficulty in recognising them as belonging to about the same age; though this one, of course, is the older of the two (B.C. 104). On the other stele in this tope (Woodcut No. 100), we recognise the shield, the Swastica, the trisul, the conch (of Vishnu?) and all the other Buddhist emblems with which we are already familiar. The Naga here has a stele of his own and detached from the other two.

All this is architecturally so unlike anything we find of the same age on the continent of India, while its sculptured details are so nearly identical, that, when we come to know more about it, these differences and similarities may lead to most important inferences; but we must at present wait for the requisite information to enable us to see the bearing of these peculiarities.

Besides these four large buildings there are two smaller ones, known as the Thuparamaya and Lankaramaya, very similar to one another in size and arrangement. The first-named is represented in Woodcut No. 101. The tope itself, though small and somewhat ruined, is of a singularly elegant bell-shaped outline.[234] Its diameter and height are nearly the same, between 50 ft. and 60 ft., and it stands on a platform raised about 9 ft. from the ground, on which are arranged three rows of pillars, which form by far the most important architectural ornament of the building. The inner circle stands about 2 ft. from the dagoba, and the other two about 10 ft. from each other. The pillars themselves are monoliths 26 ft. in height, of which the lower part, to the height of 9 ft., is left square, each side being about 1 ft. The next division, 14 ft. 6 in. in length, has the angles cut off, as is usual in this style, so as to form an octagon; the two parts being of one piece of granite. These sustain a capital of the same material, 2 ft. 6 in. in height.

Accounts differ as to the number of the pillars, as Mr. Knighton says they were originally 108;[235] whereas Captain Chapman counted 149, and states the original number to have been 184.[236]

This relic-shrine was erected by the celebrated king Devenampiatissa, about 250 years B.C., to contain the right jawbone of Buddha, which--say the Buddhist chroniclers--descending from the skies, placed itself on the crown of the monarch. As contemporary with Asoka it belongs to the most interesting period of Buddhist history, and is older, or, at least, as old, as anything now existing on the continent of India; and there is every reason to suppose it now exists, as nearly as may be, in the form in which it was originally designed, having escaped alteration,[237] and, what is more unusual in a Buddhist relic-shrine, having escaped augmentation. When the celebrated tooth relic was brought hither from India at the beginning of the 4th century, it was deposited in a small building erected for the purpose on one of the angles of the platform of this building, instead of being placed, as seems generally to have been the case, in a shrine on its summit, and eventually made the centre of a new and more extended erection. Perhaps it was an unwillingness to disturb the sacred circle of pillars that prevented this being done, or it may have been that the tooth relic, for some reason we do not now understand, was destined never to be permanently hid from the sight of its adorers. It is certain that it has been accessible during the last 2000 years, and is the only relic of its class that seems to have been similarly preserved and exhibited.

The Lankaramaya (Woodcut No. 102) is extremely similar to the last--though considerably more modern, having been erected A.D. 221--and looks of even more recent date than it really is, in consequence of a thorough repair some time ago, which has nearly obliterated its more ancient features.

As will be observed the two last-mentioned dagobas present us with a peculiarity not found on any example we have yet met with, inasmuch as they are surrounded by three circles of slender monolithic columns, of very elegant design. It can hardly be doubted that these represent, and take the place of, the rail of the northern topes, and subserve the same purpose, but in what manner is not at first sight very apparent. Referring, however, to what was said above, about the Ceylonese preferring painting to sculpture, it does not seem difficult to explain the anomaly. These pillars were originally, I fancy, connected with one another by beams of wood on their capitals, and from these, frames or curtains may have been suspended covered with the paintings which are so indispensable a part of Buddhist decoration. But it may be objected why three? or, as I believe, the Lankaramaya had originally, four such ranges of pillars? It is true the northern dagobas had generally only one rail, but that at Amravati had two, and as the great dagobas here had three procession-paths, while none of the northern ones had more than one, we should not be surprised if the smaller dagobas had three paths also, though differently arranged, and even then hardly capable of displaying the same amount of painting. When we come to describe the great temple of Boro Buddor in Java it will be seen that it had five procession-paths, and that their walls were sculptured, both inside and outside, with an amount of stone decoration which none of these Ceylonese topes could display, even in painting, by any arrangement we can now understand.

There is still another--the Saila dagoba--within the limits of the city, but so ruined that its architectural features are undistinguishable, though tradition would lead us to suppose it was the oldest in the place, belonging to a period even anterior to Sakya Muni. The spot at all events is said to have been hallowed by the presence of Kasyapa, the preceding Buddha.

Besides these, there are on the hill of Mehentele, a few miles to the north-east of the city, two important relic-shrines: one of the first class, erected on its summit to cover a hair that grew on the forehead of Buddha over his left eyebrow. The other, on a shoulder of the hill immediately below this, is of the same class as the Thuparamaya; a small central building surrounded by concentric rows of granite pillars, which, as appears to have been usual when this mode of decoration was employed, rose to half the height of the central mound.

There are, in addition to these, a great number of topes of various sorts scattered over the plain, but whether any of them are particularly interesting, either from their architecture or their history, has not been ascertained, nor will it be till the place is far more carefully surveyed than it has yet been.

There is another ruin at Anuradhapura, which, if a little more perfect, would be even more interesting than those topes. It goes by the name of the Lowa Maha Paya, or Great Brazen Monastery. We have a full account in the ‘Mahawanso’ of its erection by the pious king Duttagaimuni (B.C. 161),[238] according to a plan procured from heaven for the purpose--as well as a history of its subsequent destruction and rebuildings.

When first erected it is said to have been 100 cubits or 225 ft. square, and as high as it was broad; the height was divided into nine storeys, each containing 100 cells for priests, besides halls and other indispensable apartments. Nearly 200 years after its erection (A.D. 30) it required considerable repairs, but the first great disaster occurred in the reign of Mahasena, A.D. 285, who is said to have destroyed it utterly.[239] It was re-erected by his son, but with only five storeys instead of nine; and it never after this regained its pristine magnificence, but gradually fell into decay even before the seat of government was removed to Pollonarua. Since that time it has been completely deserted, and all that now remains are the 1600 pillars which once supported it. These generally consist of unhewn blocks of granite about 12 ft. high; some of the central ones are sculptured, and many have been split into two, apparently at the time of the great rebuilding after its destruction by Mahasena; as it is, they stand about 6 ft. apart from centre to centre in a compact phalanx, forty on each face, and covering a space of 250 ft. or 260 ft. each way. Upon the pillars must have been placed a strong wooden framing from which the remaining eight storeys rose, as in the modern Burmese monasteries, in a manner to be explained in a subsequent chapter.

There is only one difficulty, so far as I can see, in understanding the arrangement of the superstructure of this building, and that is the assertion of the ‘Mahawanso’ that it consisted of nine storeys--afterwards of five--each containing 100 apartments. For myself I have no hesitation in rejecting this statement as impossible, not only from the difficulty of constructing and roofing such a building, but because its form is so utterly opposed to all the traditions of Eastern art. If we turn back to Fa Hian or Hiouen Thsang’s description of the great Dekhani monastery (page 135) or to the great rath at Mahavellipore (Woodcut No. 66), or, indeed, to any of the 1001 temples of southern India, all of which simulate three, five, or nine-storeyed residences, we get a distinct idea of what such a building may have been if erected in the Indian style. It would, too, be convenient and appropriate to the climate, each storey having its terrace for walking or sleeping in the open air, and the whole easily constructed and kept in order. All this will be clearer in the sequel, but in the meanwhile it hardly appears doubtful that the Lowa Maha Paya was originally of nine, and subsequently of five storeys, each less in dimension than the one below it. The top one was surmounted as at Mahavellipore by a dome, but in this instance composed of brass--whence its name; and, gilt and ornamented as it no doubt was, it must have been one of the most splendid buildings of the East. It was as high as the topes, and, though not covering quite so much ground, was equal, in cubical contents, to the largest of our English cathedrals, and the body of the building was higher than any of them, omitting of course the spires, which are mere ornaments.

* * * * *

Besides these there are scattered about the ruins of Anuradhapura some half dozen, it may be a dozen, groups of pillars, whose use and purpose it would be extremely interesting to know something about. They all seem raised on a platform or stylobate, and approached by one or more flights of steps, of a highly ornamental character. One of these, leading to a group of pillars attached to the Ruanwelli dagoba, will convey some idea of their general character (Woodcut No. 103). At the foot of the flight of steps is a semicircular stone, popularly known in Ceylon as a moon stone (Woodcut No. 104). At least a dozen of these are known to exist at Anuradhapura and as many probably at Pollonarua. Some are large and some smaller than others, but they are all nearly identical in design and quite peculiar to Ceylon--nothing of the sort having yet been found on the continent of India or elsewhere. Inside an outer ornamental ring is a procession of animals, divided from the next compartment by a richly elaborated scroll; within that again a row of birds bearing lotus buds, and then a lotus flower with a disc ornamented with circles. The animals are always elephants, lions, horses, and bulls, the birds either hansas, or sacred geese, or it may be pigeons. These, it will be recollected, are the animals which Fa Hian and Hiouen Thsang describe as ornamenting the five storeys of the great Dekhani monastery, and which, as we shall afterwards see, were also arranged at Hullabîd in the 13th century in precisely the same manner. For 1500 years they, and they only, seem to have been selected for architectural purposes, but why this was so we are yet unable to explain.[240]

The risers of these stairs, though not adorned with storeyed bas-reliefs, like those of the Jamalgiri monastery in Gandhara, are all richly ornamented, being divided generally into two panels by figures of dwarfs and framed by foliaged borders, while the jambs or flanking stones are also adorned by either figures of animals or bas-reliefs.

If we had plans or any architectural details of the pavilions to which these steps led, it probably would be easy to say to what purpose they were dedicated and how they were roofed. The photographs do not enable us to do either, but from them we gather that some of these halls were certainly enclosed by walls, as the outer side of the pillars is left rough and unsculptured, while those in the centre are sculptured all round. Meanwhile my impression is that they are the buildings Fa Hian describes as preaching halls--the chaitya or ceremonial halls attached to the great dagobas. In India the form these take is that of halls with simulated dagobas inside them, towards which the worship was addressed, but when a real dagoba existed 200 ft. to 400 ft. in diameter, what was wanted was a hall in which the priests could assemble to chant their liturgies, and from which to address their prayers to the great object of their reverence. If this were so, the axis of these halls ought to be turned towards the dagobas, but whether this was so or not is not yet ascertained.[241]

Besides these there is at Anuradhapura a temple called Isurumuniya, partly cut in the rock, partly structural, regarding which some information would be extremely interesting. Till within the last few years the pillars of its porch still carried the wooden beams of a roof, but whether it was the original one or a subsequent addition is by no means clear. From the mortises in the face of the rock I would be inclined to believe that it was at least in the original form, but the building has been so knocked about and altered in modern times, that it is impossible to speak with certainty regarding it. So far as can be judged from such photographs as have come home, I would be inclined to ascribe the original excavation to the 6th or 7th century. The architecture of the steps and the Naga dwarpals are all of the old pattern, but coarser and showing unmistakable signs of decadence.

To us these are the most interesting of the remains of the ancient city, but to a Buddhist the greatest and most sacred of the vestiges of the past is the celebrated Bo-tree. This is now reverenced and worshipped even amidst the desolation in which it stands, and has been worshipped on this spot for more than 2000 years; and thus, if not the oldest, is certainly among the most ancient of the idols that still command the adoration of mankind.

When Asoka sent his son Mahindo, and his daughter Sangamitta, to introduce Buddhism into Ceylon, one of the most precious things which they brought was a branch of the celebrated tree which still grows at Gaya[242] (Woodcut No. 16). The branch, so says the legend, spontaneously severed itself from the parent stem, and planted itself in a golden vase prepared for its reception. According to the prophecy, it was to be “always green, never growing nor decaying,” and certainly present appearances would go far to confirm such an assertion, for, notwithstanding its age, it is small, and, though healthy, does not seem to increase. Its being evergreen is only a characteristic of its species, the Ficus religiosa; our acquaintance with it, however, must extend over a longer series of years than it yet does, before we can speak with certainty as to its stationary qualities.

It grows from the top of a small pyramid, which rises in three terraces, each about 12 ft. in height, in the centre of a large square enclosure called the Maha Vihara. But though the place is large, sacred, and adorned with gates of some pretension, none of the architectural features which at present surround it are such as to require notice in a work like the present.

POLLONARUA.[243]

Although very much more modern in date, and consequently less pure in style, the ruins at Pollonarua are scarcely less interesting than those of the northern capital to which it succeeded. They form a link between the ancient and modern styles at a time when the Buddhists had ceased to exist, or at least to build, on the continent of India, and, when properly illustrated, will enable us to speak with confidence of much that we find beyond the Ganges. Almost all we know at present of these ruins is due to the publications of Sir Emerson Tennent,[244] which, though most valuable contributions, are far from exhausting the subject. According to this authority, the principal ruins extend in a line nearly north and south for about a mile and a half from the palace to the Gal Vihara, and comprise two dagobas, besides a number of smaller edifices. The greater part seem to have been erected during the reign of Prakrama Bahu, 1153-86, though, as the city became the capital of the kingdom in the 8th century, it is probable that an intelligent search would reveal some of earlier date; while, as it was not deserted till 1235, some of them may also be more modern.

If not the oldest, certainly the most interesting group at Pollonarua is that of the rock-cut sculptures known as the Gal Vihara. They are not rock-cut temples in the sense in which the term is understood in India, being neither residences nor chaitya halls. On the left, on the face of the rock, is a figure of Buddha, seated in the usual cross-legged conventional attitude, 16 ft. in height, and backed by a throne of exceeding richness: perhaps the most elaborate specimen of its class known to exist anywhere. Next to this is a cell, with two pillars in front, on the back wall of which is another seated figure of Buddha, but certainly of a more modern aspect than that last described; that appearance may, however, be owing to whitewash and paint, which have been most liberally applied to it. Beyond this is a figure of Buddha, standing in the open air; and still further to the right another of him, lying down in the conventional attitude of his attaining Nirvana. This figure is 45 ft. long, while the standing one is only 25 ft. high.[245] These Nirvana figures are rare in India, but there is one in the most modern cave at Ajunta, No. 26, and others in the latest caves at Nassick and Salsette. None of these, however, so far as I know, ever attained in India such dimensions as these. In another century or two they might have done so, but the attainment of such colossal proportions is a sure sign of their being very modern.

In front of the Gal Vihara stands the principal religious group of the city, consisting first of the Jayta Wana Rama Temple, 170 ft. long by 70 ft. wide (Woodcut No. 105), containing an erect statue of Buddha 58 ft. in height. On one side of it is the Kiri dagoba--on the right of the woodcut--with two smaller topes, standing on raised platforms, the whole space measuring 577 ft. by 500 ft., and was apparently at one time entirely filled with objects of religious adoration. The whole certainly belongs to the age of Prakrama-Bahu. It was, however, built of brick, and plastered, which gives it an appearance of inferiority even beyond what is due to the inferior style of that age.

Next in importance to this is the Rankot Dagoba, 180 ft. in diameter. This, though only half that of some of those in the older capital, is still larger than any known to exist on the continent of India. Its base is surrounded, like those in Burmah, by a number of small shrines, which at this age supplied the place of the pillars or of the rails which formed so important a part of the structure of the older examples.

At some distance from this, and near the palace, stands the Sat Mehal Prasada (Woodcut No. 106), which is one of the most interesting buildings of the place, as it is one of the most perfect representations existing of the seven-storeyed temples of Assyria already described, vol. i. page 152, et seqq. That this is a lineal descendant of the Birs Nimroud can hardly be doubted. It is also interesting as affording a hint as to the appearance of the five or nine-storeyed monasteries mentioned in a previous page (196). This one, however, never was a residence, nor does it simulate one, like the raths at Mahavellipore or other buildings in the Dravidian style, which will be described in a subsequent chapter.

In front of it lies a splendid dolmen, or stone table, 26 ft. long, 4 ft. broad, and 2 ft. thick. It would be interesting to know if the dolmen rests on the ground, or is supported on three or more upright stones--most probably the latter. Like most of the Indian examples, it appears to be a squared and carved repetition of what in Europe we find only rough and unhewn. The carving on its border represents a number of hansas or sacred geese--always a favourite subject of the Buddhist sculptors.[246] At one end of this stone is engraved a representation of Sri, with her two elephants with their water-pots (Woodcut No. 2); and I fancy I can detect her also in other photographs elsewhere in Ceylon, but not so distinctly as to feel sure.

Close to the Sat Mehal is a circular building, which, so far as is at present known, is unique. It may almost be described as a hollow dagoba, being a circular enclosure surrounded by a wall, but empty in the centre, at least containing nothing now. Originally, it may have had a shrine in its centre, or tabernacle of some sort, containing a relic or, more probably, a sacred Tree. It is surrounded by a procession-path, enclosed by a highly-ornamental screen, and beyond this by a second gallery adorned with a range of slender pillars, like those which surround the dagobas at Anuradhapura (Woodcut No. 107); below this, again, is a richly-carved stylobate.

Four flights of steps lead up to its procession-paths, more magnificent and elaborate than any others that have yet been discovered in Ceylon. They all have most elaborate moon stones to start from. Their risers are each adorned with twelve figures of dwarfs, and their side-pieces, or jambs, are also of exceptional richness, and each has a pair of Naga-headed dwarpals on each side of its upper flight. The photographs are sufficient to show that this is one of the most interesting buildings in Ceylon, as well as one of the richest in sculptural decorations; but unless the antiquities of Java throw some light on the subject, we must be content with ignorant admiration till some one capable of investigating its history visits the place.[247]

Besides these, there are in Pollonarua several of those groups of pillars, without roofs or walls, which we tried to describe in speaking of Anuradhapura. One, called the Audience Hall, seems to be very similar to those of the northern capital; another, known as the Hetti Vihara, is more extensive, and may really be the foundation of a vihara; but till we have plans and more details it is needless speculating on what they may or may not have been.

Although built in brick, and very much ruined, there still exist in Pollonarua a palace and a vihara--the Abhayagiri--which was really a residence, and whose examination would, no doubt, throw considerable light on the arrangement of similar buildings in India. That information might, however, be difficult to obtain, and, till the simpler and more monumental buildings are examined and drawn, its investigation may well be postponed.

Besides these, Pollonarua possesses another point of interest of considerable importance, though hardly germane to our present subject. Among its ruins are several buildings in the Dravidian style of architecture, whose dates could easily, I fancy, be at least approximately ascertained. One of these is called the Dalada Maligawa, apparently from its possessing at one time the tooth relic; for it is hardly probable that when migrating southward for fear of the Tamils they would have left their cherished palladium behind them. If it was sheltered here, and this was the first building erected to receive it, it would be a most important landmark in the very vague chronology of that style. Another, though called the Vishnu Deyanne Dewala, was certainly either originally, or is now, dedicated to the worship of Siva, as is testified by the presence of the bull alongside of it, and also apparently on its roof. But be this as it may, it is the lowest and flattest of those buildings I have yet met with, and more like a direct literal copy from a constructive vihara than even the raths at Mahavellipore (Woodcut No. 181). This may arise either from its being a copy of an actual vihara existing at the time it was built, or to its being very old. Those at Mahavellipore, even if older than this one, may have gone through certain stages towards their present conventional forms before they were cut in the rock. But more of this hereafter.

* * * * *

It is unfortunate for the history of architecture in Ceylon that the oldest and finest of her rock-cut temples--as those, for instance, at Dambul and Dunumadala Kanda--are only natural caverns, slightly improved by art; and those mentioned above, as the Isurumuniya at Anuradhapura, and Gal Vihara at Pollonarua, besides being comparatively modern, have very little architecture about them, and that little by no means of a good class. Generally speaking, what architecture these Ceylonese caves do possess is developed on applied façades of masonry, never of the same age as the caves themselves, and generally more remarkable for grotesqueness than beauty. Besides, the form of these caves being accidental, they want that interest which attaches so strongly to those of India, as illustrating the religious forms and ceremonies of the early Buddhists. Indeed, their only point of interest seems to consist in their being still used for the celebration of the same rites to which they were originally dedicated 2000 years ago.

CONCLUSION.

Although the above sketch cannot pretend to be anything like a complete and exhaustive treatise on the subject, it may probably be accepted, as far as it goes, as a fairly correct and intelligible description of Buddhist architecture in India. We certainly know the beginning of the style, and as certainly its end. The succession of the buildings hardly admits of doubt, and their dates are generally ascertained within very narrow limits of error. A great deal more must, of course, be done before all the examples are known and all the lacunæ filled up; but this is being rapidly done, and in a few years from this time all that is necessary to complete the history may be available for the purpose. It is hardly probable, however, that anything will be now discovered in India which will materially alter the views put forward in the preceding pages. Another discovery like General Cunningham’s at Bharhut may reward the industry of explorers; but even that, though it has given breadth and precision to our inquiries, and added so much to our stores of knowledge, has altered little that was known before. What was written in my work on ‘Tree and Serpent Worship’ before the discovery was made, has, in almost every instance, been confirmed, and in no important particular modified or changed; and our knowledge is now so extended, it probably will be the same in other cases. It is difficult, however, to form an opinion on the chances of any such discoveries being now made. The one important building we miss of which accounts have reached us, is the rock-cut monastery described by the Chinese Pilgrims (ante, p. 135). If it was rock-cut, it almost certainly exists, and may yet be found in some of the unexplored parts of the Nizam’s territory. If it is discovered, it will throw more light on Buddhist architecture in the first century of our era than anything yet brought to light. That it did exist seems hardly doubtful, inasmuch as we have in the great rath at Mahavellipore (Woodcut No. 66) a literal copy of it--on a small scale, it is true--but so perfect that it certainly is not a first attempt to repeat, in a monolithic form, a class of building that must have been very common at the time this was attempted.

Be this as it may, even such a sketch as that contained in the preceding pages is sufficient to prove that it is almost impossible to overrate the importance of architecture and its associated arts in elucidating and giving precision to our knowledge of Buddhist history and mythology, from the time when it became the religion of the state till it perished in so far as India was concerned. In the rails at Buddh Gaya and Bharhut, with the eastern caves, we have a complete picture of Buddhism as it existed during the great Mauryan dynasty (B.C. 325 to B.C. 188). At Sanchi and the western caves we have as complete a representation of the form it took from the first century before our era to the third or fourth after it. At Amravati, and from the Gandhara monasteries, we learn what modifications had been introduced before and during the 4th century; and from the Ajunta and later caves we trace its history downward through its period of decay till it became first almost Jaina and then faded away altogether.

During the first half of this thousand years we have no contemporary records except those written in stone, and during the latter we have no books we can depend upon; but the architecture, with its sculptures and paintings, remain, and bear the indelible impress of the thoughts, the feelings, and the aspirations of those who executed them, and supply us with a vast amount of exact knowledge on the subject which is not attainable by any other means now known to us.