Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 1.djvu/161

CHAP. V. CHAITYA HALLS. 127 in length by 12 ft. wide, the apsidal end and barrel-vaulted roof rising about 30 ft. from the floor ; it is of brick carefully corbelled inwards to form the vault, and rising to a ridge, all carefully plastered. The mandap in front is about 13 ft. high inside, and has a flat roof of wooden beams supported by wooden pillars, and over-laid by brick and plastered outside. Slender pilasters are formed on the outside walls, supporting thick roll mouldings of an early form. The facade of the chaitya rises about 1 8 ft. above the hall roof (Woodcut No. 48), and is of special interest : the recess in the middle of it now contains a Hindu image in plaster, but originally it must have been a window to admit light into the chaitya. And if we compare this facade with that of the Buddhist rock-cut chaitya at Elura, the close resemblance in style, and even in details, derived from earlier wood constructions, is very apparent. The early chaitya, discovered about eighteen years ago at Chezarla, in the Kistna district of the Madras presidency, has been preserved, like the pre- ceding, by being appropri- ated as a vSaiva temple of Kapotejvara "the pigeon iUbii-ii- ii- fTF-i! god " ; for the legend of .Sivi-Ujinara, who offered his own flesh to feed a hawk rather than surrender a dove (kapotd) that had fled to him for protection is well known from the Mahabharata and Elevation of Chezarla Chaitya Temple. Scale 25 ft. to i in. 52- Section on A B, of No, 50. other works; 1 the story has also Buddhist forms in the Jataka book. 2 Like the Ter example, this chaitya is built of bricks 1 Benfey's ' Panchatantra,' vol. i. p. 388 ; ' Kalhasaritsagara,' ch. 7 ; ' Maha- bharata,' Vana-parva, sect. 197. 2 The ' Kapota Jataka,' is No. 42, and the Sivi Jataka, No. 499 ; see also Beal's ' Buddhist Records,' vol. ii. pp. 182-183, and 'Life of Hiuen Tsiang,' p. 125; Burgess, ' Notes on the Bauddha Rock Temples of Ajanta: their Paintings, etc,' pp. 47, and 75-76.