Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 1.djvu/209

CHAP. VI. BENGAL CAVES. 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 Sultan- ganj, near Monghyr, a large vihara was cut through by the railway, but except one remarkable bronze statue of Buddha l 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. 2 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. 3 The excavations conducted by General Cunningham, at the same place, were 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 the temple of little more than half these dimensions with a projecting porch on each face. 4 Only the foundation of these buildings now remains, and nothing to indicate how they were originally finished. The like is doubtless the condition of the extensive excavations made by the Archaeological Survey during the last four years at Kasia in Gorakhpur district as well as at Sarnath. But no detailed account of the results has yet been made avail- able, and short notices, without plans, are very unsatisfactory, if not occasionally unintelligible. Foundations of numerous temples, stupas and other buildings, we learn, were laid bare, and interesting sculptures and inscriptions discovered. 5 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 Bihar caves can, properly speaking, be called viharas, in the sense in which the word is generally used, except perhaps the Son-bhandar cave, which was probably a Jaina or 1 In private hands in Birmingham in 1876. a 'Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,' vol. xxxiii. pp. 361 et seqq. J 'Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,' vol. xxiii. pp. 469 et seqq. 4 For this and the other Sarnath re- mains see Cunningham's ' Archaeological Reports,' vol. i. pp. 114 et seqq., plates 32-34. 5 'Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,' 1907,' pp. 99Sff. See Note below, p. 207.