Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 2.djvu/154

I2 4 NORTHERN OR INDO-ARYAN STYLE BOOK VI. 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. 1 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 Kailas, already described (vol. i., page 344). The Buddhist excavations, on the contrary, were always caves and nothing else. The ground floor is little more than a corridor, 95 ft. in length, and about 30 ft. deep, with cells. The upper storey hall, of which Woodcut No. 325 is the plan, is nearly square 95 ft. wide by 97 ft. deep the roof supported by forty-four square pillars, of which those in front are richly carved. The recesses between the pilasters in the side walls are rilled with large sculptures in alto- rilievo those on the north side being Saiva, and on the other mostly Vaishnava. Unfortunately there are no Buddhist buildings or caves so far south as Badami, and we are consequently deprived of that means for comparison : such as are south of Karle, at Karhad, etc., are of little or no account architecturally. The result, however, of the translations of inscriptions collected during the last thirty-five years, and of the surveys made, leads us to compress our history of the western caves within narrower limits than at one time seemed necessary. The caves in the south of Bijapur district seem all to be comprised between the years 500 and 750 A.D., and those at Elura, being synchronous, must also, with the exception of the Jaina caves, be limited to the same period of time, with probably a slight extension either way. The following may now be offered as an approximate chronology of the far-famed series of caves at Elura : Buddhist : Vuvakarma to Tin Thai 500-650 Hindu : Das Avatara, Ravan-ka-Khai, and Rame^vara 650-750 Dhumar Lena and others Dravidian : Kailas . . .';'* Jaina : Indra and Jagannath Sabhas, etc. 750-850 750-800 800-1100 The cave at Elephanta follows of course the date here given for the Dhumar Lena, and must thus date after the middle of the 8th century. 2 1 The Rashtrakuta inscription on this mandapa is only very partially legible, and is probably of later date than the work. ' Archaeological Survey of Western India,' vol. v. p. 87. 2 This is the date given in the descrip- tion in * The Caves of Elephanta,' Bombay, 187 P- 5-