Manasara Series (I. A Dictionary of Hindu Architecture; II. Indian Architecture according to Manasara-Shilpashastra; III. Manasara on Architecture and Sculpture: Sanskrit Text; IV. Architecture of Manasara: Translation; V. Architecture of Manasara: Illustrations; VI. Hindu Architecture in India and Abroad; VII. An Encyclopaedia of Hindu Architecture) v6.c41.s12.5

v6.c41.s12.5

‘In front of most of the shrines there had been originally antechapels or porches of oblong shape carved out of the rock. Their back and side walls, as well as the ceilings, still retained paintings *in tempera*. . . . In most cases access to, and communication between, these upper shrines seems to have been assured by means of wooden galleries, now marked only by the wooden rafters which once served to support them, or more frequently still by the mere holes into which they were fixed. The rock-cut or wooden stairs, which were required for the same purpose, had crumbled away almost everywhere, and even rough ladders were to be found only before a few caves which had undergone manifestly recent restoration. . . . The interior arrangements and decoration of these upper shrines, mostly of modest size, did not differ in any essential way from those prevailing in the cave-temples carved into the foot of the cliff.’¹