Indian Art: A History of Indian Art from the Earliest Times up to the Third Century A.D. c13.s1.t3: Vihāra and Chaitya Hall:
Indian Art: A History of Indian Art from the Earliest Times up to the Third Century A.D. c13.s1.t3
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Vihāra and Chaitya Hall:
c13.s1.t3.1
Ten miles north of Karle are the Kondāne Vihāra and Chaitya hall. The Vihāra is of one storey. It presents a rare type of architecture in Vihāra excavation having a central hall supported on pillars. The exterior consisted of a pillared portico on which a massive cornice is projecting corresponding to an entablature (*bhāra-paṭṭa*) which is in every detail a true copy of an wooden original. In the portico (*mukha-maṇḍapa*) is a screen wall with three square openings forming the doorway (*dvāra*) and a window on each side. The hall in the interior measuring 23 ft. × 29 ft. has a row of pillars and cells opening into it on the three sides. The pillars support a vaulted roof with ribbed beams as usually found in the Chaitya halls which have been faithfully borrowed from wooden prototypes. On one side of the portico a motif of the façade of a Chaitya hall (*gharamukha*) is carved which furnishes all the details of the architecture generally associated with the Chaitya hall. The Kondane Chaitya hall possessed a façade of the same type as at Bhājā with the pillared protico but with its upright posts partly excavated in rock and partly made of wood which shows a later development. The interior *maṇḍapa* and *garbhagriha* together measured 66 ft. in length and 26 ft. 6 in. across being slightly larger than the Chaitya hall at Bhājā. Its height is over 28 ft. [Fig. 117].
c13.s1.t3.2
In the series of Hīnayāna excavations those at Kondāne come immediately after Bhājā.