Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c10.30

c10.30

Differing widely in intention from the foregoing, but, as the technical treatment of the carving and the enamel-like polish of all the surfaces testifies, evidently belonging to the same school, are the rock-cut sanctuaries in the hills about nineteen miles north of Gaya In all there are seven of these chambers, four on the Barabar hill and three on the Nagarjuni hill half a mile north-east. In addition there is another example called the Sitamarhi situated some thirteen miles south of Rajgriha and twenty-five miles east of Gaya The two first-named groups have been quarried with infinite labour out of the large boulder-like masses of quartzose gneiss which form this range, a site evidently selected as an ideal retreat amidst pleasant, although wild surroundings They contain several inscriptions from which it is seen that they were prepared to the order of the Emperor Asoka for the use of certain Ajivika ascetics, followers of a sect which was not Buddhistic but related to the Jaina religion These chambers have two special interests as on the one hand they are the earliest examples in India of the rock-cut method, and on the other some of them are exact copies in the rock of existing structures in wood and thatch. On Plate VIII the interiors of some of the cells have been extracted so to speak, from their rock-bed and reconstructed in order to illustrate the kind of building they were supposed to imitate. The two most notable, the Lomas Rishi and the Sudama have been cut adjacent to one another on the Barabar hill, and their interiors are very similar, while the former is exceptional as it is the only one which has an ornamental facade. From the sectional drawing of the Sudama (Figs. 1 & 2) the interior arrangements may be understood. The doorways, notable for their sloping jambs, of both Sudama and Lomas Rishi are in the long side of the chamber, clearly an expedient due to the configuration of the whale-backed hill which prevented the excavation being made axially. Inside is a barrel-vaulted hall 32 ft. 9 ins by 19 ft. 6 ins. and 12 ft. 3 ins. in height. At the end of the ante-chamber and entered by a central interior doorway is a separate circular cell 19 ft in diameter with a hemispherical domed roof 12 ft. 3 ins. high at its centre. Exteriorly this cell has an overhanging eave like a thatch and, most singular of all, its walls have irregular perpendicular grooves in imitation of upright battens of wood or bamboo. In a word it is an exact lithic copy of a beehive hut, and almost every part of the surface has been burnished until it resembles glass.