Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c10.32

c10.32

Of the remaining examples of the group, that now called the *Gopi* or Milk-maid's cave on the Nagarjuna hill is the largest. It is a plain tunnel-like excavation rounded in plan at each end, measuring 44 ft. long by 19 ft. wide and it is 10 ft. high to the apex of its vaulted roof. Over the doorway is an inscription stating that it was excavated to the order of the emperor Dasaratha on his accession to the Mauryan throne. This and two other inscriptions elsewhere are evidence that the school established by Asoka was still in existence at the time of his grandson towards the end of the third century B C. but after then it appears to have abruptly ceased. Extending over a period of less than fifty years, this movement had no growth and no decline, so that it emerges not so much as a school but as an outstanding episode in the early history of Indian art. One and all of its productions are of surpassing interest, and some of them are of a significance which has been rarely excelled. It also had far-reaching implications as some of its motifs and forms of expression are to be seen wherever Buddhism found a foothold. For instance the bell-shaped capital of the monolithic pillars was frequently reproduced under varying conditions but always identifiable as of the "Persepolitan" order. It was, however, the excavated chapels that were destined to have the most remarkable effect as the examples in Bihar were the beginnings of that magnificent development of rock-architecture which has no equal in any other country. But even more potential than these material manifestations was the factor of technique, for it put a new power into the hands of the Indian artizans, teaching them how to win stone from the quarry, how to dress and chisel it, and even to apply it to building construction in the form of pillars. But there, strangely enough, it ended. Of the working and setting of stones, of joining them in courses, in a word of the art of stone masonry it conveyed nothing The country was apparently not yet prepared for such an innovation. Building in wood had been so perfected that the Indian workman saw no reason for a change. Evolution does not always proceed by imperceptible gradations but sometimes advances according to a kind of cultural quantum theory, progress being restrained by the very excellence of previous experience. Some circumstance of a like nature may account for the tardy appearance of stone construction in the building art of India