Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c11.20

c11.20

east were generally planned on this principle, with the rooms opening on to an interior quadrangle, their backs forming a plain outside wall, the whole being so designed to secure both privacy and protection. The monasteries adopted this method but also added an inside verandah supported on posts and carried round the square in front of the monks' cells to provide a convenient means of communication. As these hostels sometimes appear to have been attached to the chaitya-hall they resemble in certain respects the cloisters similarly annexed to the abbey church of the West, the court-yard corresponding to the cloister-garth, and the pillared verandah to the ambulatory. Built mainly of wood and other perishable materials, all the early Buddhist *sangaramas* have disappeared, but reproductions of them on the bas-reliefs supplement our information as to their design They were not infrequently of two stories, having barrel roofs with horse-shoe gable-ends, light being admitted through dormer windows. The outer facade containing the entrance was decorated with a certain amount of woodwork including a pillared portico supporting a balcony,—a coign of vantage from which to view processions and other ceremonials taking place on the terrace below. At first these viharas were comparatively modest structures of a purely utilitarian character, but as monachism in India was destined to increase immeasurably during the succeeding millennium, monastic buildings of great size and importance were erected, their style and arrangements reacting not a little on other forms of Indian architecture.