Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c12.25

c12.25

The two remaining examples of this class, that of Pitalkhora and Ajanta (No. 10), although considerably ruined, appear to have been of much the same order as the two previously described. In the case of the former, another advance in the development may be seen by the treatment of the roof-ribs in the side-aisles which instead of being of wood are carved out of the rock, evidently a further attempt to reduce the wooden attachment. Owing to a fault in the strata some of the pillars had to be completed structurally, and the stupa having disappeared the probability is that it was built up in the same way, either of stone or wood. The length of this chaitya hall when complete must have been over 50 feet, and it is 34½ feet wide with a height of 31 feet. The last of the series, Ajanta (No. 10), by its large size shows that the artificers were becoming bolder in their conceptions, as it measures as much as 100 feet in length, is 40 feet wide and 33 feet high; in this instance also the ribs of the side-aisles are not of wood but cut out of the rock and they radiate from the end pillars singularly like groins from a Gothic boss. As to the stupa this is somewhat elaborated, its circular base being in two tiers, and the dome is rather more than a hemisphere, indicating a step towards that elongation of its elevation which characterised the later forms.