Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c12.44

c12.44

With the great effort at Karli, the Hinayana phase of rock architecture seems to have spent itself as although viharas for the accommodation of the still increasing communities of monks continued to be added to these retreats, no more chaitya halls were excavated for some time. At the monastery of Junnar, however, a number of chambers, most of them of a relatively small order, were in the course of production over a considerable period, some perhaps as early as the second century B.C., and others in the first century A.D. In one of the groups on this site known as the Tulja Lena, there is a small chaitya hall, which is different from any other and may be a survival of a very ancient type. It is circular in plan and 20 feet in diameter with a stupa in the centre over which rises a dome about 18 feet high supported on twelve plain octagonal pillars, the whole composition being on the same principle as the monopteron style in Roman architecture, of which the temple of Vesta in the Forum Boarium of Rome is an example. Apparently a reproduction in the rock of a primitive structural shrine, it was a form probably not uncommon at one time and of which there are representations on some of the early reliefs, as for instance on the railing at Barhut.