Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c12.8

c12.8

These Hinayana rock-cut monasteries represent a definite regional development, as they are limited to the western side of India, many of them lying within the Bombay State Taking Nasik as the centre they are all situated within a circle having a radius of less than two hundred miles from that town. Here in a configuration of rugged hills known as the Western Ghats, the terrain is naturally adapted to admit this form of architectural treatment, as much of it consists of horizontal strata of amygdaloid and cognate trap formations of considerable thickness and marked uniformity of texture. The edges of these strata terminate in nearly perpendicular cliffs, which provided an ideal surface for the type of rock-architecture contemplated. This architecture resolves itself into some ten separate groups of conventual establishments, each group being separate and self-contained, and each originally consisting of a prayer-hall and its accompanying monastery. The prayer-hall or Buddhist temple, and usually referred to as the *chaitya hall*, as it accommodated a chaitya or stupa, took the form of a large vaulted hall having an apsidal end and divided longitudinally by two colonnades into a broad nave and two aisles. In the apse stood the stupa, also carved out of the natural rock, consisting of an elaborated representation of the structural tumulus previously described. But the most striking fact in connection with the plan and general design of the Buddhist chaitya hall is its undeniable resemblance to the Graeco-Roman basilica, a type of structure which was being evolved in Europe about the same time. In spite of this similarity and their almost contemporaneous emergence, it is extremely unlikely that the two forms of hall were in any way related. The plan and arrangements of the basilica were such as would occur to anyone devising a commodious place of assembly. On the other hand the gradual process of formation to the chaitya hall from its very primitive beginning has been already explained, while its more advanced shape as seen in these rock-cut examples, was brought about by the growing requirements of the Buddhist ritual The side aisles and apsidal end were for the purpose of processions and circumambulation of the stupa, and the nave was provided for the congregational service (Plates XIX, XX and XXI.)