Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c15.4

c15.4

There are two sites where rock-cut architecture is in evidence, one at Guntupalle¹ in the Kistna district, and the other on the Sankaran Hills in the Vizagapatam district. The former has been already referred to, because, it is here that the small circular chamber has been found which explains the kind of shelter that was first erected over the stupa—the beginning of the chaitya hall (Plate VIII, Fig. 7). This chamber is 18 feet in diameter, and the domical roof with its circular ribbed framework is 14 feet 9 inches in height, the whole suggesting a primitive hut, its early origin being proved by the design of the doorway, which, on grounds of style, cannot be very much later than that of the Lomas Rishi in the Barabar Hills It has been presumed therefore that this rock-cut retreat at Guntupalle may have been begun as early as 200 B.C. The remainder of this *sangarama* consists of two separate groups of chambers forming a large and a small monastery, the ruins of a brick-built chaitya hall, and many stupas of various sizes most of them rock-cut, although there are a few structural. No real attempt at any coordinated plan seems to have been made in arranging the cells of the monasteries, which are crowded together, probably because other chambers were at a later date inserted in the available intervening spaces. The facades show round-arched doorways, and windows with a projecting dormer archway above, and the radiating spokes of a blind chaitya window filling the space between, the whole approximating the early Hinayana type of vihara decoration, but all rather coarsely executed and displaying little aptitude for this kind of work.