Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c19.29

c19.29

The other three-storied vihara of this group No. 11, misnamed the Do Thal, or "Two Stories" (as until recently one story was hidden under an accumulation of earth), is not so large or so spacious in its interior arrangements as the foregoing, but it is planned on somewhat similar lines. Where it differs is in the shallow nature of its halls, some of which are verandahs only, and there are no cells for the monks. Another vihara of the same group No. 6, has more interest because of its transverse plan, which is not dissimilar to the uppermost story of the Tin Thal, but without its system of pillars. The shape of this particular monastery indicates that it may have been a preliminary effort at a cruciform system, an arrangement which was adopted and elaborated later by the Hindus in the halls of the Dumar Lena and of Elphanta. In some of these viharas notably in the Tin Thal there will be found the most precise and mathematically accurate craftsmanship throughout the entire range of rock-architecture. Lines are straighter, angles more correct, and surfaces more true than in any other examples, indicating that at Ellora in the seventh century, rock-architecture, in its technical aspect, had reached its culmination.