Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c39.7

c39.7

The other building of consequence on this site was the chaitya or temple, a large structure occupying a prominent position on the highest terrace with the remaining edifices grouped below. What is remarkable in this building is that it was a typical chaitya-hall with an apsidal end, a distinctive form of a Buddhist temple common in the rock-architecture of the more southerly parts of India, but rarely found elsewhere. Yet it should be noted that the remains of a chaitya-hall almost exactly similar in plan and dimensions to that at Harwan, with a circular apse separated from an oblong nave surrounded by a processional passage, and enclosed within a rectangular courtyard, were unearthed at the Indo-Greek city of Sirkap in Taxila (Chapter VII), dating presumably from about the first century B.C. There can be little doubt that the settlement in Kashmir was an outlying branch of that Buddhist movement which had its monastic establishments widely distributed over a great part of north-west India and beyond, at this period of its history.