Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c47.30

c47.30

Cave XXIV would have been the largest *vihara* in the series after IV, the hall being about 75 feet square with twenty columns. The sculptures which still exist in the verandah show that it was intended in this *vihara* to use the "vase and foliage" capital as one of its main architectural motifs. In Cave XXI this form of capital seems to have been introduced experimentally into the decorative scheme of the *vihara*. Now for the first time we find it being adopted on a larger scale