History of Indian and Eastern Architecture v2.c25.s8.3

v2.c25.s8.3

At Bâdâmi there are three caves, not of any great dimensions, but of singular interest from their architectural details and sculptures, and more so from the fact that one of them, No. 3, contains an inscription with an undoubted date upon it. There are, as pointed out above, innumerable Buddhist inscriptions on the western caves, but none with dates from any well-ascertained era, and none, unfortunately, of the Brahmanical caves at Elûrâ or elsewhere have inscriptions that can be fully deciphered, and not one with a date on it. The consequence is, that the only mode by which their ages could be approximated was by arranging them in sequences, according to our empirical or real knowledge of the history of the period during which they were supposed to have been excavated. At Elûrâ, for instance, it was assumed that the Buddhist preceded the Brahmanical excavations, and that these were succeeded by the Jaina; and various local and architectural peculiarities rendered this hypothesis extremely probable. Arguing on this basis, it was found that the one chaitya cave there, the Viswakarma, was nearly identical in style with the last of the four chaityas at Ajantâ (No. 26), and that cave, for reasons given above, was placed at the end of the 6th century, say A.D. 600. The caves next it were assumed to occupy the 7th century, thus leading on to the Râmeswara group, about A.D. 700, and the Jaina group would then have occupied the 9th century. The age of the Kailâs or Dravidian group, being exceptional, could only be determined by extraneous evidence, and, as already pointed out, from its extreme similarity with the great temple at Pattadakal, belongs almost certainly to the 8th century ; and from a similar chain of reasoning the Jaina group is brought back to a slightly subsequent age.