The Ancient and Medieval Architecture of India: A Study of Indo-Aryan Civilisation c13.2

c13.2

WE must now pass on to the *vihâras*, or monasteries adjoining, or sometimes included in, the chaitya-houses and other shrines to which the religious devotees of ancient India attached themselves. It is wrong to assume that either the chaitya-houses or the monasteries which belonged to them were exclusively Buddhist institutions, although the oldest materials for their architectural history are practically all Buddhist. The life of religious recluses dwelling together in forest âsramas is often described in ancient Sanskrit literature. The Silpa-sâstras give particular directions for the planning of villages intended for those who lived a monastic life; and just as the builders of Buddhist chaityas and chaitya-houses followed very closely, as we have seen, the ancient Indian tradition of structure and symbolism, so there cannot be much doubt that the dwellings of the Buddhist bhikkus in Asoka's time differed very little from those which had been used by devotees of other sects before the tenets of the great Kshatriya reformer were propagated by his zealous royal disciple.