The Ancient and Medieval Architecture of India: A Study of Indo-Aryan Civilisation c20.10

c20.10

The Visvakarma¹ chaitya-house, if the local tradition preserves its original dedication, may have been the chapel of the guild of masons who were working at Ellora, and some of the adjoining monastic halls may have been their residences. A place like Ellora, where splendid shrines and monasteries were continually being carved out of the cliffs on either side of the great waterfall, would doubtless have a colony of skilled masons permanently residing there, and their services would be utilised for any religious sculpture required, whatever its sectarian character might be. The same masons who sculptured the Visvakarma chaitya-house, or their descendants, may have assisted the Saivaites at the Dumar Lena—a reproduction of the Elephanta temple—and later on at the Kailâsa temple, which is almost a copy of the Virûpâksha temple at Pattadakal, and also the Jains in sculpturing the Indra Sabhâ and the Jagannath Sabhâ. In the same way, in later times, Hindu craftsmen of every sect worked for the Muhammadans in building their mosques and tombs, for no "Saracenic" builders came into India with the Muhammadan conquerors.