The Hindu Temple v1.c8.s7.31

v1.c8.s7.31

No apsidal temple was cut into the rock for Viṣṇu, Śiva or any Brāhmaṇical form of divinity¹⁰⁰. The rock cut Hindu Garbhagṛha is an equivalent of the structural flat roofed stone temple¹⁰¹; yet it is also preceded by the small, single rock cut cell and also by those which surround in numbers Buddhist monastic halls.¹⁰² It is however significant that a relatively large cell, at the centre of the far end of the hall and serving as the main sanctuary, appears in the Buddhist excavations¹⁰³ only at an age when the flat roofed Garbhagṛha had been set up in stone Prāsādas and cut into the rock.