The Hindu Temple v1.c8.s7.34

v1.c8.s7.34

¹⁰² Garbha, Pāli ‘gabbha’, is also the name of rock-cut cells of the Buddhist monks connected with their large monastic halls. Such an establishment is called a ‘navagabha Maṇḍapa’ (Karli cave inscr., ‘Ep. Ind.’, XI, p. 119), if there are nine ‘gabha’ or cells ; or also ‘paca-gabha maṇḍapa’ and ‘sattagabha maṇḍapa’, when their number is only 5 or 7 (Junnar cave inscriptions, pp. 131, 136). Any small room is finally called ‘gabbha’, in Pāli texts and denotes various kinds of chambers or rooms (‘Cullavagga’, VI. 3. 3.) which may be square or rectangular, etc. The use of terms such as ‘pāsāda’, or its equivalent ‘vimāna’; gabbha, and also ‘guhā’, cave (‘Cullavagga’, VI. 1. 2) in civic architecture is also current in the Epics. Dhātugarbha (dagaba) is the stūpa as receptacle or womb of the relics (dhātu) of the Buddha. The Buddhist rock-cut cells again had their equivalent in structural cells; these in stone buildings, such as are preserved in Gandhāra were also used as shrines for a Buddhist image or a stūpa (Takht-i-Bahai). In this particular instance however they are not square, but rectangular, etc., and they have not flat roofs.