The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c7.369.3

v1.c7.369.3

Fergusson observes: “Although the style begins in wood and ends in stones, it is not a little startling to find so little change either in the plan, or general disposition of these caves, during the ten centuries through which we can certainly trace them,”⁵⁰ and to account for the peculiarity he adds, “The cave at Kennari, or the last at Ajunta, is practically identical with that at Karli, in so far as its general plan and design is concerned, and even the last retains so strongly a reminiscence of its wooden origin, that we have little reason to doubt, that the practice of erecting such halls in that perishable material was continued contemporaneously.”⁵¹ This solution of the difficulty, however, is by no means favourable to the position assumed by the author, that architecture in India must have commenced after the invasion of Alexander, (250 B.C.) because all the earliest specimens show traces of their wooden origin. If those traces are visible in stone structures raised twelve centuries afterwards, and may be accounted for by the assumption of imitation from contemporaneous structures, the argument would lose little of its force when applied to the erections and excavations of the time of Aśoka, and of his immediate successors. Wooden houses have existed at all times, and exist to this day;