The Antiquities of Orissa v2.c16.s2.119

Language: English

v2.c16.s2.119.1

⁵⁴ The conclusions I have come to above are at variance with the results of Mr. Fergusson’s latest researches on the subject as embodied in an appendix to the 2nd edition of his *Tree and Serpent Worship*. Although those results are indefinite, to a certain extent contradictory, and avowedly derived from insufficient data, still they are of importance as proceeding from a gentleman who has devoted much attention to the subject, and is deservedly, held in high respect, and it is necessary, therefore, to notice them in detail. After adverting to the character of the caves, he says, “Still these caves must have been excavated for some religious purposes; we can hardly suppose they were the residences of laymen, and the only reasonable conclusion seems to be that they were early Buddhist, of a type coeval, or it may be even anterior to what we find at Sāñchī” (p. 268). Now Sāñchī is usually supposed to belong to the second century B.C., and so these caves, if they represent the Buddhism of that place, must belong to that century. This is, however, to a certain extent contradicted by a statement in which the learned author says : “The inscriptions on the snake and tiger caves prove them, from the form of their characters, to be not far removed from Aśoka's time” (p. 268). This would be the latter part of the third century B. C. The remark, however, is followed by another statement in which the author comes to “the conclusion that some of the Yavana invaders mentioned above” (p.

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173 of his work) “introduced Greek art into this remote corner some time, it may be, before or about the Christian era; but that instead of becoming more delicate and refined as it did at Amarāvatī, it become here more vigorous and more local in its manifestations” (p. 269). If we allow a century for this transition or localization, the age of the Queen's Palace, to whice the remarks especially apply, would be the end of the first century of the Christian era, or in other words, the several caves took for their completion about three hundred years, from the latter part of the third century B. C. to that of the first century A. C. The arguments on which these three statements have been based are, however, not conclusive. The first statement is founded upon the supposed absence of Buddhist images in the caves as at Sāñchī, but the Buddha of the Ananta cave upsets the major, and the conclusion therefore is not sustainable. The sacond statement is based on the form of the characters on the Serpent and the Tiger Caves, but as the learned author has himself laid down the postulate that “on questions of this kind inscriptions shed but the faintest and most uncertain glimmer”, he is not likely to lay much stress on it. The third statement owes its strength partly to the relation which the art displayed in the sculptures of the caves bears to Hellenic art, and partly to the style of the different caves.

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The sculptural test, as I have shown in the text, is entirely fanciful, and therefore, it may be dismissed as unworthy of consideration. The author himself is not much disposed te rely on it, for he admits that “sculpture in itself, is much more uncertain in its progress than architecture, and depends so much on local and individual and personal circumstances for its development that it would be almost impossible to decide this question if it stood alone” (p 269). He argues, however, that “it seems hardly doubtful that the architecture of the Gaṇeśa is earlier than that of the Rāj Rānī (? Queen's Palace) cave; while the simplicity of its one-celled plan as compared with the many-celled two-storeyed magnificence of the other is so marked, that it is impossible to mistake the progress between the two” (p. 296). The ground, however, is not firmer here than before. It is not a fact that the Gaṇeśa is a “one-called” cave. On referring to plate XXVII, the reader will perceive that it has two cells and a verandah. The Rānī Gumphā again is not really two-storeyed, but one-storeyed, the so called upper storey resting on solid rock beyond the roof of the lower storey as at Svargapuri. As to the magnificence of the one and the simplicity of the other, doubtless there is considerable difference in the number of chambers and verandahs in the two sets of caves, but architecturally they are of no importance.

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The ground-plan of the Gaṇeśa is only repeated three times in the Queen’s Palace, twice to form the two wings and once to form the western facade, with only such variations in the number and disposition of the rooms as circumstances required, but nothing to indicate any originality. Generally speaking, architectural details are the most important as tests regarding style, and relying on them, it is impossible to detect any difference that would justify our supposing the two sets of caves to belong to two different ages. As already stated in the text, they are all but indentically the same. The differences they exhibit are due to individual peculiarity, and not to age and style. It is the farthest from my intention to deny altogether the value of sculptures as tests of age, but I cannot shut my eyes to the fact that they yield too much elbow-room for speculation and are wanting in that certainty which dated inscriptions rightly interpreted, are calculated to afford. To persons gifted with that perfection of imagination which, could, like Dean Swift, “fill up a volume on a broomstick” the plasticity and elasticity of architectural and sculptural evidence may be welcome, but the stiffness of dated inscriptions is more agreeable to sober-minded ordinary mortals.