The Antiquities of Orissa v2.c16.s2.136.4

v2.c16.s2.136.4

These facts clearly prove that the caves have been formed on the style of mansonry buildings and not after wooden models or in other words that the master-mason or architect had in his mind the masonry buildings which existed around him when he designed these caves, and took his patterns from them, and not from huts. Under this conviction we may very reasonably conclude that square pillars with chamfered angles were in common use in those days, but columns were unknown or not used, the columns of the Jain Cave being evidently of a later date, as they stand on a masonry basement and not on the solid rock, or forming a part of it; that the doors were usually oblong and not narrowed at the top as was formerly the case in Egypt⁵⁸; that they were framed with side pilasters surmounted with semicircular arches; that the mouldings in common use were flat bands with floral decorations; that the roofs were flat, as they always have been in India; that the parapets were of a pyramidal form; that in Buddhist buildings the peculiar Buddhist rail always found a prominent place; that the taste for splendour and art had sufficiently advanced to necessitate the employment of bas-reliefs in stone or terracotta, and most probably also of painting; that the houses were generally two-storeyed, and sometimes three storeyed as described in the *Ṛgveda* (*ante* I, p. [21]); that they had verandahs, and balconies attached to the upper storey;