The Antiquities of Orissa v2.c16.s2.99

v2.c16.s2.99

The second objection to the Buddhism of the caves may be founded on the absence of those prominent marks of that faith which are to be met with elsewhere. Among the caves of Western India, the largest and most sumptuous chambers are obviously so made as to represent sanctuaries, temples, or places for religious worship. In Behar, too, the principal cave has a Dehgopa, or relic depository, showing that it was a sanctuary where people assembled for purposes of offering their [38] respect and adoration to the founder of Buddhism through his relic. Nothing of the kind, however, occurs in the largest cave of Udayagiri, the Queen's Palace, and, with the solitary exception of the Buddhist rails shown in bas-relief on the friezes, there is no unquestionable and positive Buddhist emblem in any part of its structures. The bas-reliefs and statues are ornamental or historical; the chambers are so constructed as to serve as dwellings and not places of worship, and the accessories are all such as may be met with in a Hindu monastery quite as appropriately as in a Buddhist one. The exception of the rails above noticed does not by any means afford unquestionable and irrefragable evidence one way or the other. True it is that this rail has been invariably met with on ancient Buddhist relics and never on an undoubted Hindu building; but, in the first place, no Hindu building of the time of the Buddhagayā rails, or the Sāñchi Tope, or the Behar caves, has yet been met with, and therefore the absence of the peculiar rails on them goes for nothing; and, in the second place, the peculiarity of upright posts with three or four cross bars to form a rail is by no means such as to be decisive evidence in the cave. The most obvious and simple mode of fencing is to have uprights at short intervals with connecting bars whose number is regulated by the peculiar exigency of each individual case. Every farm-gate in England is in reality a reproduction of the Buddhist rail, only not so heavy looking, because it is of wood, whereas the latter, being of stone, is heavy and clumsy. And what is said of the Queen's Palace may with equal propriety be said of all the other caves of Udayagiri. There is not a single image of Buddha or a Chaitya in any part of this hill. These arguments appear, at first sight, to be very strong; but they are nevertheless quite fallacious. They accept as majors what have no right to be considered as such, and assume as facts what cannot be so accepted. Doubtless there are some caves in India which have Buddhist emblems carved on them; but we have no more right to conclude therefrom that all Buddhist caves should bear such emblems, than to conclude that because some churches have mural tablets, all churches should have them. A religion founded on atheism, which recognised no necessity for worshipping images, can well exist—nay flourish—