Maurya and Shunga Art c9.8

c9.8

These caves or rock-cut ‘chaityas’ represent about half a century of building activity, but unlike Mauryan sculpture these almost primitive architectural essays show no process of evolution. From the Sudāmā to the Lomaśa Ṛiṣi there is no doubt an elaboration, but the three caves of Daśaratha do not fit in along the line of any supposed or actual evolution. Indeed these caves do not represent, except in their high polish, any conscious attempt towards architectural achievement. The architects of the Maurya court, so far as these caves are concerned, merely copied in stone what they saw before them constructed of wood and bamboo and clay. But the facade of the Lomaśa Ṛiṣi proves once for all that even here in these primitive caves there was no slip-shod work permitted in the actual cutting of the stone; every little detail is sharply and precisely chiselled. Whatever their architectural quality these rock-cut ‘chaitya’-halls represent the earliest extant remains of and perhaps the second stage in the evolution of this type of Indian monuments. The history of later ‘chaitya’ architecture is roughly the history of the evolution of the ground-plan and elevation of the Sudāmā and the Lomaśa Rishi.