Vastu-shastra (Vol. I: Hindu Science of Architecture; Vol. II: Hindu Canons of Iconography and Painting) v1.c57.8

v1.c57.8

LAYANAS—Early Mauryan specimens.—Kondane of the first century, B. C. cut out of the cliff-face consisted of a cahitya hall or temple and its attached monasteries represent the two characteristic types of structure, one arched over by means of a barrel-vault roof and the other having a flat roof. The seven rock-cut sanctuaries in the hills about nineteen miles north of Gaya—four on the Barbar hills adn three on the Nagarjuni hill in addition to one more example called the Sitamarhi situated some thirteen miles south of Rajgriha and twenty five miles east of Gaya may be said to illustrate the first monuments representing the Layana types of early Prāsāda-shrines. Among the Barbar groups the two most notable examples are the Lomaśa Rishi and the Sudama. They are not only the earliest examples of rock-cut method symbolizing the Layana, the retreat but also they represent the early model of Śālā-architecture, the wood and thatch which, as already remarked, was the rise of first house, the Śaraṇam or Nīḍam on earth either to house human beings or to dwell the divine. In the Nagarjuni group of sancturies notably in Gopi or milk-maid cave, we find the temple-architecture in making. The abundant application of pillars and motifs of the capitals are reminiscent of the later genesis of the Śikhara or the spires or more characteristically, to put in the Vāstuśāstra terminology, the Aṇḍas of the later temples and the Āmalaka or the Amalasilā of the finial in the later growth of the temple-superstructure. All these eight early Layanas, found in *Barbar Hills* (Karna-Kaupar, Sudama, Lomas Rishi and Visvajhoparī), *Nagarjuni group* (Gopika Vahijaka and Vadalhika) and *Sītāmarhī* are our earliest types of Layana-Prāsādas.