The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c33.35

v1.c33.35

While these structural edifices—*stūpas*, chapels, and monasteries—were being erected in Hindustān, the Buddhists and Jains of Western and Eastern India were engaged in fashioning more permanent monuments of the same class by hewing them from the living rock. The practice of hollowing out chambers had been common in Egypt from time immemorial, and by the sixth century B.C. had spread as far east as Persia, where the royal tombs of Darius and his successors of the Achaemenian dynasty up to the time of Codomannus (335-330 B.C.) were excavated in the cliffs of Naksh-i-Rustam and Persepolis. From Persia the idea found its way during the third century before our era into Hindustān and resulted, as we have already seen, in the excavation of dwelling places and chapels for ascetics in the Barābar hills of Bihār. These artificial caves of the Maurya period were of very modest proportions, and were at first kept severely plain, or, like their Irānian prototypes, adorned only on the outer façade. As time went on, however, the Indian excavators became more ambitious and, rapidly expanding their ideas, proceeded to copy their structural *chaitya* halls and *vihāras* on the same scale as the originals, and to imitate their details with an accuracy which says more for their industry and patience than for the originality of their genius. So literal, indeed, was the translation of wooden architecture into the new and more durable material, that infinite toil was expended in perpetuating forms which became quite meaningless and inappropriate when applied to stone. Thus, in wooden structures there had been valid enough reason for inclining pillars and door jambs inwards, in order to counteract the outward thrust of the curvilinear roof, but, reproduced in stone, this inclination entirely missed its purpose and served only to weaken instead of strengthening the supports. Again, it was mere waste of labour to copy roof timbers; still greater waste was it, first to cut away the rock and then insert such timbers in wood, as was done in some of the earlier caves.