The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c33.39

v1.c33.39

From these and other peculiarities in their construction and decoration it has generally been inferred that the earliest of all the *chaitya* halls to be excavated were those at Bhājā, Konḍāne, and Pitalkhorā, together with the tenth cave at Ajantā; that next to them in chronological order came the hall at Bedsā; then the ninth cave at Ajantā, followed closely by the *chaitya* at Nāsik; and, lastly, the great hall at Kārli. On the assumption, moreover, that the *chaitya* at Nāsik is of about the same age as the small *vihāra* close by, and that the Andra king Kṛishṇa, during whose reign the latter was excavated, was reigning at the beginning of the second century B.C., the conclusion has been drawn that the four earliest caves were excavated towards the close of the third century B.C., the cave at Bedsā during the first or second decade of the second century B.C., those at Nāsik about 160 B.C., and the one at Kārli about 80 B.C. Against this chronology, however, there are insuperable objections based on epigraphical as well as plastic and architectural considerations. In the hall at Kārli, for example—to take the last of the series first—is an inscription recording that it was the work of one Seṭh Bhūtapāla of Vaijayantī, whose age cannot for epigraphical reasons be far removed from that of Ushavadāta, the son-in-law of the Kshatrapa Nahapāna. In this cave, too, the form of the pillars and the modelling of the stately sculptures above them preclude an earlier date than the first century of our era. Again, in the *chaitya* hall at Nāsik the form of the entrance doorway, the lotus design on the face of its jambs, the miniature Persepolitan pilasters, the rails of the balustrade flanking the steps and the treatment of the *dvārapāla* figure beside the entrance—all bespeak a date approximately contemporary with the Sānchī *toraṇas*, and at least a century later than the work of Bhārhut. Equally strong are the objections in the case of the Bhājā and Bedsā *chaityas*, the sculptures of which are too fully developed to have been executed before the first century B.C., while, as regards the latter hall, the design of the ponderous columns in front of the entrance and the modelling of the figures surmounting them, though manifestly earlier than the work at Kārli, cannot be removed from it by a long period of time. From these and many other indications of a similar nature it is apparent that the chronology of these caves needs complete revision. At present it seems hardly possible to avoid the conclusion that the whole series of these rock-cut halls—from the one at Bhājā to that of Kārli—are more modern by at least a century than has been usually supposed, and that Messrs Fergusson and Burgess were not far from the truth, when in their work on the *Cave Temples of India* they assigned the Nāsik Hall to the latter half of the first century B.C.