The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c33.42

v1.c33.42

Of the early caves along the East Coast the only ones that merit attention here are the two neighbouring and intimately connected groups on the hills of Udayagiri and Khandagiri in Orissa. Unlike the rock-hewn monuments of Western India described above, which were the handiwork of Buddhists, these Orissan caves were both excavated and for many years tenanted by adherents of the Jain religion, who have left behind them unmistakable evidences of their faith both in the early inscribed records and in the medieval cult statues which are found in several of the caves. To this sectarian difference is due many distinctive features of the architecture, including, among others, the entire absence of *chaitya* halls, for which, apparently, there was no need in the ceremonial observances of the Jains. Taken together, the two groups comprise more than thirty-five excavations, of which the more remarkable in point of size and decoration are the Ananta Gumphā on Khandagiri, and the Rānī Gumphā, Ganesh Gumphā, and the Jayavijaya caves on the Udayagiri hill. Besides these, there are two caves in the Udayagiri group—namely, the Hāthi Gumphā and the Manchapurī cave—to which a special interest attaches by reason of the inscriptions carved on them. Of the whole series the oldest is the Hāthi Gumphā, a natural cavern enlarged by artificial cutting, on the over-hanging brow of which is the famous epigraph recording the acts of Khāravela, King of Kaliṅga. This inscription was supposed by Pandit Bhagvānlāl Indrājī and others to be dated in the 165th year of the Maurya epoch, which, if reckoned from the accession of Chandragupta, would coincide with 157–6 B.C. Other scholars have, however, since denied that any such date occurs in the inscription, and, at the present time, there is still a sharp division of opinion on the point¹. In the absence of an undoubted date in this record or in the records of Khāravela's Queen and of his successor (?) in the Manchapurī cave, we must endeavour to determine the age of these monuments from other sources of information. In the case of the Manchapurī cave, the problem luckily derives some light from the style of the sculptured reliefs of the interior. This cave, erroneously called Vaikuṇṭha or Pātālapurī by earlier writers, possesses two storeys, the lower (Pl. XXVII, 73) consisting of a pillared verandah with chambers hollowed out at the back and at one end; the upper of similar design but of smaller dimensions and without any chamber at the extremity of the verandah.