Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 5.djvu/236

 180 THE INFLUENCE OF A PARABOLIC MOULDING cavation which seems so hkely to have been the head quarters and origmal settlement of the Avestern mission as Kenneri. No other large excavations have yet been found in the Con- can. Above the Ghauts the nearest large monasteries are Nassick, Jooneer, and Carlee, neither of which can be com- pared to Kenneri. All these, therefore, and all the little cells, were probably dependencies on Kenneri. Here probably the first mission tixed itself; and its first care Avould have been the excavation of a large chaitya temple, the centre of Buddh- ist adoration, and the means of preserving unity among the whole body. Hence it is reasonable to suppose that the Early Buddhist columns and screens were the very first efforts of Buddhist architectural skill in Western India. Following out this historic idea, it may be supposed that the essentials of the great temple being completed, the monks proceeded with their own dwellings. In these the parabolic moulding is conspicuous, and in a situation where a reason- able account may be given of its origin. The rains in the Concan are very heavy, and the nature of the rock exposed them in a peculiar manner to their violence ; on which ac- count the monks have put out much ingenuity in construct- ing channels to drain off the water into cisterns, where it has been stored up against the dry season. Engaged with pecu- liar interest on the phenomena of hydraulics, contemplative minds, which delighted in the study of nature and art, ob- served the parabolic cm've in which the water poured over the eaves of their dwellings. At the first settlement those eaves may have been cut square, presenting an architrave of the same style as fig. 3 ; and when they saw the water wearing away the edge and marring their work, they would natu- rally conclude that this would not occur were the rock cut in the same curvature as falling water. Such seems to have been a natural origin to this peculiar moulding ; and if there be no mistake in the above reasoning the parabolic moulding must have originated in the Kenneri caves. After their own dwellings, the ornamental part of the great temple probably engaged the attention of the monks; and the colossal statues of the vestibule may have been sculptured where the parabolic moulding is used, fig. 1. Underneath a statue in a niche, the sides of which are ornamented by pilasters, of which fig. 6 represents one, is an