Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 1.djvu/171

 CHAP. V. WESTERN CHAITYA HALLS. 137 62. Capital of a rock-cut Dagaba at Bhaja. (From a Photograph.) have also the heavy cornice : that upon the largest being con- nected with the roof by the stone shaft of the " chhattra " or umbrella, whilst the other two had been provided with wooden shafts. Of the nine in front, the first from the north has a handsome capital 3 ft. 8 in. high, very elaborately carved (Wood- cut No. 62) ; most of the others have been broken. One or more had only the box form without abacus, and on four of them are holes on the top as if for relics. The names of the Theras or priests, still legible on several of them, indicate that they served the place of monuments in a cemetery, though they may also have been reverenced as altars to saints. About 10 miles north-west from Karle, in a ravine of the Western Ghats, are the Kondane chaitya cave and vihara. This chaitya is interesting, inasmuch as its facade is even a more literal reproduction of the wooden forms from which it was derived than that at Bhaja. Nothing could be more literal than the copying of the overhanging forms of the con- structive parts of the facade, which shows no trace of stone construction in any feature, and which it would be hardly possible to construct in masonry. Its dimensions differ but little from those of the Bhaja chaitya, being 66J ft. from the line of the front pillars to the extremity of the apse, 26 ft. 8 in. wide, and 28 ft. 5 in. high to the crown of the arch ; the nave was 14 ft. 8 in. wide, surrounded by thirty pillars most of which have rotted away, but which incline inwards as do the side walls of the aisles. The dagaba was 9 ft. in diameter with a capital, like that at Bhaja, of about double the usual height. These two chaityas may be considered as contemporary or nearly so, and they are the finest among the four which are the very oldest specimens of their class in the west of India. 1 Pitalkhora is a ravine among the Indhyadri hills, about 1 'Cave Temples,' pp. 220-222 and plate 8 ; ' Archaeological Survey of Western India,' vol. iv. pp. 8-10, and plate i r