Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 1.djvu/217

 CHAP. VI. NASIK VIHARAS. 183 was felt to be inconvenient; and a more oblong form was adopted, as in the so-called Darbar cave at Kanheri (Woodcut No. 101), where, besides, the sanctuary is projected forward, and assists, with the pillars, to support the roof. In some examples this is carried even further, and the sanctuary, standing boldly forward to the centre of the hall, forms in reality the only support. This, however, is a late and Brahmanical arrange- ment, and must be considered more as an economical than an architectural improvement. Indeed by it the dignity and beauty of the whole composition are almost entirely destroyed. NASIK VIHARAS. The two most interesting series of caves for the investigation of the history of the later developments of the Vihara system, are those at Nasik and Ajanta. The latter is by far the most extensive, consisting of twenty-six first-class caves, four of which are chaityas. The former group numbers, it is true, seventeen excavations, but only six or seven of these can be called first-class, and it possesses only one chaitya. The others are small excavations of no particular merit or interest. Ajanta has also the advantage of retaining a considerable portion of the paintings which once adorned the walls of all viharas erected subsequently to the Christian Era, while these have almost entirely disappeared at Nasik, though there seems very little doubt that the walls of all the greater viharas there were once so ornamented. This indeed was one of the great distinctions between them and the earlier primitive cells of the monks before the Christian Era. The Buddhist church between Asoka and Kanishka was in the same position as that of Christianity between Constantine and Gregory the Great. It was the last- named pontiff who inaugurated the pomp and ceremonial of the Middle Ages. It might, therefore, under certain circum- stances be expedient to describe the Ajanta viharas first ; but they are singularly deficient in well-preserved inscriptions con- taining recognisable names. Nasik, on the other hand, is peculiarly rich in this respect, and the history of the series can be made out with very tolerable approximative certainty. 1 1 These inscriptions were first copied by Lieut. Brett, and published with translations by Dr. Stevenson, in the fifth volume of the ' Journal Bombay Branch of the R. Asiatic Society,' pp. 39 et seqq., plates i to 1 6. They were afterwards revised by Messrs E. W. and A. A. West, in the seventh volume of the same journal, pp. 37, etscqq., and translated by Professor Bhandarkar in the ' Transactions of the International Congress of Orientalists,' 1874. A revised translation was made by Professor G. J. Biihler, and published in the ' Archaeological Survey of Western India,' vol. iv. pp. 98-116; and they have lastly been revised by Mons. E. Senart in ' Epigraphia Indica,' vol. viii. (1905)) PP- 59-96, in which, however, he has adopted a different numeration of the caves from that in common use.