Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 1.djvu/236

 202 BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE. BOOK I. chaitya above described (p. 160). Like it, however, they are all modern, but on that very account interesting, as showing more clearly than elsewhere the steps by which Buddhist cave- architecture faded, through devotion to the Mahayana idolatry, into something very like that of the Hindus. Every step of the process can be clearly traced here, though the precise date at which the change took place cannot yet be fixed with certainty. The caves at the extremity of the series, as will be seen from the Woodcut No. 1 14 are very much ruined. The great vihara, which is also evidently contemporary with the chaitya, is known as the Maharwara (No. 5), seen near the left in Woodcut No. 114, and, as will appear from the plan (Woodcut No. 115), it differs considerably from any of those illustrated above. Its dimensions are considerable, being 1 10 ft. in depth by 70 ft. across the central recesses, its great defect being the lowness of its roof. Its form, too, is exceptional. It looks more like a flat - roofed chaitya, with its three aisles, than an ordinary vihara ; and such it possibly was intended to be, and, if so, it is curious to observe that at Bedsa (Wood- cut No. 63, p. 138) we had one of the earliest complete viharas, looking like a chaitya in plan ; and here we have one of the latest, showing the same confusion of ideas : a thing very common in architectural his- tory, where a new style or a new ar- with copying some "5- Plan of Maharwara Cave, Elura, Scale 50 ft, to i in. rangement generally hampers itself incongruous form, which it casts off during its vigorous man- hood, but to which it returns in its decrepitude a sure sign that it is passing away. But the form of this cave is, perhaps,