Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 1.djvu/238

 204 BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE. BOOK I. The whole of the caves in this group resemble one another so much in detail and execution that it is difficult to make out any succession among them, and it is probable that they were all excavated within the same century as the Vmvakarma. The two temples, north of the Vi^wakarma, are particularly interesting to the antiquarian, as pointing out the successive steps by which the Buddhistical caves merged into the forms of the Brahmanical. The first is No. 1 1, the Don Tal or Dukhya-garh, a Buddhist vihara of which the lower storey was long completely silted up hence its name of the ' two storeyed ' ; but in 1877 the ground floor was excavated, consisting of a verandah 90 ft. in length, with a shrine and the commencement of two cells. Most of its details are so similar to those above described that it may be assumed to be, most probably, of the same age. It is strictly Buddhist in all its details, and shows no more tendency towards Brahmanism than what was pointed out in speaking of the Vijwakarma. All its three storeys have been left unfinished. The next, or Tin Tal (No. 12), is very similar to the last in arrangement, but on a greatly enlarged scale, and its numerous sculptures are all Buddhist, though deviating from the usual forms by a large representation of the female divinities of the Mahayana pantheon. Of its class, this cave is one of the most important and interesting in India ; nowhere else do we find a three-storeyed cave temple adapted for worship rather than as a monastery executed with the same consistency of design and the like magnificence, so that there is a grandeur and propriety in its conception that it would be difficult to surpass in cave architecture. Its sculptures are of extreme interest, and the delineation or photographing of the whole would be of the greatest value to the antiquary as illustrative of Buddhist iconography. 1 It is not easy, in the present state of our knowledge, to determine whether the Elura Buddhist group is later or earlier than those of Dhamnar and Kholvi. It is certainly finer than either, and conforms more closely with the traditions of the style in its palmiest days ; but that may be owing to local circumstances, of which we have no precise knowledge. The manner, however, in which it fades into the Hindu group is in itself sufficient to prove how late it is. If we take A.D. 600 as the medium date for the Vmvakarma and its surroundings, and A.D. 750 as a time when Buddhism began to wane in Western India, we shall probably not err to any great extent ; but we 1 'Cave Temples,' pp. 381-384, and plates 64, 65 ; ' Archaeological Survey of Western India,' vol. v. pp. 16-22, and plates 14 fig. 2 ; 18 fig. 3 ; 19 ; and 20.