Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 1.djvu/239

 CHAP. VI. AURANGABAD, KUDA, AND OTHER CAVES. 205 must wait for some inscriptions or more precise data before attempting to speak with precision on the subject. A great deal more requires to be done before this great cartoon can be filled up with anything like completeness ; but in the meanwhile it is satisfactory to know that in these " rock-cut temples," eked out by the few structural examples that exist, we have a complete history of the arts and liturgies of the Buddhists for the thousand years that ranged from B.C. 250 to A.D. 750; and that, when any one with zeal and intelligence enough for the purpose will devote himself to the task, he will be able to give us a more vivid and authentic account of this remarkable form of worship than can be gathered from the books known to us. AURANGABAD, KUDA, AND OTHER CAVES. Besides the caves at Junnar, already noticed, there is a small but important series near Aurangabad, forming three small groups in the scarp of a range of hills to the north of the city, and consisting of twelve or thirteen excavations. The third or most easterly group consists of three unfinished caves without sculpture ; but, except a chaitya cave in the first group nearly half of which has fallen away most of the others are very rich in sculpture, and the pillars are elaborately carved in the style of the later Ajanta viharas. Two in the first group, and two larger in the second, are planned on a purely Hindu arrange- ment, there being a passage for circumambulation quite round the shrine, with cells off this. The attendant figures in the shrines, the dwarpals at the entrances, and numerous female figures sculptured in these caves, indicate that they belonged to a Mahayana or ritualistic sect of Buddhists. No inscription has been found to help us in determining their date, but their whole style indicates that they can hardly be placed earlier than the 7th century of our era, and perhaps towards the end of it. Since, however, they have been described and illustrated, with numerous examples of their richly carved pillars and remarkable sculptures, in the third volume of the 'Archaeo- logical Survey of Western India Reports,' reference may be made to that volume for further details. The Kuda caves in the Konkan, south from Bombay, form a group of twenty-two excavations, mostly plain and of small dimensions ; but though they are rich in inscriptions, these afford us no key to the date of the caves further than that the alphabet of the inscriptions is closely allied to that used in Karle, Nasik, and Kanheri inscriptions of Andhrabhritya