Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 1.djvu/247

 CHAP. VII. GANDHARA MONASTERIES. 213 west corner, a court, D, 51 ft. square, surrounded by a high wall with only one door leading into it. A corresponding court and of similar size exists at Jamalgarh! ; but it lies about 30 yards to the east, so that it could not be included in the woodcut. This has been identified by M. Foucher with the Service Hall, so often referred to in Buddhist literature, where all the Bhikshus or " members of the order " met privately on the nights of new and full moon to read their rules and go through their confessional forms, and where they met for all their more solemn purposes as ordination, excommunication, and the like ; and it was often used also as a refectory. This was known as the Upasthanajala or Meeting Hall. If this was the purpose of these buildings, which seems very probable, they must have been roofed in wood. 1 When we attempt to compare these plans with those of rock-cut examples in India, we at once perceive the difficulty of comparing structural with rock-cut examples. The monastery or residential parts are the only ones readily recognised. The pantheon does not apparently exist at Ajanta, nor is anything analogous to it attached to other series of caves. A group of small rock-cut memorial dagabas exists outside the caves at Bhaja, and a much more extensive one of structural topes formed the cemetery at Kanheri, and similar groups may have existed elsewhere : but these are nowise analogous to the above. Numbers of small models of topes and votive offerings are found in the neighbourhood of all Buddhist establishments, and were originally no doubt deposited in some such place as this. The circular or square base of the stupa marks the place which the chaitya occupies in all the rock-cut chaitya halls. One of the most remarkable ornamental features that adorn this monastery is a series of bas-reliefs that adorn the front of the steps of the stairs leading from the so-called pantheon or vihara to the circular court at Jamalgarhi. They are sixteen in number, and each is carved with a bas - relief containing twenty, thirty, or forty figures according to the subject. 2 Among these the Vishvantara and Sama jatakas can easily be recognised, 3 and so may others when carefully examined. 1 Foucher, ' L'Art Greco-Bouddhique,' tomei. pp. 162-163. It had been suggested that this roofless hall might have been a cemetery (Cunningham ' Archaeological Reports,' vol. v. p. 32) ; and it was pointed out that Turner in his ' Embassy to Tibet' (p. 317), describes a similar enclosure at Teshu-lumbu in which the bodies of the deceased monks were ex- posed to be devoured by the birds ; and what happened there in 1800 might possibly have been practised at Peshawar at a much earlier age ; but that this was not the purpose of the two enclosures referred to is quite obvious. 2 These were removed by Gen. Cunningham, and several are now in the British Museum^' Journal of Indian Art and Industry," vol. viii. p. 40, and plates 23, 24 ; ' Ancient Monuments, etc. of India,' plate 151 ; Cunningham, 'Arch- aeological Survey Report,' vol. v. p. 199. 3 ' Tree and Serpent Worship,' plates 24 (fig. 3) and 36 (fig. l) ; and 'Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,' 1893, p. 3'3-