The art and architecture of India - Buddhist, Hindu, Jain (Art Ebook)

EARLY BUDDHIST ROCK-CUT SANCTUARIES
curvature of the vault that divided the window
into a number of lunulate openings. The lower
part of the facade consisted of a wooden screen
with openings into the nave and aisles, and probably
decorated with the balcony and merlon
motifs that are carved in stone above the entrance
to the chaitya proper. The blind chaitya
niches and balconies joined by carved railings
are reminiscences of the picturesque architecture
ofcontemporary palace forms :
exactly similar
building forms may be seen reproduced in
the reliefs at Sarichi. The columns of the interior
of Bhaja are completely plain octagonal shafts
They are staggered inward, so that the top of
the shaft is something like five inches out of
alignment with the base. Presumably this is a
strict imitation of the arrangement in a structural
wooden building, in which this expedient
was necessary to support the weight of the roof.
It could probably be said as a general rule that
60. Bhaja, chaitya-hall, facade £jr
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the greater the slant of the pillars in a rock-cut
sanctuary, the closer it is to actual wooden prototypes,
and, by the same token, earlier in date. It
will be noted that in the latest of the Buddhist
basilicas, such as the chaitya at Karli, dated
about 100-125 a.d., this reminiscence of wooden
originals has entirely disappeared. It would
be impossible to give, either in words or photographs,
any adequate idea of the enormous
impressiveness of these Buddhist cathedrals.
This impressiveness comes, not from the builders'
providing a sense of space, as in a Gothic
cathedral, for here space is completely controlled
and restricted, but from the beauty and austerity
ofthe architectural members and the mystery
provided by the twilight which in these interiors
seems to make everything melt and almost disappear,
so that the visitor feels himself in a
magic world of unreality.
It is not unlikely that the early Buddhist temples,
both free-standing and rock-cut, embodied
something of the same metaphysical symbolism
that was attached to the stupa form. Just as the
medieval cathedral in Europe, with its cruciform
ground-plan and the encyclopaedic character
of its decoration, was a symbolical likeness of
the body of God and a reconstruction of the
universe in a microcosm, so, too, the chaitya
might be thought of as a realization in material
form of that cosmic house which is the universe,
its entrance the door of the world, the frame in
which Indra fixed the air. Often the universe is
referred to as a house built of timber, and the
timber of that structure is Brahma. The solar
symbolism of the great lotiform window seems
as implicit here as in the Gothic rose.
By far the largest and most magnificent of the
cave temples of the Hinayana period is the sanctuary
at Karli, only a short distance from Bhaja
[61 and 62]. In front of the facade one can still
see one of two massive free-standing columns
or stambhas that originally had enormous metal
wheels supported on the lions above the lotiform
capitals. The actual order of these pillars is