TOPES. These are found in groups, of which the most important are at or near Bhilsa in central India, at Manikyala in the northwest, at Amravati in the south, and in Ceylon at Ruanwalli and Tuparamaya. The best known among them is the Sanchi Tope, near Bhilsa, 120 feet in diameter and 56 feet high. It is surrounded by a richly carved stone rail or fence, with gateways of elaborate workmanship, having three sculptured lintels crossing the carved uprights. The tope at Manikyala is larger, and dates from the 7th century. It is exceeded in size by many in Ceylon, that at Abayagiri measuring 360 feet in diameter. Few of the topes retain the tee, or model of a shrine, which, like a lantern, once crowned each of them.
Besides the topes there are a few stupas of tower-like form, square in plan, of which the most famous is that at Buddh Gaya, near the sacred Bodhi tree, where Buddha attained divine light in 588 B.C.
CHAITYA HALLS. The Buddhist speos-temples—so far as known the only extant halls of worship of that religion, except one at Sanchi—are mostly in the Bombay Presidency, at Ellora, Karli, Ajunta, Nassick, and Bhaja. The earliest, that at Karli, dates from 78 B.C., the latest (at Ellora), cir. 600 A.D. They consist uniformly of a broad nave ending in an apse, and covered by a roof like a barrel vault, and two narrow side aisles. In the apse is the dagoba or relic-shrine, shaped like a miniature tope. The front of the cave was originally adorned with an open-work screen or frame of wood, while the face of the rock about the opening was carved into the semblance of a sumptuous structural façade. Among the finest of these caverns is that at Karli, whose massive columns and impressive scale recall Egyptian models, though the resemblance is superficial and has no historic significance. More suggestive is the affinity of many of the columns which stand before these caves to Persian prototypes (see [Fig. 21]). It is not improbable that both Persian and classic forms were introduced into India through the Bactrian kingdom 250 years B.C. Otherwise we must seek for the origin of nearly all Buddhist forms in a pre-existing wooden architecture, now wholly perished, though its traditions may survive in the wooden screens in the fronts of the caves. While some of these caverns are extremely simple, as at Bhaja, others, especially at Nassick and Ajunta, are of great splendor and complexity.
VIHARAS. Except at Gandhara in the Punjab, the structural monasteries of the Buddhists were probably all of wood and have long ago perished. The Gandhara monasteries of Jamalgiri and Takht-i-Bahi present in plan three or four courts surrounded by cells. The centre of one court is in both cases occupied by a platform for an altar or shrine. Among the ruins there have been found a number of capitals whose strong resemblance to the Corinthian type is now generally attributed to Byzantine rather than Bactrian influences. These viharas may therefore be assigned to the 6th or 7th century A.D.
The rock-cut viharas are found in the neighborhood of the chaityas already described. Architecturally, they are far more elaborate than the chaityas. Those at Salsette, Ajunta, and Bagh are particularly interesting, with pillared halls or courts, cells, corridors, and shrines. The hall of the Great Vihara at Bagh is 96 feet square, with 36 columns. Adjoining it is the school-room, and the whole is fronted by a sumptuous rock-cut colonnade 200 feet long. These caves were mostly hewn between the 5th and 7th centuries, at which time sculpture was more prevalent in Buddhist works than previously, and some of them are richly adorned with figures.
JAINA STYLE. The religion and the architecture of the Jainas so closely resemble those of the Buddhists, that recent authorities are disposed to treat the Jaina style as a mere variation or continuation of the Buddhist. Chronologically they are separated by an interval of some three centuries, cir. 650–950 A.D., which have left us almost no monuments of either style. The Jaina is moreover easily distinguished from the Buddhist architecture by the great number and elaborateness of its structural monuments. The multiplication of statues of Tirthankhar in the cells about the temple courts, the exuberance of sculpture, the use of domes built in horizontal courses, and the imitation in stone of wooden braces or struts are among its distinguishing features.
FIG. 226.—PORCH OF TEMPLE ON MOUNT ABU.
JAINA TEMPLES. The earliest examples are on Mount Abu in the Indian Desert. Built by Vimalah Sah in 1032, the chief of these consists of a court measuring 140 × 90 feet, surrounded by cells and a double colonnade. In the centre rises the shrine of the god, containing his statue, and terminating in a lofty tower or sikhra. An imposing columnar porch, cruciform in plan, precedes this cell (Fig. 226). The intersection of the arms is covered by a dome supported on eight columns with stone brackets or struts. The dome and columns are covered with profuse carving and sculptured figures, and the total effect is one of remarkable dignity and splendor. The temple of Sadri is much more extensive, twenty minor domes and one of larger size forming cruciform porches on all four sides of the central sikhra. The cells about the court are each covered by a small sikhra, and these, with the twenty-one domes (four of which are built in three stories), all grouped about the central tower and adorned with an astonishing variety of detail, constitute a monument of the first importance. It was built by Khumbo Rana, about 1450. At Girnar are several 12th-century temples with enclosed instead of open vestibules. One of these, that of Neminatha, retains intact its court enclosure and cells, which in most other cases have perished. The temple at Somnath resembles it, but is larger; the dome of its porch, 33 feet in diameter, is the largest Jaina dome in India. Other notable temples are at Gwalior, Khajuraho, and Parasnatha.