245. Dhumnar Lena Cave at Ellora. (From Daniell’s ‘Views in Hindostan.’) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.
So far as I know, there is only one example where the Indo-Aryan architects attempted to rival the Dravidian in producing a monolithic exterior. It is at a place called Dhumnar, in Rajputana, where, as already mentioned (ante, p. 162), there is an extensive series of late Buddhist excavations. In order to mark their triumph over that fallen faith, the Hindus, apparently in the 8th century, drove an open cutting into the side of the hill, till they came to a part high enough for their purpose. Here they enlarged this cutting into a pit 105 ft. by 70 ft., leaving a temple of very elegant architecture standing in the centre, with seven small cells surrounding it, precisely as was done in the case of the Kylas at Ellora. The effect, however, can hardly be said to be pleasing ([Woodcut No. 246]). A temple standing in a pit is always an anomaly, but in this instance it is valuable as an unaltered example of the style, and as showing how small shrines—which have too often disappeared—were originally grouped round the greater shrines. The value of this characteristic we shall be better able to appreciate when we come to describe the temples at Brambanam and other places in Java. When the Jains adopted the architecture of the Buddhists, they filled their residential cells with images, and made them into little temples, and the Hindus seem to some extent to have adopted the same practice as here exemplified, but never carried it to the same extent.
246. Rock-cut Temple at Dhumnar. (From a plan by Gen. Cunningham.) Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.
247. Saiva Temple near Poonah. (From a Sketch by Daniell.)
With a sufficient number of examples, it would be easy to trace the rise and fall of this cellular system, and few things would be more interesting; for now that we find it in full force in the Buddhist monasteries at Gandhara (ante, p. 171), it would be most important to be able to say exactly when the monk made way to the image. In India Proper there is no instance of this being done in Buddhist times, or before A.D. 650, and hitherto we have been in the habit of considering it a purely Jaina arrangement. This must now be modified, but the question still remains—to what extent should this be done?