Some twenty or thirty of these are known still to exist in a state of greater or less preservation, but, with one exception, all cut in the rock. In so far as the interior is concerned this is of little or no consequence, but it prevents our being able to judge of their external form or effect,[133] and, what is perhaps worse, it hides from us entirely the mode in which their roofs were constructed. We know that they were formed with semicircular ribs of timber, and it is also nearly certain that on these ribs planks in two or three thicknesses were laid, but we cannot even guess what covered the planks externally. It could hardly have been metal, or any kind of felt, and one is unwilling to believe that they were thatched with grass, though I confess, as the evidence at present stands, this seems to me the most probable suggestion.[134]
41. Plan of Chaitya Hall, Sanchi. Scale 30 ft. to 1 in.
The only structural one is at Sanchi, and is shown in plan in the accompanying woodcut (No. [41]). It does not however, suffice to show us how the roofs of the aisles were supported externally. What it does show, which the caves do not, is that when the aisle which surrounded the apse could be lighted from the exterior, the apse was carried up solid. In all the caves the pillars surrounding the dagoba are different from and plainer than those of the nave. They are, in fact, kept as subdued as possible, as if it was thought they had no business there, but were necessary to admit light into the circumambient aisle of the apse.
As almost all our information regarding these chaityas, as well as the viharas, which form the next group to be described, is derived from the rock-cut examples in Western India, it would be convenient, if it were possible, to present something like a statistical account of the number and distribution of the groups of caves found there. The descriptions hitherto published do not, however, as yet admit of this.
I have myself visited and described all the most important of them;[135] and in an interesting paper, communicated to the Bombay branch of the Asiatic Society by the Rev. Dr. Wilson, he enumerated thirty-seven different groups of caves, more or less known to Europeans.[136] This number is exclusive of those in Bengal and Madras, and new ones are daily being discovered; we may therefore fairly assume that certainly more than forty, and probably nearly fifty, groups of caves exist in India Proper.
Some of these groups contain as many as 100 different and distinct excavations, many not more than ten or a dozen; but altogether I feel convinced that not less than 1000 distinct specimens are to be found. Of these probably 100 may be of Brahmanical or Jaina origin; the remaining 900 are Buddhist, either monasteries or temples, the former being incomparably the more numerous class; for of the latter not more than twenty or thirty are known to exist. This difference arose, no doubt, from the greater number of the viharas being grouped around structural topes, as is always the case in Afghanistan and Ceylon; and, consequently, they did not require any rock-cut place of worship while possessed of the more usual and appropriate edifice.
The façades of the caves are generally perfect, and form an exception to what has been said of our ignorance of the external appearance of Indian temples and monasteries, since they are executed in the rock with all the detail that could have graced the buildings of which they are copies. In the investigation of these objects, the perfect immutability of a temple once hewn out of the living rock is a very important advantage. No repair can add to, or indeed scarcely alter, the general features of what is once so executed; and there can be no doubt that we see them now, in all essentials, exactly as originally designed. This advantage will be easily appreciated by any one who has tried to grope for the evidence of a date in the design, afforded by our much-altered and often reconstructed cathedrals of the Middle Ages.
The geographical distribution of the caves is somewhat singular, more than nine-tenths of those now known being found within the limits of the Bombay Presidency. The remainder consist of two groups in Bengal; those of Behar and Cuttack, neither of which is important in extent; one only is known to exist in Madras, that of Mahavellipore; and two or three insignificant groups, which have been traced in Afghanistan and the Punjab.