The third cave is the chaitya at Nassick. Its pillars internally are so nearly perpendicular that their inclination might escape detection, and the door jambs are nearly parallel.
The façade, as seen in the woodcut (No. [52], p. 115), is a very perfect and complete design, but all its details are copied from wooden forms, and nothing was executed in wood in this cave but the rafters of the roofs internally, and these have fallen down.
Outside this cave, over the doorway, there is an inscription, stating that the cave was the gift of a citizen of Nassick,[141] in the reign of King Krishna, the second of the Andrabritya kings, who reigned just before the Christian Era,[142] and inside, on the pillars, another in an older form of character, stating that it was excavated in honour of King Badrakaraka,[143] who was almost certainly the fifth king of the Sunga dynasty, and who ascended the throne about B.C. 129. It may be possible that a more critical examination of these inscriptions may render their testimony less absolute than it now appears, but, taking them in conjunction with the architecture, the age of this cave hardly seems doubtful. For myself, I see no reason for hesitating to accept B.C. 129 as the date of its inception, though its completion may be a century later, and, if this is so, it carries back the caves of Bhaja and Bedsa to a period considerably before that time, while, on the other hand, it as certainly is older than the Karli cave, which appears to come next to it in age.
Karli.
The fourth cave mentioned above, known as that at Karli, is situated on the road between Bombay and Poonah, and is the finest of all—the finest, indeed, of its class. It is certainly the largest as well as the most complete chaitya cave hitherto discovered in India, and was excavated at a time when the style was in its greatest purity. In it all the architectural defects of the previous examples are removed; the pillars of the nave are quite perpendicular. The screen is ornamented with sculpture—its first appearance apparently in such a position—and the style had reached a perfection that was never afterwards surpassed.
53. Section of Cave at Karli. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.
