History of Indian and Eastern Architecture

by James Fergusson

Opposite this is the entrance, consisting of three doorways, under a gallery exactly corresponding with our roodloft, one leading to the centre, and one to each of the side-aisles; and over the gallery the whole end of the hall is open as in all these chaitya halls, forming one great window, through which all the light is admitted. This great window is formed in the shape of a horseshoe, and exactly resembles those used as ornaments on the façade of this cave, as well as on those of Bhaja, Bedsa, and at Nassick described above, and which are met with everywhere at this age. Within the arch is a framework or centering of wood standing free ([Woodcut No. 55]). This, so far as we can judge, is, like the ribs of the interior, coeval with the building;[145] at all events, if it has been renewed, it is an exact copy of the original form, for it is found repeated in stone in all the niches of the façade, over the doorways, and generally as an ornament everywhere, and with the Buddhist “rail,” copied from Sanchi, forms the most usual ornament of the style.

56. View of Interior of Cave at Karli.
(From a Photograph.)

The presence of the woodwork is an additional proof, if any were wanted, that there were no arches of construction in any of these Buddhist buildings. There neither were nor are any in any Indian building anterior to the Mahomedan Conquest, and very few indeed in any Hindu building afterwards.

To return, however, to Karli, the outer porch is considerably wider than the body of the building, being 52 ft. wide, and is closed in front by a screen composed of two stout octagonal pillars, without either base or capital, supporting what is now a plain mass of rock, but which was once ornamented by a wooden gallery forming the principal ornament of the façade. Above this a dwarf colonnade or attic of four columns between pilasters admitted light to the great window, and this again was surmounted by a wooden cornice or ornament of some sort, though we cannot now restore it, since only the mortices remain that attached it to the rock.

In advance of this screen stands the lion-pillar, in this instance a plain shaft with thirty-two flutes, or rather faces, surmounted by a capital not unlike that at Kesariah ([Woodcut No. 6]), but at Karli supporting four lions instead of one, and, for reasons given above (p. 55), they seem almost certainly to have supported a chakra or Buddhist wheel. A similar pillar probably stood on the opposite side, but it has either fallen or been taken down to make way for the little temple that now occupies its place.

The absence of the wooden ornaments of the external porch, as well as our ignorance of the mode in which this temple was finished laterally, and the porch joined to the main temple, prevents us from judging what the effect of the front would have been if belonging to a free-standing building. But the proportions of such parts as remain are so good, and the effect of the whole so pleasing, that there can be little hesitation in ascribing to such a design a tolerably high rank among architectural compositions.

Of the interior we can judge perfectly, and it certainly is as solemn and grand as any interior can well be, and the mode of lighting the most perfect—one undivided volume of light coming through a single opening overhead at a very favourable angle, and falling directly on the altar or principal object in the building, leaving the rest in comparative obscurity. The effect is considerably heightened by the closely set thick columns that divide the three aisles from one another, as they suffice to prevent the boundary walls from ever being seen, and, as there are no openings in the walls, the view between the pillars is practically unlimited.

These peculiarities are found more or less developed in all the other caves of the same class in India, varying only with the age and the gradual change that took place from the more purely wooden forms of these caves to the lithic or stone architecture of the more modern ones. This is the principal test by which their relative ages can be determined, and it proves incontestably that the Karli cave was excavated not very long after stone came to be used as a building-material in India.