History of Indian and Eastern Architecture

by James Fergusson

77. Durbar Cave, Salsette.
(From a Plan by the Author.) Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.

Nassick Viharas.

The two most interesting series of caves for the investigation of the history of the later developments of the Vihara system, are those at Nassick and Ajunta. The latter is by far the most extensive, consisting of twenty-six first-class caves, four of which are chaityas. The latter group numbers, it is true, seventeen excavations, but only six or seven of these can be called first-class, and it possesses only one chaitya. The others are small excavations of no particular merit or interest. Ajunta has also the advantage of retaining the greater portion of the paintings which once adorned the walls of all viharas erected subsequently to the Christian Era, while these have almost entirely disappeared at Nassick, though there seems very little doubt that the walls of all the greater viharas there were once so ornamented. This indeed was one of the great distinctions between them and the earlier primitive cells of the monks before the Christian Era. The Buddhist church between Asoka and Kanishka was in the same position as that of Christianity between Constantine and Gregory the Great. It was the last-named pontiff who inaugurated the Middle Ages with all their pomp and ceremonial. It might, therefore, under certain circumstances be expedient to describe the Ajunta viharas first; but they are singularly deficient in well-preserved inscriptions containing recognisable names. Nassick, on the other hand, is peculiarly rich in this respect, and the history of the series can be made out with very tolerable approximative certainty.[179]

The only difficulty is at the beginning of the series. If the chaitya cave was, as above stated, commenced 129 years before Christ, there ought to have been a vihara of the same age attached to it, but such does not seem to exist. There is indeed a small vihara close to it, and on a lower level than those now on each side of it, and consequently more likely to be what we are looking for, than they are. It is a simple square hall measuring 14 ft. each way, with two square cells in three of its sides, the fourth opening on a verandah with two octagon pillars in front. The only ornament of the interior is a horseshoe arch over each opening, connected with a simple Buddhist rail. In every detail it is in fact identical with the two old viharas Nos. 12 and 11 Ajunta, and certainly anterior to the Christian Era; but it bears an inscription of Krishna Raja, and he seems almost certainly to be the second of the Andrabritya race, and he ascended the throne B.C. 8, or 120 years after the time we are looking for.[180] But for this the architectural details would accord perfectly with those of the chaitya, and the age ascribed to it; but the inscriptions may have been added afterwards. If this is not so, the only suggestion that occurs to me is that, as originally executed, the chaitya had a forecourt, and that the cells were in this, as at Bedsa and Sana, but that having fallen away, from some flaw in the rock, was entirely removed, and at a subsequent time that on the right was added at a height of 6 ft. above the level of the floor of the chaitya, that on the left at 12 ft., about the same datum,[181] which could hardly have been the case if they were part of the original conception.

Turning from these, which practically belong to the last chapter rather than to this, the interest is centred in three great viharas, the oldest of which bears the name of Nahapana ([Woodcut No. 78]), the second that of Gautamiputra, and the third that of Yadnya Sri—if my chronology is correct, their dates are thus fixed, in round numbers, as A.D. 100, 300, and 400.

78. Nahapana Vihara, Nassick.
(From a Plan by Mr. Burgess.) Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.

The two principal viharas at Nassick, Nos. 3 and 8, are so similar in dimensions and in all their arrangements, that it is almost impossible to distinguish between their plans on paper. They are both square halls measuring more than 40 ft. each side, without any pillars in the centre, and are surrounded on three sides by sixteen cells of nearly the same dimensions. On the fourth side is a six-pillared verandah, in the one case with a cell at each end, in the other with only one cell, which is the most marked distinction between the two plans. The architecture, too, is in some respects so similar that we can hardly hesitate in assuming that the one is an intentional copy of the other. It is in fact the problem of the great cave at Kenheri, being a copy of that at Karli repeated here.[182] Only the difference in age between the two chaityas being five centuries, the degradation in style is greater than here, where it appears to be little more than two.