87. Great Vihara, at Bagh.
(From a Plan by Dr. Impey.)
The shala connected with this vihara measures 94 ft. by 44 ft., and the two are joined together by a verandah measuring 220 ft. in length, adorned by twenty free-standing pillars. At one time the whole of the back wall of this gallery was adorned with a series of frescoes, equalling in beauty and in interest those of Ajunta. As in those at Ajunta, the uninitiated would fail to trace among them any symptoms of Buddhism as generally understood. The principal subjects are processions on horseback, or on elephants. In the latter the number of women exceeds that of the men. Dancing and love-making are as usual prominently introduced, and only one small picture, containing two men, can be said to be appropriated to worship.
With one exception, no man or woman has any covering on their heads, and the men generally have the hair cropped short, and with only very small moustaches on the face. Some half-dozen are as dark as the Indians of the present day. The rest are very much fairer, many as fair as Spaniards, and nearly all wear coloured dresses.
We are not at present in a position to say, and may not for a long time be able to feel sure, who the races are that are represented in these frescoes or in those at Ajunta. Negatively we may probably be justified in asserting that they are not the ancestors of the present inhabitants of Rajputana, nor of any of the native races—Bhîls, Gonds, or such like. Are they Sakas, Yavanas, or any of the trans-Indus tribes who, in the first centuries of the Christian Era flowed into India across that river, bringing with them their arts and religious forms? The style of art, especially at Bagh, is very similar to that of Persia at about the same date.
The date of this group of caves seems hardly doubtful. The earliest could not well have been commenced much before A.D. 500; the date of the latest, if our chronology is correct, could not well be carried down beyond 650 or 700, unless it was, that the troubles that convulsed the rest of India after that date did not reach those remote valleys in Rajputana till some time afterwards.
Salsette.
One of the most extensive, but one of the least satisfactory of all the groups of Indian caves, is that generally known as the Kenheri Caves on the Island of Salsette in Bombay Harbour. The great chaitya cave there, as mentioned above, is only a bad copy of the Karli cave, and was excavated in the beginning of the 5th century, and none of the viharas seem to be earlier. The place, however, must have had some sanctity at an earlier date, for there seems no doubt that a tooth of Buddha was enshrined here in the beginning of the 4th century, when these relics were revolutionising the Buddhist world at least at two diametrically opposite points of the coast of India, at Puri, and in this island.[195] It may have been in consequence of the visit of this relic that the island became holy, and it may have been because it was an island, that it remained undisturbed by the troubles of the mainland, and that the practice of excavating caves lasted longer here than in any series above described. Be this as it may, the caves here go straggling on till they fade by almost imperceptible degrees into those of the Hindu religion. The Hindu caves of Montpezir, Kundoty, and Amboli are so like them, and the change takes place so gradually, that it is sometimes difficult to draw the line between the two religions.
Although, therefore, we have not at Salsette any viharas that can compare with those of Nassick, Ajunta, or Bagh, and they nowhere form a series which might assist us in guessing their dates, yet, just because they are so late, and because they do fade so gradually into the next phase, are they worthy of more attention than has been bestowed upon them.