CAVE TEMPLES and monasteries of India consist of stupendous excavations and monolithic structures, made for religious and monastic pur poses. There are in ,India at least 1000 distinct caves. Some are opposite Prome in Burma ; there are a few in the Madras Presidency ; about 900 in the Bombay Presidency ; several in the Hyder abad Dominions; also in Orissa, in Behar, in Malwa, in the valley of the Indus, among the mountains of Baluchistan, Afghanistan, and Bamian. In Western India alone, including the Nizam's dominions, there are at least thirty series of cave-temples which have been examined by Europeans. Cave inscriptions discovered are seventeen in number, viz. six about 15 miles from Gya, in Behar, viz. three in the hill of Barabar, three in the hill of Nagarjuni, nine in the hill of Khanda giri, in Cuttack, and two in Pamgarh in Sirguja.
The Cave Temples in the southern part of India are classed by Mr. Fergusson into— (a) The vihara or monastery caves, which consist of (1) natural caverns or caves slightly improved by art. These are the most ancient, and are found appropriated to religious purposes in Behar and Cuttack. Next (2) a verandah opening behind into cells for the abode of priests, as in Cuttack, and in the oldest vihara caves at Ajunta. The third (3) has an enlarged hall sup ported on pillars. The most splendid caves are those of Ajunta, though the Dherwara at Ellora is also fine, and there are some good specimens at Salsette and Junnar.
(b) Buddhist chaitya caves form the second class. These are the temples or churches of the series, and one or more of them are attached to every set of caves in Western India, though none exist on the eastern side. Unlike the vihara, all these caves have the same plan and arrangement, and the Karli cave is the most perfect in India. All these consist of an external porch or music gallery, an internal gallery over the entrance, a central aisle which may be called a nave, roofed by a plain waggon vault, and a semi-dome ter minating the nave, under the centre of which always stands a dahgopa or chaitya. In the oldest temples, the dahgopa consists of a plain central drum, surmounted by a hemispherical dome crowned by a Tee, which supported the umbrella of state of wood or stone. These two classes
comprehend all the Buddhist caves in India.
(c) The third class consists of Brahmanical caves properly so called. The finest specimens are at Ellora and Elephanta, though some good ones exist also on the island of Salsette, and at Mahabalipur. In form many of them are copies of and a good deal resemble the Buddhist vihara. But they have not been appropriated from the Buddhists, as the arrangement of the pillars and position of the sanctuary are different. They are never surrounded by cells, as all viharas are ; and their walls are invariably covered or meant to be covered with sculpture, while time viharas are almost as invariably decorated by painting, except the sanctuary. The subjects of the sculpture of course always set the question at rest.
(d) The fourth class consists of rack-cut models of structural and Brahmanical temples. To this class belong the far-famed Kailas at Ellora, the Saivite temple at Dhumnar, and the Baths at Mahabalipur. This last is cut out of isolated blocks of granite, but the rest stand in pits.
The Tundra Subha group at Ellora should perhaps form a fifth.
(e) The fifth or truo Jaina caves occur at Khandagiri in Cuttack, and in the southern parts of India, but are few and insignificant. In the rock of Gwalior Fort there are cut in the rock a number of colossal figures, some 30 to 40 feet high, of one of the thirthankara, some sitting, some standing. Their dates are about the 10th or 12th century before Christ.
The greater number of the viharas seem to have been grouped around structural topes. Their facades are generally perfect. Nine-tenths occur in S.W. India, in the Bombay Presidency, with a group in Behar, another in Cuttack, one at Mahabalipur, and two or three in the Panjab and Afghanistan. Asoka, B.C. 250, excavated the first of these in Behar, at Rajagriha, and till the 8th century they continued to be excavated by Buddhists, Hindus, and Jains. It is in Behar that the oldest caves have been found, in the neigh bourhood of Rajagriha, which was the capital of Bengal at the advent of Buddha ; and one, a slightly improved natural cave, the Satapanni, is said to be that in front of which the first convo cation was held B.C. 543.