Report On Elura Cave Temples and Bramhanical and Jaina Caves in Western India

SR No.: 011091
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jas Burgess
Publisher: Trubner and Company London
Publication Year: 1883
Total Pages: 209
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 14 MB

Page 28

ELURA: THE VISVAKARMA CHAITYA CAVE
CHAPTER III.
THE THREE LARGER BUDDHIST CAVES
VISVAKARMA CAVE, No. X.
CAVE X. is the great Chaitya rock temple, the only one of the kind at Elurâ, and locally known as Visvakarma's, or "the Carpenter's shop." It is a splendid temple, with a fine façade and large open court in front, surrounded by a corridor, and worthily concludes the series of Buddhist Chaitya caves, which, taken altogether, are perhaps the most interesting group of buildings or caves in India. We can now trace the sequence of them from the early wood-fronted examples at Pitalkhora, Kondine, and Bhaja, through the stone-fronted caves of Bedsâ and Karlê, to the elaborately decorated façades of the two latest at Ajanta, till at last it loses nearly all its characteristic external features in this one at Elurà. The earlier ones are all certainly anterior to the Christian era -some probably as early as 200 or 250 B.C.-and as this one can hardly be dated before 650 A.D., the series extends in nearly unbroken continuity for about nine centuries, During this long period we can easily trace the progress from the great open front of a cave covered by an external screen. first in wood, and then in stone ornamented in wood, till subsequently we find it constructed entirely in stone with limited dimensions for the opening, and at last the great horse-shoe window was contracted into the triple Venetian window of this Viśvakarma Cave, as represented in the annexed woodcut (No. 3); and the screen in front had entirely disappeared. So altered, however, is it from the grand simplicity of the great arched window at Karle, that if we had not all the intermediate steps by which the changes can be followed out we should hardly be able to trace it back to its original form, or to feel sure that it was the same architectural feature.
No Façade of the Visvakarma Cave!
The interior of this temple is 85 feet 10 inches long inside, by 45 feet 2 inches wide.
1 From Fergusson Ind, and East. Arehat., p. 12.
B