Kutagara Or From Mens House To Mansion In Eastern India And South East Asia

SR No.: 269707
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: W B Bollee
Publisher: W B Bollee
Total Pages: 25
Language: English
Classification: Article
File Size: 5 MB

Page 7

-
4
-
however, made of mud and wood, and thereby not fire-resistant which very fact is hinted at by a Pāli text have long since disappeared. On the other hand, some so-called caitya halls such as the ones at Guntupalli or Bhājā (3rd/2nd cent. B.C.) give us a good idea of the interior construction.
We have just referred to a kuţâgara's attributes that seem to pertain to a weather-proof state, for which purpose the Buddha (at Vinaya II 148,24) explicitly allowed a coating on both sides as a temperature insulation. In doing so we had in mind particularly nivāta which may signify 'protected from the wind', but also
'safer and is followed by nivāta-gambhira; gambhira means 'deep, dense' when used of a forest, as well as 'secret, hidden.' Other adjectives in this context, such as gutta 'guarded' and gutta-duvara 'with doors guarded' or Pāli phusit'-aggala 'with fastened (clinched) bolts (or better: door -wings)' (PED) and pihita-vatapana 'with windows shut do not necessarily go with being weather-proof. Moreover, it should be kept in mind that Pali gutta-duvara is used only figuratively, that is of a monk guarding the doors of his senses. We retain this stock list for the purpose of later on defining the original function of the kuţågara and have yet to occupy ourselves with a use of this building to find which in India may at first strike us as slightly out of place. The Indians do, however, hold themselves to be its inventors - the inventors, that is, of the sauna - janta-ghara in Pāli, janta-hara in Prakrit, afterwards sanskritised as yantra-grha, whereas Sanskrit earlier borrowed from an unknown but probably Middle Indo-Aryan source the word jentāka.
The physician Caraka (14,46) describes the construction of this structure at the beginning of our era as follows, prescribing also its site: 'on a nice, even, fertile, black or yellow