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394
AN EARLY HISTORY OF ORISSA
ensuing effective drainage. Weep-holes have been provided in cases where there is a chance of landslip in consequence of the rain water percolating through the surface and collecting in the soil below. Princep? remarked : "...the ingenious method which has been adopted to drain the chamber, which, from the porous nature of the stone would otherwise have dripped in wet weather, small grooves are cut along the ceilings all-verging to one point at the lower corner, where a perforation is made to conduct the water without."
Resume
The productions at Khaņdagiri are coursely rendered and not of a high standard of design or workmanship. Moreover, they seem to have been an end in themselves, as except in the few details referred to, they led to no further development, their forms died early in the Christian era leaving no heritage. On the other hand, this Orissa rock architecture has every appearance of being a final copy, or the last stage of it cultural move. ment which at one time had no little significance, a method of expression strictlty regional, but of profound and moving character. What is left merely represents in its decay.
All these monastic retreats, once the focus of a religious and spiritual life, eventful and active, have now been deserted for many centuries and until recently had become the abode of wandering fakirs, people of the jungle and even wild animals. But the picture they presented in the days of their pride, when they were the home of a large ecclesiastical community, is not difficult to visualize.
1, JASB, Vol. XVI, p. 1079.
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