Buddhist rock-cut architecture

Why rock

Building in brick and timber leaves little after two thousand years in the Indian climate, and almost nothing survives of the free-standing monasteries and halls that must have existed. What survives is what was cut into living rock, which is why the record of early Indian architecture is a record of caves.

The excavations imitate timber construction closely — carved rafters, ribbed vaults, railing patterns, and at Karla actual wooden ribs fitted into the stone ceiling. This makes them evidence for the vanished built architecture as well as monuments in their own right.

Distribution

The great concentration is in the Western Ghats of Maharashtra: Bhaja, Kondane, Pitalkhora, Bedsa, Karla, Nasik, Junnar, Kanheri, Ajanta and Ellora. Further groups occur in Andhra, Odisha and Gujarat.

The sites cluster on the passes and routes connecting the western ports to the Deccan plateau, and their inscriptions record donations by merchants, guilds, caravan traders and craftspeople. The relation between monastic establishment and trade route is direct: monasteries offered shelter on the roads, and traders funded them.

Two forms

Excavations are of two kinds. The chaitya is a shrine hall with a stupa at the apsidal end and a barrel-vaulted nave. The vihara is a residential monastery: a square hall surrounded by small cells with rock-cut beds, later given a shrine on the rear wall.

The addition of a Buddha image to the vihara shrine, from about the fifth century, marks a real change in practice, converting the residence into a place of worship.

Later use

Rock-cutting continued long after Buddhism declined in the region, and Hindu and Jain excavations at Ellora and Elephanta use the same techniques and much of the same vocabulary. Ellora, where Buddhist, Hindu and Jain caves stand in sequence along one escarpment, is the clearest demonstration of the continuity.