PilgrimTrips - India Pilgrimage

India is covered with buildings from north to south, and of all ages, from the first introduction of stone architecture in the third century B.C. down to the present day. Temples and monasteries fashioned out of the solid rock form special feature among the early architectural remains of India. Before the middle of the third century B.C., the course pursued by the building art in India has been only indistinctly visible, as it is obscured by the mist of time. In fact no important monument goes further back tham the third century. B.C. Stone building on a large scale commenced in the time of Asoka (B.C. 263- 221) the first royal patron and follower of Buddhism. The oldest adnmost extensive series of temples and monasteries are those belonging to the Buddhist religion, whose votaries were the first and for long the only cave exvatators.

The founder of Buddhism was Gautama Buddha, the son of the King of Kapilavastu, a small state in the north of Oudh. But Buddhism spread and flourished, when it received royal favour and patronage from the great Maurya Emperor Asoka, who was perhaps the greatest convert to Buddhist faith. With the support of this royal patronage Buddhism made fast strides and in due course came to be the acknowledged faith of about one fifth of the human race, though not in the country of its birth. Afterwards many Chinese travelers came to India to visit the spots associated with the founder’s memory, to learn its laws, and carry away the books containing its teachings. In the seventh century A.D. it was apparently rapidly disappearing and shortly after that it had disappeared from the greater part of India.

Though Buddhism disapperared gradually from the land of its birth, yet "Gautama Buddha has left his foot print on the soil of India." The places of Buddhist significance are many in the land of Gautama and especially the rock temples, which are excavated in the east and west side of India. In these monuments Buddhist have left the most vivid and authentic record of their religion from its origin to its decline and decay in India. As a chapter of architectural history it is one of most complete and interesting known to exist anywhere. "It is" writes Fergussion "almost the only example of stone architecture which we can trace back with abolute certainty to its wooden original and car follow it throughout its whose couse without detecting an foreign influence." The earliest Buddhist Cave Temples belong to the pericd of Asoka, who is said to be the founder of Viharas or monasteries stupas or dagobas, asylums and other religious and charitable works. To him, the first Buddhist structures owe their origin. These were principally stupas or dagobas, that it, monumental shrines or receptacles for the relics of Buddha himself consisting of a cylindrical base supporting a hemispherical dome. The cave temples belonging to the age of Asoka are mostly situated in the Nagarjuni and Barabar Hills in Behar, some sixteen miles north of Gaya. In all three on the Nagarjuni hill. In addition there is an other example the so called Sita- marhi situated some thirteen miles south of Rajgriha and twenty- five miles east of Gaya. These chambers were excavated for the ascetics. These cave have two special interest as on the one hand they are the earliest examples in India of the rock cut method and on the other some of them are exact copies in the rock of exisiting structures in wood.

Thus a beginning had been made in this direction in the time of Asoka, but after an intercal of ever half century this method was revived on a much grander and ambitious scale. Eventually as a form of architectural expression it assumed remarkable proportions, as there are as many as twelve hundred excavations of this nature, both large and small, in various parts of Inida. These Buddhist Cave Temples have been classified into two distinct groups, as these belong to two great dimension of the Buddhist faith. To the first group belong those cave temples, which were excavated, so far as can be judged from style and inscriptions before the Christian eraor during the first century after it. These belong to the Hinayana sect, or "lesser vehicle", the original form of Buddhism. These are generally plain in style and are devoid of the images of Buddha for worship. This phase of excavating rock- temp’ es lasted until the second century A.D. a period of some to have naturally declined. Then ensued three centuries of inactivity, but it revived again about the fifth century A. D. and continued upto 8th century A.D. These cave temples of the second period belong to the Mahayana sect, or the "Great Vehicle’. Nagarjuna, a native of Behar, who lived 400 or 500 years after Buddha is said to be founder of the new school of the Mahayana, which soon became very popular in India. The caves belonging to this sect are much less numerous. Little sculpture was at first employed in any of the caves, but in the cave temples belonging to the Mahayana sect, pillars and doorways came to be most elaborately decorated. Though Buddha did not preach- idol worship, but in the course of time, with the change in Buddhism, the plain dagoba ceased to satisfy its followers and he shrine came to be almost invariably- occupised by an image of Buddha seated on a sort of throne. It is indeed the profusion of the image of Buddha which is most characteristic of the caves of Mahayana sect.

The cave temples belonging to the Hinayana sect are mostly found in the westernside of India at Bhaja, Kondane, Pitalkhara, Bedsa, Ajanta, Nasik and Karli. Those cave temples are of two types, chaityas, and viharas.

The most interesting and famous group of Buddhist Cave temples belonging to the earliest period on he west side of India are those found at karli and Nasik. Nasik is only fifty miles north of Junner. Caves found here are locally known as Pendu Lena. The Caves are 17 in number, and though a small, aer a very interesting group. The Chaitya found here is not so remarkable but there are two Viharas, which are for advance of any yet found in the earliest Caves and display in their facaeds a richness of decoration quite unlike the modest interiors of those excavated before the Christian era. Karli is famous for the largest and finest Chaitya.

The Buddhist Cave temple of the earliest period found in the east side of India are situated on the Udayagiri and Khandgiri hils in Orissa. These Caves are famous because of the picturesqueness of their forms, the richness of their sculpture and architectural details. There aer some 16 or 17 Caves found on these hills, besides numerous rock- cut hermitages cells in which a simple ascetic could dwell and do penance.

The Buddhist Cave Temples of India belonging to the Mahayana set are mostly found at Ajanta, Ellora, Aurangabad and few scattered retreat of lesser importance in the same region. At Ajanta some of them belonging to the Hinayana sect, after which a quiescent period of four centuries intervened, when this Buddhist hierarchic settlement again sprang into life. On the other Buddhist site, that at Ellora distinct from Ajanta, no earlier excavations had been made, so that here an entirely new undertaking was initiated by the Buddhists, and eventually developed under the Jains and Brahmans, into the most important and comprehensive range of rock- cut monuments in India.

The series of Caves at Ajanta is probably in some respects the most interesting and finest of all those to be found in India. They belong exclusively to the Buddhist religion, with out any admixture either from the Hindu or Jains form of faith, and they extend through the whole period during which Buddhism prevailed as the dominent religion in India. Two of them Chaitya Cave and a Vihara; certainly belong to the second century. B.C., and the latest Caves at Ajanta belong to the middle of the 7th century A.D., when Buddhism was tottering to its fall. Between these two periods the 29 Caves found here are spread tolerably over a period of more than eight centuries, with only a break, which occurs not only here, but everywhere, between the Hinayana and Mahayana forms of faith.

But the most interesting feature of these Caves is the paintings on their walls and ceilings, which aer still in a state of tolerable completeness. These frescoe paintings on the walls of Ajanta Caves have been a source of inspiration to many artists both Indian and foreign. It is generally believed that all the Buddhist Caves were originally adorned with paintings but in nine caves out of ten, these have parished either from the effects of the atmosphere or from wanton damage done by ignorant men. As no such painting exist now in any other series of Buddhist Cave temples of India their being found here adds immensely to the interest of this group.

Only six of the 29 Caves at Ajanta belong to the first division of the Buddhist Caves and consequently to the older or Himayana sect, the remaining twenty- three belong to the more modern class of the Buddhist Caves of the Mahayana sect. Only sixty miles distant from the Ajanta Caves are situated, the largest and the most varied group of Ellora Cave temples found in India, consisting as they do some of the largest and finest examples of the works of all three religions, Buddhist, Brahmans and Jains.

Whether looked at from an ethnological, historical or religious point of view, the Buddhist Caves, with their contemporary paintings and sculpture, have been only the most vivid and authentic, but almost the only authentic record of the same age, of that form of faith from its origin to its decline and decay in India.