PilgrimTrips - India Pilgrimage

History of Chaityas (Halls)

Inspite of the claim to great antiquity for the architecture of the Indi- Aryans by mediaeval and modern writers of India, we have to admit even now that our oldest buildings, so far known, are not much older than the Christian era. The buildings discovered by me at Mohen jo- daro in 1922- 23 and by others in subsequent years have no connection with the structures of the historical period discovered in provinces of India other than Sindh. It remains still undecided how for Indian architecture of the historical period is indebted to the pre Aryan architecture of Mohan- jo- daro nad Harappa.

Our oldest structures of the historical period are the great Cyclopean walls of old Rajgir or Rajagriha and its towers, and those discovered by me at Tripuri (modern Tewar, six miles from Jubbulpur), and both of these places are connected with Asuras in Vedic and Puranic literature. The great relic stupa of the Sakyas and the adjacent monastery at Piprahwa in the Basti district may be older than the Maurya period but very little is left of them. Next to them in date come the the three inscribed caves of Asoka, ar Barabar in the Gaya district, dedicated by the great Emperer for the use of the Ajivikas, a sect which was founded at the same time as the reformed Jainism of Mahavira Vardhamana and the religion of Gautama Buddha. Some of these Barabar caves are apsidal in shape, i.e., with one end rounded or semicircular in shape. We do not know whether the Ajivikas used to worship chaityas or stupas like the Buddhists of Jains and therefore, we are not in a position to state whether the inscribed caves at Barabar were intended for residential purposes or as temples and shrines. Next in point of date come the series of Jain monasteries and temples excavated by Kharavela, king of Kalings, at Khaadagiri in the Puri district of Orissa. There is a good deal of deifference or opinion among scholars about the date of Kharavela. Some scholars agree with me and Mr. K. P. Jayaswal in thinking that Kharavela belonged to the second century B.C. while others are inclined to place him in the first century AD. But there are certain points on which difference of opinion is not possible: that the Rani Nur cave is the oldest Jain monasteru, the Ganesa and Ananta caves are the oldest Jain temples in existence and that all caves at Jhandagiri and Udaygiri near Bhuvaneswar are Jain and not Buddhist caves of western India beginning with Bhaja in the Poona district and ending with Kanheri near the sea- coast in the Thana district. These caves fall into tow great classes and are many centuries older than the mediaeval cave- temples of Ellora. Elephanta, Aihole or Badami. The two great classes into which they falliare; the Chaitya- halls or Apsidal temples and the dormitorises and combined Chapal dormitories. The Aspidal temples or Chaitya- halls have been discovered in many other parts of India; such as Taxila near Rawalpindi, Sanchi near Bhila in Central India, Aihole near Bijapur. And Ter in the Nizam’s dominaions in south- western India and at Sankaram and Ramatirtham in the Vizagapatam district of the Madras presidency in South- eastern India. An apsidal temple was convered into a Hindu temple at Udipi in the South Kanara District of Madras. It is now called the temple of Anantesvara. With the exception of Ramatirtham and Sankaram, the Chaitya- halis at other places were built of stone or bricks and are not rock- excavations. The chaitya hall ar Aihole near Badami in the Bijapur district of Bombay, the opital of the older Chalukya empire of Southern India, was converted into a Hindu temple in later times. The Chaitya hall at Ter, about thirty miles from Barsi in the Sholapur district, is built of bricks and is slightly different in plan from otherChaitya- halls of northern and southern India.

The older Chaitya- halls were therefore not peculiar to the Deccan or Western India as some people have supposed, they were essenfully Buddhist in nature and are to be found almost all over India wherever Buddhist remains of greater antiquity have been discovered, In later times they fell into discue and the Vihara took its place, from which all mediaeval temples, e.g., those at Nalanda, Bodhu Gaya and Sarnath near Benares in the north an at Negapatam (Nagapatanam of the old inscriptions) in the south, have been evolved.

Sir John Marshall, to whom belongs the credit of the discovery and identification of the four Apsidal temples of Taxila and Sanchi, assigns a very early date to them. Of the two Apsidal temples or Chaitya- halls at Taxila, the end of one is angular and not circular. He far- end being divided into a number of heets instead of being an unbroken semicircle. This chaitya- hall" base of which was also octagonal so as to conform to the contour of the apse. This chaitya- hall was discovered by Sir John Marshall near the Dharmarajika stupa at Taxila, but the second one discovered by him at Taxila wa in the area of the Sirkap ruins. Chaitya halls all over India are built on the same plan. They are large rectangular halls, the far ends of which are semicircular. In this semicircle is built a small circular or octagonal altar, the centre of which is the same as that of the bigger semicircle attached to the end of the rectangular hall. The object of worship is placed on this altar or pedestal. In all cases where the temple has not been converted into a Jain or a Hindu Shrine the altar is still occupied by a stupa (also called Chaitya. Dagoba Pagedal"

The great chaitya- hall discovered by Sir John Marshall in the Sirkap mound at Taxila stands in a spacious courtyard and consists of a porch in front, a nave or wide floor- space in the middle of the hall and the circular apse behind. Surrounding the entire structire was a passage for circumambulation. In this respect only the Chaitya- halls of the north differ from those of the rest of India. In the rock- cut chaitya- halls there is no passage for circumambulation outside the hall. There fore for the first circumambulation, aisles were provided along the sides, separated from the nave by rows of pillars. Indian ritual requires two different circumambulations. The first is take three or seven times around the shrine and the second the same number around the altar or the image. We can see this at puri where pilgrims have to go round the main building as well as the altar or Ratnavedi on which the images are placed, and at Satrunjay in Kathiawad. In the Chaitya halls at Karla, Bhaja or Kanheri the circumambulation around the temple was performed by going along the sides of the hall through the aisles and the second by a passage left around the altar or the stupa.

Of the two Apsidal temples at Sanchi, temple No. 18 of Sir John Marshall’s plan lies to the south of Stupa No. I. In plan this consists of a temple of the well- known type which was enclosed on three sides by a rectangular boundary wall. The shrine was enclosed within a second circular wall which ran parallel to the outer wall, instead of a semicircular row of pillars. In the front part of the hall there were two aisles separated from the nave by rows of pillars similar in style exactly to the rock- cut Chaitya halls. The porch or verandah of this temple projected in front out of the rectangular countryard. According to Sir John Marshall apsidal temple No. 18 was erected in the middle of the 7th century AD. on the sire of an older apsidal temple and was in use till the eleventh century AD.

The second apsidal temple at Sanchi, No. 40 of Sir John Marshall’s plan, was entirely buried under ground when he started the exploration of Sanchi and was in fact discovered by him. It was built on a rectangular stone plinth 11 high, 87 long and 45 broad. Inside this plinth were found the foundations of the Chaitya- hall. Sir John Marshall also discovered remains of charred wood which formed the superstructure. He estimates that the conflagration took place some time before the beginning of the Christian era and therefore the original structure may date back to the Maurya period. Sometime in the 1st century B.C. five rows of stone pillars were set up on the same plinth after enlarging it. Possibly this later structure on pillars supported a new and heavier roof and resembled to some extent the transformed temple of Durga at Aihole. The row of pillars along the exterior on all four sides, it is surmised, supported the roof of an open verandah which was probably sloping.

Sir John Marshall has proved that the Chaitya hall in the Sirkap area at Taxila was falling into decay in the first century A.D. and therefore it must have been built, in the 2ne or the 1st century B.C. The dates to the rock- cut Chaitya- halls of wester India have been differently estimated by differenr persons. Sir John Marshall is of opinion that the Chaitya- hall at Bhaja in the Poona district, about a mile and a half from Karala, is the oldest and that the Chaitya- hall at the Pandulena group near Nasik older than that at Karla. The Bhaja Chaitya- hall may be older than the rest but it is impossible to maintain that the Chaitya- hall of the Pandnlena group is older than that at Karla. The Karla Chaitya- hall contains two important inscriptions, one of the reign of the Sevthian monarch Nahapana according to which the village of Karajika was given to the ascetics living in the caves of Valuraka (Karla caves) by Nahapana’s son- in- law Ushavadata, and another of Vasishthi putra Pulumavi, the son and successor of the Satavahana king Gautamiputra Satakarni, according to which another village was given to the same ascetics in the seventh year of the reign of the king. The Karla Chaitya- hall was therefore excavated before the time of Nahapana or Palumavi. In cave No. 10 of the Pandulena group near Nasik, on the other hand, it is definitely stated in the inscription on the backwall of the verandah that it was caused to be excavated by ushavadata in the life time of Nahapana. It is therefore prima facie impossible to agree with Sir John Marshall abouth the relative positions of the karla and Pandulena Chaitya- halls in the chronological scale.

The Chaitya- hall on the Manmodi hill at Junnar in the Nasik district also belongs to the period of the Saythian monarch Nahapana and the style also proves that it belongs to the same period of Architectural development as the hall in the Pandulena caves. The façade is mean and narrow and the interior shows incapability of wide conception on the part of the architect. The top of the Chaitya in the pandulena hall touches the curved roof and has been placed on na un- necessarily high pedestal. It is impossible to conceive of this specimen as one intermediate between the splendid Chaitya halls of karla and Bhaja. The Chaitya- halls at Kondane kanheri (Cave No III) the earlier Chaitya- halls at Ajanata (Caves No. IX and X), at Pitalkhera in the Nizam’s dominions, and at Bedsa in the Poona district all belong to the same period and cannot be much different in date.

Before we come to discuss the later group of Chaitya- halls we must refer to the peculiar form of the roofs of these halls. Sir John Marshall has observed that he found timbers which supported and formed the roof of the Chaitya- hall found by him in the Sirkap mound. The roof of the Chaitya- halls at Sanchi, temple No. 18 and 40 of the plan, were also roofed with timber. The façade of the Lomash Rishi cave on the Barabar hills shows the earliest form of the hut shaped temple. This is the only cave on the Barabar and Nagarjuni caves which does not bear a contemporary inscription, but the general style shows that it belongs to the early Maurya period and the polishing of the interior, so perfect in the other caves on the Barabar hills, was left incomplete. The façade of this cave represents a hut or a wooden temple. On the top is to be seen the sloping roof of a wooden structure with the ends of the square wooden becams sticking out. We see the last pair of square wooden pillars placed aslant which supported the structure. The roof bends down unnaturally at the caves. Under the roof we see a Torana consisting of three wooden arches exactly similar to those still to be seen in the horse shoe- shaped openings in the façade of the Chaitya- halls at Karla, Kondane and Bhaja. The spaces between these three arches is filled up with lattice work and a frieze of elephants. Under this arch is the door with slanting jambs, all carved out of the rock. At Bhaja and Karla, all beams and props and even nails are faithfully represented in stone. The peculiar feature of the chaitya- halls of Western India is the use of circular wooden beams under the barrel- shaped vault of the roof. These beams or roof timber can still be seen at Karla, Bhaja, Kondane and their marks or traces in the chaitya- hall at Kanheri, but there is no such trace in the Chitya- hall of the pandulena group. He has chosen India for his pilgrimage because he has for years drawn inspiration from the various forms of Hindu religious philosophy, and hopes to derive a fuller knowledge of Truth under the guidance of a Guru.

He is also very much interested in Hindu classical music and rhythms. Several Ragas which the writer sang for him to the accompanimetnof Tambura he thought melodically beautiful. He had also heard some exquisiste vina music which impressed him deeply, he said. His travels will take him through Ceylon, and from South India to North as far as Darjeeling. He will also visit the historical temples and the museums of art throughout India. During his travels he hopes to hear the finest musicians in each province, and to study the theory of Hindu music as well.

He is seeking to know the ancient and true culture of India. It is always the voice of Eternal Truth speaking through the Vedas, the Bhagabad Gita and other sacred texts, which is heard in the Western world, and impels their people to come with hope to India. It is the spirit of Nada Brahma that somehow still lives in Hindu music despite the confusion of centuries which stirs their hearts. Mr. Stokowski hopes to take back to America and Europe a message of Truth as revealed in the religion, art and music of India, and thereby bring about a greater understanding and sympathy between the East and the West.