style="font-size:15px;"> In the Dulva, too, it is laid down that a Bhikshu’s body (Buddhist monk’s body) is to be covered with grass and leaves and a chaitya raised over it. In a still more remote sense, the converted but disconsolate Queen Sivali raised stupas at the places where her ascetic husband had argued with her and finally convinced her. In medieval times the stupa with its pyramid of sheltering umbrellas is dwarfed in importance by the sculpture that adorns it. At Ajanta and Ellora and everywhere, in miniature at Bodh-Gaya, it is really nothing but a domed shrine, the tier of umbrellas being fused together into a spire.
Stupas, not to speak of miniature votive models, varied greatly in size. The very ancient specimen at Piprahwa on the Nepalese frontier, which may possibly be earlier than Ashoka, has a diameter of 35.36 metres at ground level, and stands only about 6.7 metres high. The diameter of the great Sanchi monument at the plinth is 46.17 metres, the height about 235 metres and the stone railing is a massive structure 31 metres high. Several monuments in Northern India, some of which were ascribed to Ashoka, are recorded to have attained a height of from 61 to 122 metres; and to this day the summit of the Jetavanarama Dagoba in Sri Lanka towers 76.5 metres above the level of the ground. The larger monuments afforded infinite scope to the decorative artist.
The Great Stupa of Sanchi, 3rd century B. C. E., Sunga dynasty. Sandstone, stupa: diameter at the plinth: 37 m, height: 16.5 m, stone railing: 30.8 m. Sanchi, Madhya Pradesh.
Western Gateway (torana) of the Great Stupa. The pillar capitals depict four yaksha-like figures standing back-to-back with upraised hands supporting the architraves, 70 B. C. E., Satavahana dynasty. Sandstone, gateway height: 10.36 m, pillar height: 4.27 m. Sanchi, Madhya Pradesh.
On the Bharhut bas-reliefs two types of buildings are to be found. The first is domed and round in plan. The second is barrel-roofed and sometimes three stories high. This second type is the origin of the barrel-roofed chaitya-caves where the details of the octagonal pillars, the balcony railings and the arched doorways and windows are faithfully portrayed. At Sanchi the same types appear and also at Amaravati and Mathura. Shrines are shown in three instances and are all of one type. At Bharhut the Shrine of the Headdress Relic is circular in plan, closed in by a low railing but otherwise open on all sides. It has the usual ogee doorway, the arch of which is ornamented, above its beam-heads, with little rosettes. The semicircular part of the opening is filled in with the usual framework which served as a weather screen. The roof is dome-shaped and has a pointed finial. It is divided into two by a narrow clerestory opening which comes between the dome and the curved eave. In the centre on a stone platform technically known as a ‘throne’ (asana) is a cushion bearing the sacred relic. The throne is ornamented with pendent garlands and is marked with the impressions of the right hands of devotees, a custom still common in India.
The first scene of the conversion of Kasyapa (ancient sage) of Uruvilva on the middle of the inner side of the left-hand pillar of the East gateway at Sanchi shows another shrine of this type. This is the Shrine of the Black Snake which the Buddha eventually caught in his begging-bowl. Here the dome is broken by eight windows and is surrounded by a balcony railing.
The famous shrine which Ashoka built around the bodhi tree appears at Bharhut, Sanchi, Mathura, and Amaravati. At Bharhut it is sculptured on the Prasenajit pillar and seems to consist of a barrel-roofed colonnade, circular in plan entirely surrounding the tree. The upper story is provided with many windows and a balcony railing. At Sanchi this same building is accurately reproduced on the front of the left pillar, and again on the outside of the lower architrave, of the East gateway, where it is the centre of a huge host of pilgrims. At Mathura it also appears on an architrave of Kushan date and again in a slightly amplified form at Amaravati. Here other buildings have arisen around it and to one side is a gateway (torana). These gateways were apparently used everywhere, for secular purposes as well as ecclesiastical, for on the middle architrave of the East gateway at Sanchi, one appears as the entrance to a town through which a procession is passing beneath crowded windows and balconies.
A survey of such scenes where buildings of two and three stories abound accords with the colourful descriptions of the splendours of such towns of ancient India as Vaisali or Pataliputra. Buildings of seven stories in height are even spoken of (Satta, Bhumaka, Pasadd). Among the most famous of these piles was the Kutagara-Vihara at Vaisali, which Buddhaghosa describes as a storied building raised on pillars with a pinnacle, and like the chariot of the gods.
Civil architecture is described in the Jatakas on almost as lavish a scale. The large houses had wide gateways leading into an inner courtyard with rooms opening into it on ground level. There were granaries and store-rooms and a treasury, but the flat roof, as at all times in the East, played a great part in the life of the house, at least during the day, being probably roofed-in to form an open-sided, airy pavilion.
Plaster (chunam) was used everywhere to adorn these buildings, and as a base for painting. Yaksha figures were painted as door-guardians and certain decorative motives are also mentioned: wreath-work, five-ribbon work, dragon’s teeth work, and creeper-work.
As has been said, nothing of these splendours has come down to us in any of the various sites that have been excavated. It is obvious, however, that the greater part of these structures was of wood and therefore perishable, as, indeed, layers of ashes testify in many places. It is noticeable that the pillars of the upper stories of the buildings depicted on the bas-reliefs are octagonal, usually without capital or base. The pillars on the ground floor are octagonal also but have heavy bells surmounted by animal capitals or brackets, which suggests that the lower pillars were possibly of stone. On the right jamb of the East gateway at Sanchi are represented six superimposed stories, said by Grünwedel to represent the six deva-lokas. The pillars of these structures are grouped in pairs, the lowest of each having bell-capitals, the upper being plain and leading up to the barrel-roof. There is a considerable difference between the proportions of the upper and lower pillars, which again suggests a difference in material.
Although monastic institutions in India were not confined to the Buddhists, the Buddhist Sangha (community) attained a height of power and a detail of organization to which the Jain and Brahmanical communities never aspired; and in consequence, the buildings dedicated to the use of the Order were frequently designed on a scale of the utmost magnificence. The central and all important building of the early monasteries seems to have been the Sabha or hall of meeting of the community. Gateways, store-houses, kitchens, and well-houses are mentioned, but the actual cells of the monks were apparently a group of separate buildings. These, it seems, were built by the brethren themselves, among whom were many skilled architects. In the Jatakas it is said, however, that only the senior brethren had their own chambers, while the juniors slept in the hall. Later the Buddha ordained that novices should be lodged with their supervisors for three days and then sent to their own place. The forest-dweller’s leafy hut is often portrayed in the early sculpture and many of the lesser dwellings of the monastery were probably of this type. The meeting hall or service hall must have been a common type of building in ancient India, for the Buddhist Sangha was by no means an innovation and can be directly compared to the hundred and one political and social corporations of the time. Every village, profession, and craft was organised into guilds which had their appointed places of meeting.
The mote hall of the Licchavis (Santhagara) must have been a building of the same kind as the Assembly-hall of the Buddhists.
Before the period of the rock-cut halls and cells like those at Bhaja and of later Bedsa, in Gandhara (area around Peshawar, in the east of the Khyber Pass) and in medieval India generally, the monasteries took a quadrangular form, the cells being built so that they faced inwards on the four sides of a courtyard.
When such a quadrangle became multiple, through the addition of chapels, stupas, refectories, halls, churches, storehouses, and other buildings, the greater monasteries covered an enormous area, and offered to the architect, sculptor,
