Karli
This article has been extracted from THE IMPERIAL GAZETTEER OF INDIA , 1908. OXFORD, AT THE CLARENDON PRESS. |
Note: National, provincial and district boundaries have changed considerably since 1908. Typically, old states, ‘divisions’ and districts have been broken into smaller units, and many tahsils upgraded to districts. Some units have since been renamed. Therefore, this article is being posted mainly for its historical value.
Karli
(Karla). — Village in the Maval of Poona District, Bombay, situated in 18 degree 45' N. and 73 degree 29' E., on the road between Bombay and Poona. Population (1901), 903. Some celebrated caves are 2 ½ miles from the Karli and 5 from the Lonauli station on the Poona section of the Great Indian Peninsula Railway. The principal cave is thus described by Mr. J. Fergusson in his History of Eastern and Indian Architecture .
' It is certainly the largest as well as the most complete chaitya cave hitherto discovered in India, and was excavated at a time when the style was in its greatest purity. In it, all the architectural defects of the previous examples are removed ; the pillars of the nave are quite perpendicular. The screen is ornamented with sculpture — its first appearance apparently in such a position— and the style had reached a perfection never afterwards surpassed.
' In the cave there is an inscription on the side of the porch, and another on the lion-pillar in front, which are certainly integral, and ascribe its excavation to the Maharaja Bhuti or Deva Bhuti, who, according to the Puranas, reigned 78 B.C. ; and if this is so, they fix the age of this typical example beyond all cavil.
' The building resembles, to a very great extent, an early Christian church in its arrangements, consisting of a nave and side aisles, ter- minating in an apse or semi-dome, round which the aisle is carried. The general dimensions of the interior are 126 feet from the entrance to the back wall, by 45 feet 7 inches in width. The side aisles, however, are very much narrower than in Christian churches, the central one being 25 feet 7 inches, so that the others are only 10 feet wide, includ- ing the thickness of the pillars. As a scale for comparison, it may be mentioned that its arrangement and dimensions are very similar to those of the choir of Norwich Cathedral, or of the Abbaye aux Hommes at Caen, omitting the outer aisles in the latter building. The thickness of the piers at Norwich and Caen nearly corresponds to the breadth of the aisles in the Indian temple. In height, however, Karli is very inferior, being only 42 feet, or perhaps 45 feet from the floor to the apex, as nearly as can be ascertained.
' Fifteen pillars on each side separate the nave from the aisles ; each pillar has a tall base, an octagonal shaft, and a richly ornamented capital, on which kneel two elephants, each bearing two figures, generally a man and a woman, but sometimes two females, all very much better executed than such ornaments usually are. The seven pillars behind the "altar" are plain octagonal piers, without either base or capital, and the four under the entrance gallery differ considerably from those at the sides. The sculptures on the capitals supply the place usually occupied by frieze and cornice in Grecian architecture ; and in other examples plain painted surfaces occupy the same space. Above this springs the roof, semicircular in general section but some- what stilted at the sides, so as to make its height greater than the semi-diameter. It is ornamented even at this day by a series of wooden ribs, probably coeval with the excavation, which prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that the roof is not a copy of a masonry arch, but of some sort of timber construction which we cannot now very well understand.
' Immediately under the semi-dome of the apse, and nearly where the altar stands in Christian churches, is placed the dagoba, in this instance a plain dome slightly stilted on a circular drum. As there are no ornaments on it now, and no mortices for woodwork, it probably was originally plastered and painted, or may have been adorned with hang- ings, which some of the sculptured representations would lead us to suppose was the usual mode of ornamenting these altars. It is sur- mounted by a Tee, and on this still stand the remains of an umbrella in wood, very much decayed and distorted by age.
' Opposite this is the entrance, consisting of three doorways, under a gallery exactly corresponding with our rood-loft, one leading to the centre and one to each of the side aisles ; and over the gallery the whole end of the hall is open, as in all these chaitya halls, forming one great window, through which all the light is admitted. This great window is formed in the shape of a horseshoe, and exactly resembles those used as ornaments on the facade of this cave, as well as on those of Bhaja, Bedsa, and at Nasik. Within the arch is a framework or centring of work standing free. This, so far as we can judge, is, like the ribs of the interior, coeval with the building ; at all events, if it has been renewed, it is an exact copy of the original form, for it is found repeated in stone in all the niches of the facade, over the doorways, and generally as an ornament everywhere, and with the Buddhist " rail," copied from Sanchi, forms the most usual ornament of the style.
'The outer porch is considerably wider than the body of the building, being 52 feet wide, and is closed in front by a screen composed of two stout octagonal pillars, without either base or capital, supporting what is now a plain mass of rock, but once ornamented by a wooden gallery forming the principal ornament of the fagade. Above this, a dwarf colonnade or attic of four columns between pilasters admitted light to the great window ; and this again was surmounted by a wooden cornice or ornament of some sort, though we cannot now restore it, since only the mortices remain that attached it to the rock.
' In advance of this screen stands the lion-pillar, in this instance a plain shaft with thirty-two flutes, or rather faces, surmounted by a capital not unlike that at Kesariya, but at Karli supporting four lions instead of one ; they seem almost certainly to have supported a chakra, or Buddhist wheel. A similar pillar probably stood on the opposite side, but it has either fallen or been taken down to make way for the little [Hindu] temple that now occupies its place.
' The absence of the wooden ornaments of the external porch, as well as our ignorance of the mode in which this temple was finished later- ally, and the porch joined to the main temple, prevent us from judging what the effect of the front would have been if belonging to a free- standing building. But the proportions of such parts as remain are so good, and the effect of the whole so pleasing, that there can be little hesitation in ascribing to such a design a tolerably high rank among architectural compositions.
' Of the interior we can judge perfectly, and it certainly is as solemn and grand as any interior can well be, and the mode of lighting the most perfect — one undivided volume of light coming through a single opening overhead at a very favourable angle and falling directly on the "altar" or principal object in the building, leaving the rest in comparative obscurity. The effect is considerably heightened by the closely-set thick columns that divide the three aisles from one another, as they suffice to prevent the boundary walls from ever being seen ; and as there are no openings in the walls, the view between the pillars is practically unlimited.
'These peculiarities are found more or less developed in all the other caves of the same class in India, varying only with the age and the gradual change that took place from the more purely wooden forms of these caves to the lithic or stone architecture of the more modern ones. This is the principal test by which their relative ages can be determined, and it proves incontestably that the Karli cave was excavated not very long after stone came to be used as a building material in India.'
