RAJGIR: AN ANCIENT IJAHVLON 47
The square mortice-holes in the face of the rock
out of which the great Sonar Bhandar is hollowed,
give us a clue that enables us to rebuild, mentally,
the ancient city. For these mortice-holes held
the attachments of the wooden ornaments that
formed the front of the cave. Now, between
Bombay and Poona, on the west of India, is
another cave, that of Karli, which though of a
much later date must be of the same style and
period as this, and there the wooden front is still
intact. Moreover, the carvings form a picture,
as Fergusson has pointed out, of an ancient
street, from which we gather that the second
storeys of houses standing in rows were decor-
ated in front with crowded wooden verandahs,
porches, niches, and all sorts of beautiful and
irregular curved corners. That these, further,
were not mere devices of beauty in the case of
the houses, as they were ♦ in those of the caves,
we see in the pictures which were carved, prob-
ably in the first or second century A.D., on the
gateways of Sanchi. From these we can gather
an idea of what the palace of Bimbisara and the
homes of his subjects must have been like. The
first storey, then, was massive, sloping inwards
and upwards, loopholed and buttressed at its four
corners by four circular towers. The first storey
only was built of stone, and its parapet was battle-
mented. On the strong terrace provided by the
roof of this fortification were constructed the
family living rooms, which were of wood and
