to show that Ayodhyâ was "adorned with arched gateways," and was "full of buildings erected close to one another," and palaces with gardens "like the celestial mansions which the Siddhas obtain through the virtues of their austerity."[1]
Then the S'iva-Buddha alliance did not last. By and by it changed from admiration to fierce war, and S'ivan persecution. Huguenots flying from a Dragonnade are not the sort of people who build a Notre Dame Cathedral or an Egyptian pyramid. Van Heeren thinks that Elora must have taken several centuries to complete, and Mr. Fergusson seems to have chosen for its construction the very centuries when the fierce followers of S'iva, Kumârilla Bhatta (a.d. 700), and Sankara Âchârya (750), were spreading Hindustan with Buddhist blood.
Fa Hian, who visited the Dekhan about a.d. 400, found that the Buddhists had long been chased away from those regions. Let us suppose that they came back again a.d. 750, Fergusson's date, and commenced the mighty works of Elora. Kumârilla Bhatta and Sankara Âchârya would have soon made the operations impossible. Supposing, on the other hand, that they delayed the commencement until Mr. Fergusson's other date, A.D. 950. How could the few sparse Buddhists left in India find the money for such a gigantic enterprise. Also, why did they build a temple with all the distinctive features of the temples of their sanguinary persecutors? "Sankara" is one of the names of S'iva. "Achârya" means "Teacher."
A practical question! If the structures of Mahâbalipur and Elora were intended for the dormitories of monks, traces of this would be found in them. Mr. Fergusson admits that this is not the case, but he says, that they are all unfinished, except the "little Ratha" at Mahâbalipur. He makes a further confession that
- ↑ Râm Râz, "Architecture of the Hindus," p. 48.
