Thread by @DalrympleWill

Seven years ago I paid my first visit to the extraordinary 1stC BCE Bhaja caves- less well known than Ajanta, but no less fascinating, with original wooden features still in place. I wrote this @FTLifeArts piece soon after

India’s ancient cave monasteries ft.com/content/e0ce28…

"Open to the environment at one end, and entered by a magnificent 9m-tall horseshoe-arch, it still miraculously preserves its ancient wooden roof beams, like the wrecked keel of a prehistoric ark...."

"These wooden shards crown one of the oldest rooms in the world: a ribbed chaitya hall lined with tapering octagonal columns, ending in a rounded apse that encloses the perfect dome of a tall stone stupa."

"Bhaja is usually described as a cave temple but it is really more like sculpture on an epic scale: an entire range of monastic buildings hewn out of the rock and elaborately decorated with sculpted trompe l’oeil."

"Carved window frames, blind arches and tiers of fretwork mouldings give way to bamboo railings and balconies out of which half-naked Satavahana men and women peer, as if gazing out arm in arm from the terrace of their apartment block, surveying the valley below."

"These carvings mimic long-lost multi-storeyed wooden buildings, all physical traces of which vanished millennia ago. And that is, in a sense, the point: as one inscription puts it, these chaitya halls were made to endure a kalpa – an entire cosmic age."

The dedication in a neighbouring cave complex gives an indication of the motives of the patrons: “Realizing that life, youth, wealth and happiness are transitory,” it reads, the caves were dug "to be occupied by the best of ascetics."

"It resembles the palaces of the Lord of the Gods, clothed in the brilliance of Indra’s crown. As long as the sun shines this spotless cave may be enjoyed!”