Judging from the inscriptions on these caves, the whole were excavated between the date of the Nigope and that of the Milkmaid’s Cave, so called (which was excavated by Dasaratha, the grandson of Asoka), probably within fifty years of that date. They appear to range, therefore, from 260 to 200 B.C., and the Lomas Rishi is probably the most modern[140]--it certainly is the most richly ornamented. No great amount of elaboration, however, is found in these examples, inasmuch as the material in which they are excavated is the hardest and most close-grained granite; and it was hardly to be expected that a people who so recently had been using nothing but wood as a building material would have patience sufficient for labours like these. They have polished them like glass in the interior, and with that they have been content. WESTERN CHAITYA HALLS. [Illustration: 45. Chaitya Cave, Bhaja. (From a Plan by Mr. Burgess.) Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.] There are in the Western Ghâts in the Bombay Presidency five or six important chaitya caves whose dates can be made out, either from inscriptions, or from internal evidence, with very fair approximate certainty, and all of which were excavated, if I am not very much mistaken, before the Christian Era. The oldest of these is situated at a place called Bhaja, four miles south of the great Karli cave in the Bhore Ghât. There is no inscription upon it, but I have a plan and several photographs. From the woodcut (No. 45), it will be perceived that it is a chaitya hall of the usual plan, but of no great dimensions, being only 60 ft. from the back of the apse to the mortices (_a_ _a_), in which the supports of the wooden screen once stood. From the woodcut (No. 46), taken from one of these photographs, it will be perceived that the pillars of the interior slope inwards at a considerable and most unpleasing angle. The rood-screen which closes the front of all other caves of this class is gone. In all other examples it is in stone, and consequently remains; but in this instance, being in wood, it has disappeared, though the holes to receive its posts and the mortices by which it was attached to the walls are still there. The ogee fronton was covered with wooden ornaments, which have disappeared; though the pin-holes remain by which they were fastened to the stone. The framework, or truss that filled the upper part of the great front opening, no longer exists, but what its appearance was may be judged of by the numerous representations of itself with which it is covered, or [Illustration: 46. Façade of the Cave at Bhaja. (From a Photograph.)] [Illustration: 47. Front of a Chaitya Hall. (From a Bas-relief at Buddh Gaya.)]