Before leaving this cave, however, it may be well to remark on the change that had taken place in the form of the dagoba during these 500 years. If Woodcut No. 61 is compared with the dagobas in Nos. 56 and 57, it will be seen how much the low rounded form of the early examples had been conventionalised into a tall steeple-like object. The drum had become more important than the dome, and was ornamented with architectural features that have no meaning as applied. But more curious still is the form the triple umbrella had assumed. It had now become a steeple reaching to the roof of the cave, and its original form and meaning would hardly be suspected by those who were not familiar with the intermediate steps. I am not aware of more than three umbrellas being found surmounting any dagoba in the caves, but the annexed representation of a model of one found at Sultanpore, near Jelalabad (Woodcut No. 62), probably of about the same age, has six such discs; and in Behar numerous models are found with seven, making with the base and finial nine storeys,[148] which afterwards in China became the conventional number for the nine-storeyed towers of that land. [Illustration: 61. Rock-cut Dagoba at Ajunta. (From a Drawing by the Author.)] [Illustration: 62. Small Model found in the Tope at Sultanpore. (From Wilson’s ‘Ariana Antiqua.’)] The last chaitya at Ajunta (No. 26) is of a medium size, 66 ft. by 36, and has a long inscription, but which unfortunately contains nothing to enable us to fix its date with certainty. It is certainly more modern than the last-named, its sculptures are coarser, and their meaning more mythological. We shall probably not err in assuming that it was excavated towards the end of the 6th or beginning of the 7th century; and that the year 600 is not far from its true date. Its chief interest is in showing how nearly Buddhism was approximating to Brahmanism when the catastrophe took place which expelled the former from the country of its birth. ELLORA. The celebrated Viswakarma cave at Ellora is a chaitya of the first class, intermediate in age between the two last-described caves at Ajunta, or it may be as modern as the last. There are unfortunately no inscriptions nor any traditions[149] that would assist in fixing its age, which must consequently depend wholly on its position in the series and its architectural peculiarities.