It is probably hardly necessary to say more on this subject now, as most of the questions, both of art and chronology, will be again touched upon in the next chapter when describing the viharas which were attached to the chaityas, and were, in fact, parts of the same establishments. As mere residences, the viharas may be deficient in that dignity and unity which characterises the chaityas, but their number and variety make up to a great extent for their other deficiencies; and altogether their description forms one of the most interesting chapters in our history. CHAPTER VI. VIHARAS,[158] OR MONASTERIES. CONTENTS. Structural Viharas--Bengal and Western Vihara Caves--Nassick, Ajunta, Bagh, Dhumnar, Kholvi, and Ellora Viharas--Circular Cave at Junir. STRUCTURAL VIHARAS. We are almost more dependent on rock-cut examples for our knowledge of the Viharas or monasteries of the Buddhists than we are for that of their Chaityas or churches: a circumstance more to be regretted in this instance than in the other. In a chaitya hall the interior is naturally the principal object, and where the art of the architect would be principally lavished. Next would come the façade. The sides and apse are comparatively insignificant and incapable of ornament. The façades and the interior can be as well expressed in the rock as when standing free; but the case is different with the viharas. A court or hall surrounded with cells is not an imposing architectural object. Where the court has galleries two or three storeys in height, and the pillars that support these are richly carved, it may attain an amount of picturesqueness we find in our old hostelries, or of that class of beauty that prevails in the courts of Spanish monasteries.[159] Such was, I believe, the form many of the Indian structural viharas may have taken, but which could hardly be repeated in the rock; and, unless some representations are discovered among the paintings or sculptures, we shall probably never know, though we may guess, what the original appearances may have been. [Illustration: 66. Great Rath at Mahavellipore. (From a Photograph.)] [Illustration: 67. Diagram Explanatory of the Arrangement of a Buddhist Vihara of Four Storeys in Height.]