Barabar Caves: rock-cut architecture with Mauryan polish
Cuevas de Barabar: arquitectura rupestre con pulido mauryano
- Date
- c. 250 BCE · confidence medium
- Place
- Barabar Hills, Jehanabad, Bihar, India
- Credited to
- Maurya Empire under Ashoka
- Field
- Tools
What it is
Chambers cut into granite with an interior surface polished to a mirror finish, reproducing in stone the form of timber and bamboo buildings. It is the earliest surviving Indian rock-cut architecture and sets the repertoire of later chaityas.
Inscriptions of Ashoka (c. 261-250 BC) date the Barabar caves; Nagarjuni was dedicated by his grandson Dasharatha. The polish is attributed to the workshop tradition that also made the Ashoka pillars.
What it led to
- Buddhist rock-cut sanctuaries such as Karla and Ajanta
- carving timber architecture into living rock
- the Mauryan polishing technique of monolithic pillars