Cave temples are subterranean sacred buildings carved into the rock or created in a natural cave. Cave temples and monolithic rock temples carved out of the stone are a form of early natural architecture and rock construction, a building technique in solid rock closely related to sculpture.Owen C. Kail: Buddhist Cave Temples of India. Bombay: Taraporevala 1975. p. 3. The most extensive artificially created cave temple complexes (subterranea) originated in India, where about 1200 complexes are documented, and in the neighboring regions of Asia.
The basic form of cave temples in Asia was developed from the second century BCE in western India from the prefiguration of the mountain hermitage of the world-weary Śramaṇa Movement (Sanskrit, m., श्रमण, śramaṇa, Pali, m., samaṇa, mendicant monk), a detached hut or cave used as a dwelling for ascetics. Central design principles are probably derived from the model of wooden open-air buildings that no longer exist today.
Along long-distance trade routes, cave temples spread from South Asia to Central and East Asia. In Southeast Asia, natural caves were predominantly used as underground sanctuaries instead of artificial caves. The UNESCO World Heritage List includes numerous cave temples in Asia, including Ajanta, Elephanta, Ellora and Mamallapuram in India, the Mogao, Longmen and Yungang Grottoes in China, Dambulla in Sri Lanka and Seokguram in South Korea.
In addition to the Asian lines of development, cave temples and other, sometimes significantly older, rock structures also appear in other ancient cultures, such as Egypt, Assyria, the Hittites, Lycia, and the Nabataeans.
Precursors and rock architecture worldwide
Already in prehistoric times, caves served people as places of refuge, burial or worship. The marking of the cave transformed it from a fascinating place to a sacred site. During the Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic, cultic use included ritual dedication, permanent marking (for example, in the form of cave paintings), and regularly repeated rites.Dorothea Baudy: Art. „Heilige Stätten. I. Religionswissenschaftlich“. In: Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart (RGG4). Bd. 3, F-H. Hrsg. von H.D. Betz, Don S. Browning, B. Janowski, E. Jüngel. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2003. p. 1551f. Prehistoric rock art is found at about 700,000 sites in 120 countries and is recorded with more than 20 million figural representations.Emmanuel Anati: Art. „Prähistorische Kunst“. In: Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart (RGG4). Bd. 6, N-Q. Hrsg. von H.D. Betz, Don S. Browning, B. Janowski, E. Jüngel. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2003. pp. 1555–1558, hier: p. 1556.
Since the time of the early advanced civilizations, artificial rock structures appeared as a new construction method in North Africa, Asia Minor, the Near East, Central Asia, South Asia and East Asia. They served as dwellings, shelters and depots (Cappadocia in present-day Turkey), as burial caves (Petra in Jordan) or as temples and monasteries (India). Rock structures of the pre-Columbian advanced civilizations of the Americas are also occasionally referred to as cave temples, for example Kenko with a puma altar near Cusco or the Cuauhcalli temple near Malinalco in State of Mexico (16th century).
Among the most striking complexes in the world are the monumental rock temples of the Egyptian pharaonic empire, the temples of Abu Simbel (also known here as Speos). The Great Temple of Ramesses II at Abu Simbel on the western bank of the Nile was built as early as 1280 B.C. The temple complex, which includes a sanctuary and various chambers, was cut completely into the rock massif.Weitere Felsentempel in Ägypten sind in der Regel als Mischformen gestaltet, bei denen ein Teil des Tempels in den Fels gehauen ist und die Vorhallen, Fassade und Skulpturen vor dem Tempel aus dem gewachsenen Gestein herausgeschält sind oder als gebaute Architektur ergänzt wurden, darunter Beit el-Wali bei Kalabscha, Beni Hasan und Deir el-Bahari.
Other rock-cut structures are preserved mainly in Asia Minor and the Near East. Hittite sanctuaries were carved from rock in the 15th-13th centuries BCE at Yazılıkaya in what is now the Turkish province of Çorum. In the 5th century BC, the Lycians built hundreds of rock-cut tombs in southern Anatolia (for example, at Dalyan, Muğla Province, Turkey). The Nabataeans also carved temples and tombs into the rock at Petra (Jordan) between 100 B.C. and A.D. 150. Christian cave settlements with extensive dugout and rock churches were created at Göreme in Turkish Cappadocia (from the 4th century), at Matera in southern Italy (early medieval), and at Lalibela in northern Ethiopia in the 12th-13th centuries.
Buddhist cave temples in India
Caves in early Buddhism
Buddhist cave temples represent an underground variant of the Buddhist monastery and temple complex, which dates back to the dwelling of the ascetic Śramana Movement since the epoch of the Upanishads (8th to 7th century BC) as well as to urbuddhist meditation sites. The historical Siddhartha Gautama, even as a young wandering ascetic before attaining enlightenment, retreated to caves for meditation (according to tradition, for example, to the Dungeshwari Cave near Bodh Gaya in Bihar).Uwe Bräutigam, Gunnar Walther: Buddha begegnen. Eine Reise zu den heiligen Orten in Nepal und Indien. Krefeld: Yarlung 2005 (DVD, 11.-15. Min.) As Buddha, he occasionally used a cave near Rajagriha as a meditation site, as recorded in the Pali Canon, an early record of Buddha's doctrinal discourses from the 1st century BC (DN, ch. 16.3, chs. 21 and 25). This cave was identified by the Chinese pilgrim monk Faxian in the 5th century A.D. as Pippala Cave on Mount Vebhara (Vulture Mountain).Tarthang Tulku: Holy Places of the Buddha. Berkeley: Dharma 1994. p. 111.
The Pali Canon cites natural caves (Pali, kandara) as common retreats for members of the Buddhist order (MN, chs. 27, 38, 39 and more), who could meditate there largely shielded from sensory stimuli. The First Buddhist council, held at Rajagriha shortly after the Buddha's death in the 5th century B.C., is also said by Buddhist tradition to have taken place in a hall outside the Sattapanni cave on the northern slope of Mount Vebhara.Hans Wolfgang Schumann: Buddhismus. Stifter, Schulen und Systeme. 4. Auflage. München: Diederichs 1997. p. 55f., 130. Given the principle of "houselessness" of the Buddhist order, the natural protective function of caves contributed to the development of Buddhist cave temples. Cave temples provided better protection against the elements than the homemade freestanding rain huts made of bamboo and mats that served as refuges during the rainy monsoon season and were torn down at the end of the monsoon.Mario Bussagli: Indien, Indonesien, China. Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt 1985. p. 85.
The era of Emperor Ashoka
The actual construction of artificial cave temples made of "grown" rock was not initiated until the era of Maurya emperor Ashoka, who in the 3rd century B.C. donated corresponding, initially still quite elementary facilities for the ascetic community of the AjivikaA. L. Basham: History of Doctrines of the Ajivikas. London: Lucac 1951 (Nachdruck: Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass 1981). (for example, the Lomas Rishi cave near Barabar). The Buddhists further developed these preliminary forms into elaborate centers of monastic life with increasingly rich relief decoration. With the support of wealthy Buddhist laymen, they created the basic form of Indian rock architecture during the centuries before and after the birth of Christ, which spread widely along the trade routes during the following millennium.Klaus Fischer, Michael Jansen, Jan Pieper: Architektur des indischen Subkontinents. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 1987. p. 153. A connection between the older Egyptian, Hittite or Lycian rock architecture of the West and the younger, considerably more numerous Indian rock buildings has not yet been clearly demonstrated.
Context of origin The emergence of Indian cave temple complexes, after restrained beginnings in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC, took off considerably with the growing prosperity of the artisan classes of western India. A major reason for this was the increased trade with the Roman Empire since the first century AD. Especially on the Indian artisans (Skt., m., शूद्र, shudra), who formed the lower castes within the impermeable Brahmanical society, Buddhism exercised considerable attraction due to its appreciation also of lay confessors as fully valid aspirants to salvation, due to the de facto devaluation of caste membership (Skt., वर्ण, varnas) and the rejection of costly Vedic sacrificial rituals.
In contrast to Hinduism, Buddhism with its monastic communities relied primarily on urban culture.Klaus Fischer, Michael Jansen, Jan Pieper: Architektur des indischen Subkontinents. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 1987. p. 94. Influential urban merchant guilds donated the money for the construction and endowment of entire monasteries, as endowment inscriptions attest. For their part, the monasteries financed the local merchants through loans.Richard Gombrich: Der Buddhismus im alten und mittelalterlichen Indien. In: Heinz Bechert, Richard Gombrich (Hrsg.): Der Buddhismus. Geschichte und Gegenwart. München: C.H. Beck ³2008. pp. 71–93, hier p. 84. In addition, the endowment of temples in Hinduism and Buddhism counts among the spiritually meritorious acts (Skt., puṇya). The competition between different craft guilds for the decoration of their foundations led to a considerable upsurge in Indian rock art, sculpture and painting, especially during the period of the Gupta dynasty, which ruled over northern and central India from 320 to 650 AD,Gabriele Seitz: Die Bildsprache des Buddhismus. Düsseldorf: Patmos 2006. p. 88. whose works survived the test of time in the cave temples, many of which were later abandoned.
The cave monasteries, which were given to the religious on permanent loan, were supplied by the lay Buddhist followers of the surrounding villages and settlements, who offered food, medicine and clothing to the begging monks.Herbert und Ingeborg Plaeschke: Indische Felsentempel und Höhlenklöster. Ajanta und Ellura. Wien, Köln, Graz: Böhlau 1983. p. 13. The daily routine in the Buddhist monasteries was strictly structured. After waking before sunrise, the monks rose with a song or the recitation of an edifying verse, cleaned the monastery, and procured the necessary drinking water. The daily routine also included offering flowers in common assembly, a round of begging to acquire food, a meal, meditation exercises, the study of texts, and attendance at doctrinal presentations.Herbert und Ingeborg Plaeschke: Indische Felsentempel und Höhlenklöster. Ajanta und Ellura. Wien, Köln, Graz: Böhlau 1983. p. 43f.
Building structure and technology