In the traditional histories of Indian monastic Buddhism, the period between 100 and 600 ce is viewed as a period when the Buddhist sangha progressively became more enmeshed with the laity, allowing lay practices such as ritual directed at stupas and Buddha images to percolate through the sangha. In contrast, the architecture of Buddhist monasteries from this period suggests almost the complete opposite, that the sangha progressively withdrew into their monasteries in this period, severing their ties to the non-elite laity. While apparent in the design and layout of monasteries in Andhra Pradesh and the Gangetic Plain, the progressive withdrawal of the sangha from regular interaction with the laity is most clearly shown in the developments in monastic architecture in the Western Ghats.
Until the fifth century ce, rock-cut monasteries in the Western Ghats consisted of one or more large chaityas surrounded by several viharas. The
Figure 5.6: Bhaja (c. first century BCE: top) and Aurangabad (c. sixth century ce)
Photo of Bhaja courtesy of the Digital South Asia Library and the American Institute of Indian Studies (Accession No. 80006).
Viharas served as monastic dormitories, and the chaityas as both a public and monastic worship space. The placement of chaityas within Buddhist monasteries associated the primary symbol of the Buddha, the stupa, with the sangha—spatially asserting monastic control over the rituals performed in front of the stupa. In contrast to the often haphazard placement and low profile of viharas, chaityas had large, elaborately carved facades that would have been visible at great distances (see Figure 5.6). Using Moore’s (1996) criteria of size, permanence, visibility, and centrality, prior to the sixth century CE, Buddhist monasteries is the Western Ghats were legitimations that proclaimed the importance of the sangha to the Buddhist laity.
This pattern began to change in the Western Ghats at Ajanta with the carving of Buddha images on stupas within chaityas 19 and 26 in the mid - to late fifth century CE. After this, rock-cut chaityas of the earlier form were no longer constructed in western India. Instead, Buddha images were placed within viharas, in monastic cells referred to as perfumed chambers. The symbolism here was fairly straightforward. The image of the Buddha was installed within a monastic cell, symbolically asserting that the Buddha was a resident of the monastery. In terms of legitimizing monastic authority, this change in the location of the primary ritual focus had profound implications. While the images were still spatially associated with the sangha, perhaps even more so than before, the visibility and accessibility of the images to the general public were dramatically reduced. With the abandonment of chaityas, the facades of the viharas were not elaborated to any great degree (see Figure 5.6). The visibility of the monasteries in the Western Ghats, therefore, was substantially less than it had been in the previous period. Unlike the stupas and chaityas of the earlier period, Buddha images were now sequestered within the viharas, with no outside indicator of their presence. It would seem that by this later period the Buddhist sangha was no longer attempting to assert authority over the laity, or at least did so to a much lesser degree.
In Andhra Pradesh after the second century BCE, monastic architecture also facilitated the withdrawal of the sangha from regular contact with the laity. Prior to the third century CE, monasteries in Andhra Pradesh (e. g., Thotlakonda and Bavikonda) had more informal layouts, with gaps between the individual viharas that collectively defined the courtyard in which the sangha lived and received religious instruction (see Figure 5.7). Likewise, elaborate public worship spaces were located adjacent to the viharas. While separated from the viharas, this separation was often only partial, with views into the courtyard through railings or other more permeable barriers. In contrast, the viharas at Nagarjunakonda in the third and fourth centuries were designed to be far more impermeable—completely enclosed square courtyards with a single gate (see Figure 5.7). Just as with the sangha in the Western Ghats in the sixth century CE, in the third and fourth centuries CE the sangha in Andhra Pradesh erected physical barriers between themselves and the broader world. While fostering a more
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