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Buddhist viharas or monasteries may be described as a residence for monks, a centre for religious work and meditation and a centre of Buddhist learning. Reference to five kinds of dwellings (Pancha Lenani) namely, Vihara, Addayoga, Pasada, Hammiya and Guha is found in the Buddhist canonical texts as fit for monks.
Early chaityas enshrined a stupa with space for congregational worship by the monks. This reflected one of the early differences between early Buddhism and Hinduism, with Buddhism favoring congregational worship in contrast to Hinduism's individual approach. Early chaitya grhas were cut into living rock as caves.
Buddha statue in Borobudur (), the world's largest Buddhist temple.. Buddhist religious architecture developed in the Indian subcontinent.Three types of structures are associated with the religious architecture of early Buddhism: monasteries (), places to venerate relics (), and shrines or prayer halls (chaityas, also called chaitya grihas), which later came to be called temples in some places.
The residences of monks were called Viharas and the cave shrines, called Chaityas, were for congregational worship. [31] The earliest rock-cut garbhagriha , similar to free-standing ones later, had an inner circular chamber with pillars to create a circumambulatory path ( pradakshina ) around the stupa and an outer rectangular hall for the ...
These caves generally followed an apsidal plan with a stupa in the back for the chaityas, and a rectangular plan with surrounding cells for the viharas. [14] When Buddhist missionaries arrived, they naturally gravitated to caves for use as temples and abodes, in accord with their religious ideas of asceticism and the monastic life.
The plan of Cave 1 shows one of the largest viharas, but is fairly typical of the later group. Many others, such as Cave 16, lack the vestibule to the shrine, which leads straight off the main hall. Cave 6 is two viharas, one above the other, connected by internal stairs, with sanctuaries on both levels.
Maharashtra's famous rock-cut caves have several distinct artistic elements though sculptures of the time are regarded to modern viewers as stiff and not dynamic. The Buddhist caves, particularly the older ones, are either temples (Chaityas) or monasteries (Viharas).
Out of the 14, four are chaityas (one housing votive stupas, one apsidal and single-cell) and the rest are viharas. All the caves belong to the Early Buddhist schools period, but the reasonably well preserved paintings are of the Mahayana period. The caves are in two groups, one of 10 caves and the second of four.