Early Chaitya halls are known from the 3rd century BCE. They generally followed an
apsidal plan, and were either rock-cut or freestanding.
Rock-cut chaitya halls , when built, in about 120 CE ; the stupa incorporates a large Buddha statue and there are aisles behind the columns, their walls adorned with
relief sculptures. A smaller adaption of the Karli model. The earliest surviving spaces comparable to the
chaitya hall date to the 3rd century BCE. These are the rock-cut
Barabar Caves (
Lomas Rishi Cave and Sudama Cave), excavated during the reign of
Ashoka by or for the
Ajivikas, a non-Buddhist religious and philosophical group of the period. According to many scholars, these became "the prototype for the Buddhist caves of the western Deccan", particularly the
chaitya halls excavated between the 2nd century BCE and 2nd century CE. 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. These served as a symbol and sites of a
sangha congregational life (
uposatha). The earliest rock-cut chaityas, similar to free-standing ones, consisted of an inner circular chamber with pillars to create a circular path around the stupa and an outer rectangular hall for the congregation of the devotees. Over the course of time, the wall separating the stupa from the hall was removed to create an apsidal hall with a
colonnade around the nave and the stupa. The chaitya at
Bhaja Caves is perhaps the earliest surviving chaitya hall, constructed in the second century BCE. It consists of an apsidal hall with a stupa. The columns slope inwards in the imitation of wooden columns that would have been structurally necessary to keep a roof up. The ceiling is
barrel vaulted with ancient wooden ribs set into them. The walls are polished in the
Mauryan style. It was faced by a substantial wooden
facade, now entirely lost. A large horseshoe-shaped window, the chaitya-window, was set above the arched doorway and the whole portico-area was carved to imitate a multi-storeyed building with balconies and windows and sculptured men and women who observed the scene below. This created the appearance of an ancient Indian mansion. In Bhaja, as in other chaityas, the entrance acted as the demarcation between the sacred and the profane. The stupa inside the hall was now completely removed from the sight of anyone outside. In this context, in the first century CE, the earlier veneration of the stupa changed to the veneration of an image of
Gautama Buddha. Chaityas were commonly part of a monastic complex, the
vihara. The most important of rock-cut complexes are the
Karla Caves,
Ajanta Caves,
Ellora Caves,
Udayagiri and Khandagiri Caves,
Aurangabad Caves and the
Pandavleni Caves. Many pillars have capitals on them, often with carvings of a kneeling elephant mounted on bell-shaped bases. File:Barabar_caves_Sudama_inside.jpg|Rock-cut hall, Sudama,
Barabar Caves, dedicated in 257 BCE by
Ashoka. File:Tulja_Lena_Chaitya_remains.jpg|Rock-cut circular Chaitya hall with pillars,
Tulja Caves, 1st century BCE File:Ajanta Caves, Aurangabad s-7.jpg|Chaitya arch around the window, and repeated as a
gavaksha motif with railings, Cave 9, Ajanta. File:1 façade du Chaitya Griha Vishvakarma Cave 10 Ellora India.jpg|The window at the chaitya Cave 10,
Ellora, c. 650 File:Karla Cave Monument.jpg|Timber ribs on the roof at the
Karla Caves; the umbrella over the stupa is also wood File:017 Patterning outside Chaitya Hall (33563167691).jpg|Decorative chaitya arches and lattice railings,
Bedse Caves, 1st century BCE File:Buddhist Cave Ellora3.JPG|Stupa inside Cave 10,
Ellora, the last chaitya hall built, the Buddha image now dominating the stupa.
Freestanding chaitya halls , 1st century BCE; the lower
mandapa at left was a later Hindu addition. A number of freestanding constructed chaitya halls built in durable materials (stone or brick) have survived, the earliest from around the same time as the earliest rock-cut caves. There are also some ruins and groundworks, such as a circular type from the 3rd century BCE, the
Bairat Temple, in which a central stupa was surrounded by 27 octagonal wooden pillars, and then enclosed in a circular brick wall, forming a circular procession path around the stupa. An
apsidal structure in
Sanchi has also been dated, at least partially, to the 3rd century BCE: the so-called
Temple 40, one of the first instances of a free-standing temple in India. Temple 40 has remains of three different periods, the earliest period dating to the Maurya age, which probably makes it contemporary to the creation of the Great Stupa. An inscription even suggests it might have been established by
Bindusara, the father of Ashoka. The original 3rd century BCE temple was built on a high rectangular stone platform, 26.52x14x3.35 metres, with two flights of stairs to the east and the west. It was an
apsidal hall, probably made of timber. It was burnt down sometime in the 2nd century BCE. Later, the platform was enlarged to 41.76x27.74 metres and re-used to erect a pillared hall with fifty columns (5x10) of which stumps remain. Some of these pillars have inscriptions of the 2nd century BCE. The base and reconstructed columns on three sides of Temple 18 at Sanchi were presumably completed by wood and thatch; this dates from the 5th century CE, perhaps rebuilt on earlier foundations. This stands next to Temple 17, a small flat-roofed temple with a lower
mandapa at the front, of the basic type that came to dominate both Buddhist and Hindu temples in the future. The two types were used in the
Gupta Empire by both religions. The
Trivikrama Temple, also named "Ter Temple", is a now a Hindu temple in the city of
Ter, Maharashtra. It was initially a free-standing apsidal structure, which is characteristic of early Buddhist apsidal
caityagriha design. This structure is still standing, but is now located at the back of the building, since a flat-roofed
mandapa structure was probably added from the 6th century CE, when the temple was converted into a Hindu temple. The apsidal structure seems to be contemporary to the great apsidal temple found in
Sirkap,
Taxila, which is dated to 30 BCE-50 CE. Another Hindu temple which was converted from a Buddhist chaityagriha structure is the very small Kapoteswara temple at
Chezarla in
Guntur district; here the chamber is straight at both ends, but with a rounded brick vault for its roof, using
corbelling. File:Remnants_of_Stupa.jpg|Remains of the circular Chaitya hall in
Bairat Temple, 3rd century BCE. File:Bharhut circular Temple.jpg|Relief of a circular chaitya hall,
Bharhut, circa 100 BCE. Sanchi Temple 40.jpg|
Sanchi Temple 40 was a 3rd-century BCE apsidal temple, one of the first known in India. File:IA_Temple_40_Sanchi.jpg|Reconstruction of Sanchi Temple 40 (3rd century BCE). Trivikram Temple Ter 1.jpg|Trivikrama Temple with its chaitya arch. File:Ter ancient Buddhist Chaitya House.jpg|The ancient Buddhist chaitya house at Ter. Amvar Chejerla Kapoteswara temple in guntur district.jpg|Remains of the chaitya hall in
Chejarla Kapoteswara temple. File:Temple 18 - Buddhist Monument - Sanchi Hill 2013-02-21 4499.JPG|Sanchi, Temple 18, from the
apse end. Partly reconstructed. File:IA Temple 18 Sanchi.jpg|Conjectural reconstruction of Temple 18 by
Percy Brown (now dated earlier) File:Chaityagriha at Lalitgiri.jpg|Excavated remains of a structural chaitya at
Lalitgiri,
Odisha, India
End of the chaitya hall , 7th or 8th century. Apparently the last rock-cut chaitya hall to be constructed was Cave 10 at
Ellora, in the first half of the 7th century. By this time the role of the chaitya hall was being replaced by the
vihara, which had now developed shrine rooms with Buddha images (easily added to older examples), and largely taken over their function for assemblies. The stupa itself had been replaced as a focus for devotion and meditation by the Buddha image, and in Cave 10, as in other late chaityas (for example Cave 26 at Ajanta, illustrated here), there is a large seated Buddha taking up the front of the stupa. Apart from this, the form of the interior is not much different from the earlier examples from several centuries before. But the form of the windows on the exterior has changed greatly, almost entirely dropping the imitation of wooden architecture, and showing a decorative treatment of the wide surround to the chaitya arch that was to be a major style in later temple decoration. The last stage of the freestanding chaitya hall temple may be exemplified by the
Durga temple, Aihole, of the 7th or 8th century. This is apsidal, with rounded ends at the sanctuary end to a total of three layers: the enclosure to the sanctuary, a wall beyond this, and a pteroma or
ambulatory as an open
loggia with pillars running all round the building. This was the main space for
parikrama or
circumambulation. Above the round-ended sanctuary, now a room with a doorway, rises a
Shikhara tower, relatively small by later standards, and the mandapa has a flat roof. How long construction of chaitya halls in plant materials continued in villages is not known. ==Parallels==