in great detail and with copious illustrations
in books that refer to nothing else. I can only say that they
are the most wonderful of all the human monuments in India.

"From one vast mount of solid stone
A mighty temple has been cored
By nut-brown children of the sun,
When stars were newly bright, and blithe
Of song along the rim of dawn--
A mighty monolith."

The thirty principal temples are scattered along the rocky mountain
side within a distance of two miles, and seventy-nine others are
in the immediate neighborhood. The smallest of the principal group
is 90 feet long, 40 feet wide, with a roof 40 feet high sustained
by thirty-four columns. They are all alike in one particular. No
mortar was used in their construction or any outside material.
Every atom of the walls and ceilings, the columns, the altars
and the images and ornaments stands exactly where the Creator
placed it at the birth of the universe.

There are several groups of cave temples in the same neighborhood.
Some of them were made by the Buddhists, for it seems to have
been fashionable in those days to chisel places of worship out
of the rocky hillsides instead of erecting them in the open air,
according to the ordinary rules of architecture. There are not
less than 300 in western India which are believed to have been
made within a period of a thousand years. Archaeologists dispute
over their ages, just as they disagree about everything else. Some
claim that the first of the cave temples antedates the Christian
era; others declare that the oldest was not begun for 300 years
after Christ, but to the ordinary citizen these are questions of
little significance. It is not so important for us to know when
this great work was done, but it would be extremely gratifying if
somebody could tell us who did it--what genius first conceived
the idea of carving a magnificent house of worship out of the
heart of a mountain, and what means he used to accomplish the
amazing results.

We would like to know for example, who made the designs of the
Vishwa Karma, or carpenter's cave, one of the most exquisite in
India, a single excavation 85 by 45 feet in area and 35 feet
high, which has an arched roof similar to the Gothic chapels
of England and a balcony or gallery over a richly sculptured
gateway very similar to the organ loft of a modern church. At
the upper end, sitting cross-legged in a niche, is a figure four
feet high, with a serene and contemp