Chaitiya

A chaitya, chaitya hall, or caitya is a Buddhist shrine, temple or prayer hall with a stupa at one end. In modern texts on Indian architecture, the term chaitya-griha is often used to denote an assembly or prayer hall that houses a stupa. Strictly, the chaitya is actually the stupa itself, and the Indian buildings are chaitya halls, but this distinction is often not observed. Outside India, the term is used for small stupa-like monuments in Nepal, Indonesia and elsewhere.

Most early examples that survive are Indian rock-cut architecture, but it is agreed that the standard form follows a tradition of free-standing halls made of wood, none of which have survived. This is especially evident in the curving ribbed ceilings, which imitate timber construction, and in many cases timber was used purely decoratively, with wooden ribs added to stone roofs. Often, elements in wood, such as screens, porches and balconies, were added to stone structures. The surviving examples are similar in their broad layout, though the design evolved over the centuries.

The halls are high and long, but rather narrow. At the far end stands the stupa, which is the focus of devotion. Circulambulating or walking around the stupa was an important ritual and devotional practice, and there is always clear space to allow this. The end of the hall is thus rounded, like the apse in Western architecture. There are always columns along the side walls, going up to the start of the curved roof. In earlier examples these are close against the walls, but in later ones they allow passage behind the columns, creating aisles and a central nave. On the outside there is a porch, often very elaborately decorated, a relatively low entrance way, and above this often a gallery. The only natural light, apart from a little from the entrance way, comes from a large horseshoe-shaped window above the porch, echoing the curve of the roof inside. The overall effect is surprisingly similar to smaller Christian churches from the Early Medieval period, though early chaityas are many centuries earlier.

Chaityas appear at the same sites as the vihara, a strongly-contrasting type of building with a low-ceilinged rectangular central hall, with small cells opening, off it, often on all sides. These often have a shrine set back at the centre of the back wall, containing a stupa in early examples, or a Buddha statue later. The vihara was the key building in Buddhist monastic complexes, used to live, study and pray in. Typical large sites contain several viharas for every chaitya.

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