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 contemplative expression upon its face.  Because it has none of the usual signs and symbols and ornaments that appertain to the different gods, archaeologists have pronounced it a figure of the founder of the temple, who, according to a popular legend, carved it all with his own hands, but there is nothing to indicate for whom the statue was intended, and the various stories told of it are pure conjectures that only exasperate one who studies the details.  Each stroke of the chisel upon the surface of the interior was as delicate and exact as if a jewel instead of a granite mountain was being carved.

There are temples to all of the great gods in the Hindu catalogue; there are several in honor of Buddha, and others for Jain, all more or less of the same design and the same style of execution.  Those who care to know more about them can find full descriptions in Fergusson’s “Indian Architecture.”

South of Bombay, on the coast, is the little Portuguese colony of Goa, the oldest European settlement in India.  You will be surprised to know that there are four or five of these colonies belonging to other European governments within the limits of British India, entirely independent of the viceroy and the authority of Edward VII.  The French have two towns of limited area in Bengal, one of them only an hour’s ride from Calcutta.  They are entirely outside of the British jurisdiction and under the authority of the French Republic, which has always been respected.  The Dutch have two colonies in India also, and Goa, the most important of all, is subject to Portugal.  The territory is sixty-two miles long by forty miles wide, and has a population of 446,982.  The inhabitants are nearly all Roman Catholics, and the archbishop of Goa is primate of the East, having jurisdiction over all Roman Catholics between Cairo and Hong-Kong.