On this pillar is an inscription in Pali, which
has been deciphered, and which is now considered to fix the date
of the excavation conclusively at not later than the second century
before the Christian era. The eye took in at first only the vague
confusion of windows and pillars cut in the rock. It is supposed
that originally a music-gallery stood here in front, consisting of
a balcony supported out from the two octagonal pillars, and probably
roofed or having a second balcony above. But the woodwork is now gone.
One soon felt one's attention becoming concentrated, however, upon a
great arched window cut in the form of a horseshoe, through which one
could look down what was very much like the nave of a church running
straight back into the depths of the hill. Certainly, at first, as one
passes into the strange vestibule which intervenes still between the
front and the interior of the shaitya, one does not think at all--one
only _feels_ the dim sense of mildness raying out from the great
faces of the elephants, and of mysterious far-awayness conveyed by the
bizarre postures of the sculptured figures on the walls.
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