The second type of rock excavations are known as viharas or monasteries devoted to the residence of monks and ascetics. They usually consisted of a hall surrounded by a number of cells--the earliest with stone beds in them. In the later viharas there was a shrine in the centre of the back wall containing a large image of the Buddha. In the Orissa caves, near Cuttach, we have a series of excavations that do not conform to these arrangements: they are early, dating as far back as the 2nd century B.C., but they belong to the Jain sect, which dates from the same age as the Buddhist.
On the north-west frontiers of India, about the Swat and Yusufzai districts, anciently known as Gandhara, are found a remarkable class of remains, much ruined, but that must have abounded in sculptures belonging to the Buddhist cult. It is among these we find the first representations of Buddha and of the characters belonging to the Buddhist pantheon. The influence of classical art manifested in these images leaves no doubt that they were modelled after western patterns, carried thither by Greeks or brought from the Levant by Buddhist emissaries. The scenes depicted, however, have frequently an architectural setting in which we find represented façades with pillars fashioned with distinctly Corinthian capitals. These sculptures we can now assign with confidence, from dated epigraphs, to dates from the last years of the century B.C. till the 4th century A.D. One inscription of A.D. 47 is of a king Gondophernes, who is mentioned in the legend of the apostle Thomas.
In the time of the great Gupta dynasty, from about A.D. 320 to 500, the architectural forms developed in variety and richness of decoration. To the columns were given higher square bases than before, and sometimes a sur-base; the capitals, which previously had a vase as the chief member, were developed by a foliaged ornament, springing from the mouth of the vase and falling down upon it from the four corners, and so lending strength to the neck whilst converting the round capital into a square support for the abacus. Often, too, a similar arrangement of foliage was applied to the early bases; and this form quite superseded the Persepolitan pillar, with its bell-shaped capital, which now disappeared from Indian art. The shafts were round or of sixteen or more sides; pilasters were ornamented on the shafts; and the spires of the temple were simple in outline and rose almost vertically at first and curving inwards towards the summit, which was always capped by a large circular fluted disk supporting a vase, whilst the surface of the tower was covered with a peculiar sort of horse-shoe diaper. This style prevailed all over Hindustan, and was continued with modifications varying with age and locality down almost to the Mahommedan conquest.