About 4 years ago I ran across an online article by a Japanese architect (not Indologist) containing the claim that it was unlikely that there were really wooden archetypes of the Indian Buddhist cave temples such as Karla. As I recall, part of the argument concerned bent wooden beams, and the impracticality of bending such large wooden beams when it would have been perfectly easy to build what amounts to an "A-frame" and, if you wanted an curved ceiling, suspending it. Anyway, this is my very imperfect memory, but I can't find anything on my HD about this, and I can't, in a google search, find any discussion like this.

Does this seem familiar to anyone? Has any architect actually discussed the feasibility of wooden construction in the fashion that we encounter in the caves?

thanks very much!

jonathan
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