Abstract
This paper demonstrates the Christian basilica church of Europe is remarkably similar with the Buddhist cave chaitya of India: longitudinal access of rectangular plan, semicircular apse at the deepest sanctuary end, high nave and low aisle divided by two rows of columns, and rib arch vault ceiling, etc. Although architectural history of the East and the West has been studied independently and separatedly, the paper suggests a possibility that the similarity between two forms is not coincidence but results from influence of the Indian Buddhist cave to the church basilica. The Indian Buddhist caves of basilica type had already been developed for five hundred years when the Christian church basilica were built officially after permission by Emperor Constantinus in A.D.313. Western architecture historians were not successful in tracing an origin of the Christian church basilica as a firm architectural type from the Roman basilica, for the Roman basilica has diverse forms of which original meaning is covered hall with colonnade aisle adjacent to forum. This paper suggests that the Christian church basilica is more similar with pagan religious temple of the Neopithagoras and the Mithras from archeological excavation than the Roman basilica by producing evidence of relation between two the Western pagan religions and the Indian religion.