text: The early stone viharas mimicked the timber construction that likely preceded them.
  Inscriptional evidence on stone and copper plates indicate that Buddhist viharas were often co-built with Hindu and Jain temples. The Gupta Empire era witnessed the building of numerous viharas, including those at the Ajanta Caves. Some of these viharas and temples though evidenced in texts and inscriptions are no longer physically found, likely destroyed in later centuries by natural causes or due to war.
  Viharas as a source of major Buddhist traditions
  As more people joined Buddhist monastic sangha, the senior monks adopted a code of discipline which came to be known in the Pali Canon as the Vinaya texts. These texts are mostly concerned with the rules of the sangha. The rules are preceded by stories telling how the Buddha came to lay them down, and followed by explanations and analysis. According to the stories, the rules were devised on an ad hoc basis as the Buddha encountered various behavioral problems or disputes among his followers. Each major early Buddhist tradition had its own variant text of code of discipline for vihara life. Major vihara appointed a vihara-pala, the one who managed the vihara, settled disputes, determined sangha's consent and rules, and forced those hold-outs to this consensus.