Changes in Buddhist thought in the first century BCE had made it possible for the Buddha to be deified and consequently the image of the Buddha as a focus of worship became popular marking the arrival of the Mahāyāna (the Greater Vehicle) sect.
In the past, scholars divided the caves in three groups, but this is now discredited in light of fresh evidence and research. This theory of dating believed that the oldest group of caves dated from 200 BCE to CE 200, the second group belonged, approximately, to the sixth, and the third group to the seventh century.
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