Ajanta Ellora
Way back in1819, a party of British army officers on a tiger hunt in the
forest of western Deccan, suddenly spotted their prey, on the far side of
a loop in the Waghora river. High up on the horseshoe- shaped cliff, the
hunting party saw the tiger, silhouetted against the carved façade
of a cave.
On investigating, the officers discovered a series of carved caves, each
more dramatic than the other. Hewn painstakingly as monsoon retreats or
varshavasas for Buddhist monks, the cave complex was continuously lived
in from 200 BC to about AD650. There are thirty caves, including some unfinished
ones. Of the Ajanta caves, five are chaityas or prayer halls and the rest
are viharas or monasteries.
Hinayana and Mahayana
The Ajanta caves resolve themselves into two phases, separated from each
other by a good four hundred years. These architectural phases coincide
with the two schools of Buddhist thought, the older Hinayana school where
the Buddha was represented only in symbols like the stupa, a set of footprints
or a throne, and the later Mahayana sect which did not shy away from giving
the Lord a human form.
Hinayana
Among the more prominent Hinayana caves are those numbered 9, 10 (both chaityas),
8, 12, 13 and 15 (all viharas). The sculpted figures in these caves are
dressed and coiffed in a manner reminiscent of the stupas at Sanchi and
Barhut, indicating that they date back to the first or second century BC.
Mahayana
The Mahayana monasteries include 1, 2, 16 and 17, while the chaityas are
in caves 19 and 26. The caves, incidentally, are not numbered chronologically
but in terms of access from the entrance. A terrqaced path of modern construction
connects the caves, but in ancients times, each cave was accessed from the
riverfront by individual staircases.
The sculptures and paintings in the caves detail the Buddha's life as well
as the lives of the Buddha in his previous births, as related in the allegorical
Jataka tales. You will also find in the caves a sort of illuminated history
of the times - court scenes, street scenes, cameos of domestic life and
even animal and bird studies come alive on these unlit walls.
The caves including the unfinished ones are thirty in number, of which five
(9, 10, 19, 26 and 29) are chaitya-grihas and the rest are sangharamas or
viharas (monasteries). After centuries of oblivion, these caves were discovered
in AD 1819.
They fall into two distinct phases with a break of nearly four centuries
between them. All the
caves of the earlier phase date between 2nd century
BC-AD.
The caves of the second phase were excavated during the supremacy of the
Vakatakas and Guptas. According to inscriptions, Varahadeva, the minister
of the Vakataka king, Harishena (c. 475-500 AD), dedicated Cave 16 to the
Buddhist sangha while Cave 17 was the gift of the prince, a feudatory.
An inscription records that- Buddha image in Cave 4 was the gift of some
Abhayanandi who hailed from Mathura.
A few paintings which survive on the walls of Caves 9 and 10 go back to
the 2nd century BC-AD. The second group of the paintings started in about
the fifth century AD and continued for the next two centuries as, noticeable
in later caves.
The themes are intensely religious in tone and centre round Buddha, Bodhisattvas,
incidents from the life of Buddha and the Jatakas. The paintings are executed
on a ground of mud-plaster in the tempera technique.
About 107 kms. from the city of Aurangabad, the rock-cut caves of Ajanta
nestle in a panoramic gorge, in the form of a gigantic horseshoe. Among
the finest examples of some of the earliest Buddhist architecture, caves-paintings
and sculptures, these caves comprise Chaitya Halls, or
shrines, dedicated
to Lord Buddha and Viharas, or monasteries, used by Buddhist monks for meditation
and the study of Buddhist teachings.
The paintings that adorn the walls and ceilings of the caves depict incidents
from the life of the Buddha and various Buddhist divinities. Among the more
interesting paintings are the Jataka tales, illustrating diverse stories
relating to the previous incarnations of the Buddha as Bodhisattva, a saintly
being who is destined to become the Buddha.
