Ajanta
Ellora Caves 
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.
Ajanta has two kinds of Caves: » Finished Caves
» Unfinished Caves
··»
Monuments in India
—› Humayun's Tomb,
Delhi —› India
Gate, Delhi —› Khajuraho
Temples —› Konark
Temple —› Lake
Palace, Udaipur —›
Qutub Minar, Delhi
—› Taj Mahal, Agra
—› Umaid
Bhawan Palace, Jodhpur —›
Ajanta Ellora
—› Charminar, Hyderabad
—› Fatehpur
Sikri, Agra —› Gateway
of India, Mumbai
