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Ajanta Ellora
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.
Ajanta
has two kinds of Caves:
Finished Caves
Unfinished Caves
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