Ajanta caves...how great those artists were...
The
first Buddhist cave monuments at Ajanta date from the 2nd and 1st
centuries B.C. During the Gupta period (5th and 6th centuries A.D.),
many more richly decorated caves were added to the original group. The
paintings and sculptures of Ajanta, considered masterpieces of Buddhist
religious art, have had a considerable artistic influence.
The
style of Ajanta has exerted a considerable influence in India and
elsewhere, extending, in particular, to Java. With its two groups of
monuments corresponding to two important moments in Indian history, the
Ajanta cave ensemble bears exceptional testimony to the evolution of
Indian art, as well as to the determining role of the Buddhist
community, intellectual and religious foyers, schools and reception
centres in the India of the Gupta and their immediate successors.
The
caves are situated 100 km north-east of Ellora, 104 km from Aurangabad
and 52 km from Jalgaon Railway Station. They are cut into the volcanic
lava of the Deccan in the forest ravines of the Sahyadri Hills and are
set in beautiful sylvan surroundings. These magnificent caves containing
carvings that depict the life of Buddha, and their carvings and
sculptures are considered to be the beginning of classical Indian art.
The
29 caves were excavated beginning around 200 BC, but they were
abandoned in AD 650 in favour of Ellora. Five of the caves were temples
and 24 were monasteries, thought to have been occupied by some 200 monks
and artisans. The Ajanta Caves were gradually forgotten until their
'rediscovery' by a British tiger-hunting party in 1819.
The
Ajanta site comprises thirty caves cut into the side of a cliff which
rises above a meander in the Waghora River. Today the caves are reached
by a road which runs along a terrace mid-way up the cliff, but each cave
was once linked by a stairway to the edge of the water. This is a
Buddhist community, comprising five sanctuaries or Chaitya-grihas (caves
9, 10, 19, 26 and 29) and monastic complex sangharamas or viharas. A
first group of caves was created in the 2nd century BC: the
chaitya-grihas open into the rock wall by doorways surmounted by a
horse-shoe shaped bay. The ground plan is a basilical one: piers
separate the principal nave from the side aisles which join in the apsis
to permit the ritual circumambulation behind the (commemorative
monument). This rupestral architecture scrupulously reproduces the forms
and elements visible in wooden constructions.
A
second group of caves was created at a later date, the 5th and 6th
centuries AD, during the Gupta and post-Gupta periods. These caves were
excavated during the supremacy of the Vakatakas and Guptas. According to
inscriptions, Varahadeva, the minister of the Vakataka king, Harishena
(c. AD 475-500), dedicated Cave 16 to the Buddhist sangha while Cave 17
was the gift of the prince, a feudatory. An inscription records that the
Buddha image in Cave 4 was the gift of some Abhayanandi who hailed from
Mathura.
The
earlier architectural formulas were re-employed but treated in an
infinitely richer and more ample manner. The decoration attained, at
this time, an unequalled splendour: the statuary is numerous (it was
already permissible to represent Buddha as a human; these
representations are found both on the facades and in the interior).
Finally, the wall painting, profuse and sensitive, constitutes, no
doubt, the most striking artistic achievement of Ajanta.
Under
the impulse of the Gupta dynasty, Indian art in effect reached its
apogee. The Ajanta Caves are generally decorated with painted or
sculpted figures of supple form and classic balance with which the name
of the dynasty has remained synonymous. The refined lightness of the
decoration, the balance of the compositions, the marvellous beauty of
the feminine figures place the paintings of Ajanta among the major
achievements of the Gupta and post-Gupta style and confer on them the
ranking of a masterpiece of universal pictorial art.
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