Ajanta History and Development Cave by Cave
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AJANTA CAVE BY CAVE
HANDBOOK OF ORIENTAL STUDIES HANDBUCH DER ORIENTALISTIK SECTION TWO
INDIA INDIEN edited by J. BRONKHORST
VOLUME 18/5 AJANTA: HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT
CAVE BY CAVE
AJANTA: HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT VOLUME FIVE
CAVE BY CAVE BY
WALTER M. SPINK
LEIDEN • BOSTON 2007
This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISSN 0169-9377 ISBN-13: 978-90-04-15644-9 ISBN-10: 90-04-15644-5 © Copyright 2007 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Brill provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910 Danvers MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands
For M. Singh Conservator!
CONTENTS
List of Illustrations ......................................................................
ix
Chapter One
A Preface for Visitors to Ajanta ..................
1
Chapter Two
Brief Comments on Ajanta’s History and Artistic Methods ............................................
4
Chapter Three
An Ajanta Miniguide ....................................
7
Chapter Four
A Few Relevant Comments Regarding Dating ............................................................
15
A Detailed Guide to the Ajanta Caves ...... Cave 1 ............................................................ Cave 2 ............................................................ Cave 3 ............................................................ Cave 4 ............................................................ Cave 5 ............................................................ Cave Lower 6 ................................................ Cave Upper 6 ................................................ Cave 7 ............................................................ Cave 8 ............................................................ Cave 9 ............................................................ Cave 9A–9D .................................................. Cave 10 .......................................................... Cave 10A ...................................................... Cave 11............................................................ Cave 12 .......................................................... Cave 12A ...................................................... Cave 13 .......................................................... Cave 14 .......................................................... Cave 15 .......................................................... Cave 15A ...................................................... Cave 16 .......................................................... Cave 16’s Cells: Considerations ..................
17 17 40 56 58 81 83 98 113 127 131 134 135 140 141 161 168 169 170 171 178 179 199
Chapter Five
contents
viii Cave Cave Cave Cave Cave Cave Cave Cave Cave Cave Cave Cave Cave Cave
17 .......................................................... 18 .......................................................... 19 .......................................................... 20 .......................................................... 21 .......................................................... 22 .......................................................... 22A ...................................................... 23 .......................................................... 23A ...................................................... 24 .......................................................... 24A ...................................................... 26 Complex ........................................ 28 .......................................................... 29 ..........................................................
203 230 233 248 273 288 290 290 303 304 311 311 342 344
A Brief Appreciation: Homage to Burgess .............................. 349 Illustrations (Plans and Charts) ................................................ 351
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig.
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig.
6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.
Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig.
14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27.
Fig. 28. Fig. 29. Fig. 30.
India in the Age of the Guptas and Vakatakas Ajanta: plan of Site Ajanta: Topographic Survey of Site Ajanta Cave 1: plan; longitudinal section Ajanta Cave 2: plan; cross section Excavation progress as of 468 Ajanta Cave 3: plan Ajanta Cave 4: plan Ajanta Cave 5: plan Ajanta Cave 6: Upper and Lower Ajanta Cave 7: plan Ajanta Cave 8: plan Ajanta Cave 9 façade and transverse section Ajanta Cave 9 plan and section Ajanta Cave 10 plan and section Ajanta Cave 11 plan Ajanta Cave 12 plan and section Ajanta Cave 13 plan Ajanta Cave 14 plan Ajanta Cave 15 plan Ajanta Cave 16 plan Ajanta Cave 16 stages of development Ajanta Cave 17 plan Ajanta: passage between Caves 17 and 19 Ajanta Cave 19 plan and longitudinal section Ajanta Cave 19 façade, transverse section, stupa Ajanta Cave 20 plan Ajanta Cave 21 plan Ajanta Cave 22 plan Ajanta Cave 23A plan Ajanta Cave 23 plan Ajanta Cave 24 plan Ajanta Cave 26 complex with conjectural reconstruction: original plan
list of illustrations
x Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig.
31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45.
Ajanta 26 plan and longitudinal section Ajanta Cave 26 transverse section; stupa Ajanta 29 plan Ajanta Cave 1 showing conversion of door fittings, and dates Ajanta Cave 17 showing door fitting modes and dates Door fitting modes A, B, C, and D Count of Ajanta caves’ cells, either intended or finished Reconstruction of events related to Ajanta’s development Time Chart: Vakataka Patronage at Ajanta and related sites Defining Features (1) Defining Features (2) Chronology of the paintings at Ajanta (1) Chronology of the paintings at Ajanta (2) Checklist of sculptured intrusions at Ajanta Development of Iconographic Features at Ajanta
CHAPTER ONE
A PREFACE FOR VISITORS TO AJANTA1
The Ajanta caves, numbered in an arbitrary sequence, are laid out in a great arc cut by the curving course of the Waghora river. Because the light is best at the distant Cave 26 complex early in the day, you should proceed there without delay. Go over the first large bridge and continue some distance along the path on the far side of the river until you reach the old red bridge. Before crossing the latter, which leads through the garden area, you can take a “diversion” to the left, to see the spectacular view of the gorge and waterfall from below. After going through the garden, walk up the ramp to the “Elephant Gate” leading via a tunneled staircase to the imperial Prime Minister’s Cave 16. You will soon pass three fine caves (17, 19, 20) dedicated by the local king, before you continue directly on to the last accessible complex, Cave 26 and its four wings. After reaching that western extremity of the site, you can return at a leisurely pace back toward Cave 1 (where it will now be uncrowded), and go directly from there down to the area where the busses wait. This following Miniguide, intended as a kind of “tourist guide” prefacing the lengthy discussion of the caves later in the volume, will mention the different caves as you proceed toward Cave 26, to give a quick view of the site’s development. A small light will be useful, and many people will prefer their own water to that still available, after so many centuries, from the old cisterns at Caves 4 and 16. Most people will benefit from the services of the official guides, for the complex narrative scenes in some of the major caves are better explicated “live” than from a guidebook. If you have 1 There are the four long inscriptions describing the donations of the major Vakataka patrons; see Volume I, pp. 412–423, Appendix TWO. The two inscriptions of the Prime Minister Varahadeva in Ajanta Cave 16 and the Ghatotkacha vihara and the Ajanta Cave 17 inscription of the local king, Upendragupta, have been translated by V. V. Mirashi. (See Mirashi 1963.) The Cave 26 inscription of the monk Buddhabhadra, translated by B. C. Chhabra, is to be found in the fourth volume (text) of G. Yazdani’s Ajanta (Yazdani,, 1955) For a new critical edition of all other records, both Hinayana and Vakataka, at the site, see Volume II, Appendix: Inscriptions of Ajanta, by Richard S. Cohen.
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difficult walking or climbing do not hesitate to hire a dholi (carried by four men) to take you up the steep hill and to help in other spots; the charge is reasonable. One of the most spectacular sites in India, in fact just around the corner from the farthest of the western caves (but inaccessible from that area), is the so-called dhabdhaba—the series of waterfalls that form the source of the Waghora River, which has cut the ravine in front of the caves. These are easily accessible, and will provide an unforgettable experience. Because of the manner in which they have worn away the rock over millions of years, they are as beautiful in the dry season as in the wet. Hardly any visitors to the site ever learn about this area, which so far has never been publicized. There are two ways to approach to this remarkable area. About half way along the river path described above, there are well-constructed steps that lead upward to the little pavilion (with a pointed roof ) overlooking the caves. This is quite a climb, but provides a great view of the head of the ravine and the seven falls (and the pools they have formed). However, you have seen nothing yet; you should walk along the edge of the ravine for about fifteen minutes, until you come to the very top of the falls. From there, no matter what the season—whether wet or dry—you will see the most remarkable configuration of the carved layers of rock, cut over millions of years into sculptural forms which are like Henry Moore sculptures turned inside out. Then you can return by the way you came; or, except when the water is (dangerously) rushing down into the rocky ravine during the monsoon, you can simply step across the dry bed of the river and walk in the other direction along the rim of the cliff in which the caves are cut. This will eventually lead you down close to Cave 1. A less difficult, but more elaborate way to reach the falls area, if you have a car and driver and are coming from Aurangabad, is to direct him to turn off at the road leading to the “Viewpoint” (there is a sign. This access road, leading to the left, is about twenty-two kilometers from Sillod. Continue for some eight kilometers and you arrive at the Viewpoint. At this point your driver should proceed without you to the “T point”, the Ajanta parking area, where you can meet him at the end of the day, after taking one of the many MTDC busses that run between the caves and the shops at the T point.
a preface for visitors to ajanta
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Tradition claims that the Viewpoint was where the cavalry officer John Smith first “discovered” the caves, at least for the western world. Going down into the ravine in which the caves were cut, he scratched his inscription ( John Smith, 28th Cavalry, 28th April, 1819) across the innocent chest of a painted Buddha image on the thirteenth pillar on the right in Cave 10; his record is well above eye level, for he was standing on five feet of long-accumulated debris at the time. From the Viewpoint you will get a panoramic view of the whole range of caves, as well as of the winding course of the river which leads out to the plains beyond, the location of the ancient trade route which leads up through the dramatic pass to the village of Ajanta, after which the caves are named. The descent down to the dhabdhaba (hidden from view by the forest) is rather lengthy but very easy, since excellent steps lead down to the flatter area below. At this point you should cut to the left walking across the rocks and grass (not difficult) until you come to the head of the falls, described above. After seeing that startlingly impressive work of the great artificer, you can continue on to the little pointed pavilion, and then make a further descent down to the conveniently located bridge which leads across to the most ancient of the caves consisting of Caves 9 and 10, and a few associated monastic residences. From there, continue to your left, toward the furthest caves, and eventually return via the great Caves 4, 2, and 1; happily by the time you get to them, most of the crowds will have long since left, so you will be able to see them at your leisure. One can then descend to the bus area either by the steep stairway or the easier ramp.
CHAPTER TWO
BRIEF COMMENTS ON AJANTA’S HISTORY AND ARTISTIC METHODS Ajanta had two distinct periods of patronage. The first was the early “Hinayana Buddhist” phase, which took place between approximately 100 B.C.E. and 100 C.E. The severe Caves 9, 10, 12, 13, and 15A were excavated during that period, the latter being discovered under the fallen rock and soil long after the caves were originally numbered. After this Hinayana phase, probably developed by and large under Satavahana patronage, the site lay dormant for over three centuries. By then, eclipsing the early Buddhist authority, Hinduism must have gained a stronger hold over the region: the Chinese Buddhist traveler Fa Hien reported shortly after 400 C.E. that pilgrims were still coming here, but that “the (local) people all have . . . erroneous views, and do not know the . . . Law of Buddha”.1 However, the situation dramatically changed after the middle of the fifth century. Then a remarkable renaissance took place at Ajanta, under the aegis of the powerful emperor Harisena of the Vakataka Dynasty. Already the lord of extensive domains, including Ajanta, when he came to power in 460, by the time of his unexpected death in 477, he controlled the whole of central India from the western to the eastern sea. During his all-too-brief reign this “moon among princes” was perhaps the most illustrious ruler in the world. It was he alone who held aloft the overflowing vessel of India’s Golden Age, during these few final years before, in about 480, the privileged world broke asunder. Miraculously, it is Ajanta itself that uniquely records this cresting of Indian classical culture, before it so harshly mirrors the happy world’s sudden decline. Encouraged by Harisena’s interest and energy, a group of powerful patrons—among them the emperor’s own prime minister, the pious local king, and ambitious feudatories from the adjacent province—decided to initiate this challenging new undertaking early
1
Li Yung-hsi (trans.) 1957, 74–5.
brief comments
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in the emperor’s reign. Now, however, in contrast to the shared donations of Hinayana times, each cave was to be the exclusive offering of a single important donor, with the whole carefully organized development under tight administrative controls. Starting in 462, activity burgeoned for an exuberant half-decade. However, by 468 a “Recession” afflicted the site, for the neighboring Asmakas—sponsors of the major Cave 26 complex—were threatening the region. Because of the economic problems that this caused, the local feudatory ruler, King Upendragupta, ordered work stopped on every excavation at the site except upon his own Caves 17–20 and upon Cave 1, the sumptuous donation of his overlord, the emperor Harisena. However, by 472, the threat had become so critical that work on these privileged royal caves had to be abandoned too. At this point war must have flared in the region, since for the next few years—the “Hiatus” of 472–474—there was no patronage activity at the site whatsoever. Then, significantly, when activity started up again in about 475, it was the Asmakas who were the new feudatory lords of the region. At this point Ajanta’s craftsmen, who had fled to safely distant sites for work, came back, and work went on even more vigorously than before. As for the now-defeated local king, who had dreamed of “covering the earth with stupas and viharas” he was never heard from again. Ajanta’s new florescence was tragically short-lived, however. In 477, the great emperor Harisena suddenly died, and the site went into deathly convulsions of its own. All ongoing excavation programs were rapidly abandoned during 478, as the worried patrons, except in the Asmaka’s Cave 26, rushed to get their main Buddha images completed and dedicated. Their evident anxiety was justified; for no sooner had Harisena’s inept son ascended the throne than the aggressive Asmakas boldly asserted their independence from him, and started plotting to take over the whole vast empire for themselves. Although they failed in this, they did in fact destroy the great Vakataka house, and destroyed all further patronage at Ajanta too. The life of the site was quickly snuffed out by the demons of war and their voracious attendants. For a very brief period (mid-478–480), taking advantage of the total disruption of the old authority at the site, the monks still living there, along with a few anxious local devotees, donated a spate of intrusive Buddhas, to get such merit as they could. These appear, helter-skelter, outside and inside most of the dedicated caves. But
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this eruption of intrusive piety did not last for long. When the funds to sustain such modest offerings started running out, the last remaining artists must finally have moved away. A few monks lived on in a few cells for a few years; but then the reality of the present closed in upon the wonders of the past. After 480, not a single image was ever made again at the site. When the region emerged from the late fifth century’s darkness, Hinduism was again at the fore. Ajanta, far up in its deep valley, lay largely forgotten, treasuring the very isolation that so remarkably preserved it.
CHAPTER THREE
AN AJANTA MINIGUIDE
(This is an abbreviated guide, to provide an overview. Visitors should walk directly toward Cave 26, but would benefit from a few comments about the caves they pass on the way, and will see more thoroughly on their return. The information about each cave given here is intentionally brief. A much more detailed guide follows in PART II.)
The first cave you will pass, Cave 1, was sponsored by the great Vakataka emperor Harisena himself; not surprisingly, it is the most splendid vihara at the site. Significantly, its iconographic program focuses significantly upon the theme of kingship. Although it was Harisena’s power and his approval that made Ajanta’s fifth century renaissance possible, he did not start his own cave until nearly half a decade had gone by and all the best spaces were gone. This explains his beautiful cave’s low priority location, at the extreme eastern end of the site, where the nature of the scarp offered many problems. Because the great emperor suddenly died, his cave was neither finished nor dedicated; but because it was never used for worship, its painted decoration has been remarkably preserved; and although these paintings are justly famous, one should equally marvel at the rich sculptural ornamentation, hardly rivaled elsewhere at the site. Cave 2 was started just before Cave 1, in the mid-460s, but work on it broke off in the “Recession” caused by the local king’s fear of an attack by the aggressive Asmakas. Although Cave 2 was started as a simple monastic dormitory, without any thought of a shrine, by 466 every patron at the site was planning to make his excavation a residence for the Buddha, not just for the monks. This new requirement of adding a shrine to what was originally intended as a mere dormitory continued in Cave 2 for the next year or two, until work on the cave was suddenly cut off by the local conflict that caused the Hiatus. Although Cave 2 was roughed out early, all of the more elaborate work on it was done after 475, providing a fine example of Ajanta’s lavish late mode. Adjacent to the emperor’s cave, it has been suggested that it was sponsored by one of the ladies of his
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court. Although this would be hard to prove, the cave’s iconographic program does emphasize stories involving noble and powerful women. Cave 3 was started very late, in 477, in a still-available stretch of rock up above the earlier Caves 2 and 4. Barely penetrated, it was abruptly abandoned late in that same year, when Harisena died. Cave 4, the largest vihara at the site, was sponsored by the rich but much-afflicted Mathura, one of the numerous inaugurators of Ajanta’s renaissance in the early 460s.1 Its old-fashioned porch colonnade reflects its early beginnings. Between 469 and 474 when, by good fortune, the cave was abandoned, part of the hall ceiling collapsed due to a geological flaw, and much time had to be taken up with architectural adjustments. Mathura, still active, hurriedly finished and then inscribed his huge Buddha image by mid-478. This was the moment when, due to the aggression of the Asmakas, the “Vakataka” (as opposed to the “Asmaka” patronage of the site ended, shortly after Harisena’s death. Cave 5 and the two storied Cave 6, like most of the Vakataka caves, were begun in the early 460s and were still underway when time ran out a decade and a half later. The evolution of forms that took place during this interval is evident in the difference between the primitive doorway and window forms of Cave Lower 6 and the late types eventually added to Cave 5 in the very year (477) in which Harisena died. Cave Lower 6, earlier than the upper story, was the only cave at the site ever finished, while the ambitious Cave Upper 6 is still in a very rough condition, even though the patron was able to rush its fine image to an expedient completion immediately after Harisena’s death. By mid-478, and continuing through 480 (the “Period of Disruption”), uninvited new devotees took over the latter cave, filling it with literally hundreds of intrusive Buddha images— all private votive donations. Cave 7, with its expensive facade, was intended to be one of the grandest excavations at the site, when it was begun at the start of the Vakataka renaissance. However, because of many problems, it ended up as little more than a large porch opening onto a modest shrine, the necessary residence cells being located expediently, wher1 See Cohen 1995, #17; see also Sircar, 1959–1960, 259–262, where the inscription is dated (incorrectly) to about 525 A.D. Sircar refers to the donor as Mathuradasa. Although I have occasionally used this earlier translation in earlier volumes, this was inadvertent; Cohen’s translation as Mathura is surely the correct one.
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ever possible. Its shrine and shrine antechamber are filled with a remarkable collocation of varied Buddha images, sponsored by the compulsive donor. The very broken Cave 8 unfortunately long served as the site’s engine room. Long considered a Hinayana excavation, it is quite possibly the earliest excavated Mahayana vihara in the whole of India, for its location and its plan suggest that it was undertaken at the very start of Ajanta’s new Vakataka phase. Its now-required shrine, an afterthought, had to be cut in a corrupted level of rock. For this reason a “loose” image, now long missing, must have been substituted for the expected rock-carved Buddha. The cave was carefully plastered and painted, but little evidence of the decoration survives. The caitya halls Caves 9 and 10, both planned as halls for worship, form the old “Hinayana” nucleus of the site. Although both were being newly decorated at the very end of the site’s later phase, this “modernizing” of the old halls never got finished. Instead, “intrusive” donors added a spate of their own votive imagery during the Period of Disruption. Cave 9, which the Vakataka excavators drew on as a useful model in planning Cave 19, dates to about the first century A.D. The beautiful standing Buddhas on its façade are of course intrusions, dating to about 479. The austere Cave 10, clearly a community undertaking, as we know from its donative inscriptions, was apparently excavated a century earlier, although (unlike the productions of the Vakataka phase) Hinayana undertakings cannot be precisely dated. Caves 9A–9D, the cluster of small shrinelets between the old Hinayana caitya halls, all belong to the Period of Disruption (mid478–480) when many anxious devotees finally could make their own votive offerings at the site. Such activity also explains the presence of the similar shrinelet between Caves 10 and 11. At least three of these rather elaborate intrusions had double-doors to close them off, decorative bracketed wooden pillars (long missing) to enhance their openings, and carefully placed iron garland hooks (some still in place) throughout the small area provided for the worship of their skillfully carved focal Buddha images. Cave 11, another inaugural Vakataka vihara, is squeezed into the available space between and above the Hinayana Cave 10 and its associated residence, the much-broken old vihara Cave 12. Since the still-inexperienced excavators did not take account of Cave 10’s subtly
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angled orientation, its plan had to be dramatically (and embarrassingly) revised. Like all of the earlier Vakataka viharas, it was planned as a mere dormitory; one can see how a half-finished cell at the rear had to be converted to satisfy the new demand for a Buddha shrine, which was not started until some seven years after the cave had been begun. The ancient Cave 12, its pillar-less hall surrounded by carefully cut cells, each with two stone beds, must have housed no less than twenty-four monks. The cave provided a ready model for the new excavators, who copied its typically astylar, shrineless plan quite directly during the first years of Vakataka activity at the site. Although places for the monks to live must have been greatly needed at the time of the site’s renewal in the fifth century, there is no evidence that these old caves were “modernized” for this purpose. Indeed, it is possible that the cells were never even used in Vakataka times; at lease, doors do not appear to have been replaced in this later period. Passing another particularly simple Hinayana vihara, Cave 13, we can see a large Vakataka undertaking, Cave 14, located directly above the older cave at a higher level, where space was still available late in the site’s development. Cave 14 is one of the two more ambitious caves started after the Asmaka feudatories took over the site a few years before Harisena’s death. However, as it happened, it was not begun until the very year (477) that the emperor Harisena died, and thus its development was soon aborted. Quite characteristically, its cistern chamber was one of its first features completed. More elaborate than most, it is shared with Cave 15. Cave 15, modeled directly on the simple astylar Hinayana Cave 12, had a curious and sporadic development. Its cells, its porch doorway, and even its Buddha image were well underway in 468, but work on them was peremptorily interrupted by the Recession. Nearly a decade later all of these elements were reworked, rather confusingly, in a more up-to-date style. The Buddha image got rushed to completion in early 478, but the cave remained essentially unpainted and in fact little used. Just beyond the recently discovered and ill-repaired Hinayana Cave 15A, we come to the Vakataka prime minister’s impressive Elephant Gate. Once approached directly from the river below, it was known in ancient times as the entrance to the site. Just inside, a cobra king (nagaraja), seated upon his own coils, keeps watch over the whole ravine—center, left, and right.
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As you mount the tunneled staircase to Cave 16 you can see the Vakataka Prime Minister’s adulatory inscription facing you. Its pretentious placement is surely intentional, even though few visitors would have been able to read it. This prestigious devotee, Varahadeva, who “governed the country righteously”, was one of most influential sponsors of Ajanta’s revival in the early 460s. Although he had many difficulties in getting his cave completed, he finally supplied it, at the very moment of the site’s collapse (in 478) with the most revolutionary and influential of Ajanta’s Buddha images. The fact that he was already Prime Minister when the Vakataka phase was inaugurated in about 462, and that he was still highly active when Vakataka patronage ended in early 478, proves that the site’s total consistent development (excluding its brief and final Period of Disruption) took place during the span of his patronage. In fact, he was only one of perhaps a dozen patrons who both started the work when the site’s Vakataka phase began and were still alive and active at its demise. From an actuarial standpoint, this clearly proves that the whole consistent development of the site took place in less than twenty years; in fact it probably comprised more like fifteen. Such a conclusion, once considered not even worthy of consideration, is tellingly supported by much epigraphic, literary, and historical evidence, discussed in Volume I. Close to the Prime Minister’s Cave 16, and sharing their priority location at the very center of the site, we come to the handsome vihara Cave 17. Started immediately after Cave 16, which it both emulates and outdoes, it is the first of three major excavations (Caves 17, 19, 20) dedicated by Upendragupta, who was the feudatory ruler of the region when Ajanta’s renaissance began. “Spending abundant wealth” the lavishly pious local ruler was a prime force in the site’s new flowering. However, he may have spent too much on the things of the spirit, and not enough on the implements of war. Work on his caves, including a second but unfinished caitya hall (Cave 29) was totally abandoned by the early 470s, when he was overthrown by the aggressive Asmakas. Directly adjacent to the courtyard of Cave 17, we find an elaborately fronted cistern chamber (the so-called Cave 18), another very useful donation of Upendragupta, the local king. He claims in the nearby inscription that it was always “filled with sweet, light, clear, cold and copious water”, and the fact that it extends back many feet under the adjacent Cave 17 suggests the extent of its capacity.
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Although in a few cases geological factors disallowed such functional features, nearly every cave at the site had a major cistern, filled by the monsoon rains from the heights above, from which it was brought down through channels still generally functioning today. A spacious courtyard now introduces King Upendragupta’s sumptuous Caitya Cave 19—his “perfumed hall”. Conceived originally as the main devotional focus of the site, its splendid facade characterizes the care with which it was planned and carved, although the whole cave was noticeably wrenched around while underway, in a vain attempt to align it with the winter solstice—the order to do so having been sent down to the site too late, for the excavation was already well underway and many degrees off the solstitial axis.2 Cave 19’s many superb motifs served as models for much later work, but before the hall could be used for worship the aggressive Asmakas took over the region, broke a path through its forward court cells, and forbade its use. Later on, in the Period of Disruption, eager donors covered its court returns with a hodgepodge of handsome votive images, made by now highly skilled sculptors who, in this period of collapse, would probably work for a song. Upendragupta’s richly colonnaded Cave 20, with its surprisingly elaborate female brackets, lies just to the west of the king’s related caitya hall. Having been started in happy times, with pride and care, in the end it also had to be hastily dedicated and then abandoned as a result of the Asmaka takeover in the early 470’s. It has a difficult history since, more than Upendragupta’s other caves, it suffered from cutbacks during the Recession. The incomplete Caitya Cave 29, located above the seasonal waterfall just to the west of Cave 20, was yet another of Upendragupta’s donations, started at the very moment (what we call the Recession) that he forbade further work on the impressive Caitya Cave 26, as well as on all other caves being sponsored by the rival Asmakas. In fact, almost certainly oriented to the summer solstice, like its Asmaka counterpart, it was surely intended as an insulting replacement for the Asmakas’ major hall, now abandoned by Upendragupta’s decree. However, the ejected Asmakas were apparently far more powerful than Upendragupta, who may used his resources “to cover the world
2 For the apparent orientation of the Vakataka caitya halls to the solstices, see Volume VI (forthcoming).
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with stupas and viharas” rather than to build up his military forces. Probably because of oncoming realities—of the imminence of the Asmaka revenge—within about a year of starting Caitya Cave 29, Upendragupta had to summarily abandon it. Crossing a small footbridge, we reach the first of three large related viharas, Caves 21, 23, and 24. The earliest, Cave 21 (now with fake porch pillars to replace its fallen facade), was already being revealed by 466. However, its fine carved decoration, dating from the period of Asmaka domination starting in 475, was still underway when Harisena died, and was never finished. The Buddha image itself, however, was rushed to a hasty completion (with many important elements left undone) and dedicated the following year, in 478, after a wholly unsuccessful attempt to get the beautiful excavation painted. The tiny Cave 22, started up above Caves 21 and 23 in 477, and high enough not to break into the porch cells of the larger caves below, was still very incomplete when Harisena died. Totally abandoned, it was taken over, during the Period of Disruption by a dozen different new devotees, who filled the unfinished shrine antechamber and the rear wall with carved and painted intrusions, many of which have brief dedicatory inscriptions, mostly referring to monastic donors—surely in large part the monks still resident at the site (and with no place else to go!) during these disruptive years of 479 and 480. Cave 23, started a bit later than Cave 21, shows even more developed features in its porch, notably its fine “T-shaped” doorway, decorated windows of the “late” type (sensibly shuttered from within), and splendid naga and yaksa friezes over the decorated complexes at the porch ends. However, after Harisena died in 477, there was no time to complete its main image, and although the excavators may have briefly struggled on, the cave was never dedicated. For this reason, despite its many available and well-prepared surfaces, it has no intrusions. Intrusive imagery was never put into “dead” caves—those caves in which the central image was never dedicated. Cave 24 provides a remarkable example of an excavation in progress, following the precedents of Caves 21 and 23. Its beautiful porch was nearly completed, but its vast and orderly interior, upon which dozens of workers labored for some three years between 475 and 477, is still largely uncut. Being so incomplete at the time of Harisena’s death in 477, the cave was abandoned. A similar fate attended the inaccessible Cave 28, at the site’s farthest extension.
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Started and then abandoned in the very year of Harisena’s death, its unfinished porch is the latest major undertaking at the site. The last accessible excavation is in fact a complex of five caves, comprising the impressive caitya hall Cave 26, along with its two upper and two lower wings. It was given by the highly placed monk Buddhabhadra to honor of the minister of Asmaka, with whom he had been “attached in friendship through many successive births”. This “Asmaka connection” explains why work on the complex broke off so abruptly in 468, and then began again with such vigor in 475, by which time the Asmakas had forced their way by dint of arms back into the region. Thus the whole complex’s core is very primitive, whereas its late decorative overlay—seen primarily in the main hall and the lower left wing—is notably lavish. Just as was the case with Cave 19, it appears that the order came down from on high, without the responsible officials thinking of the realities of excavation, to develop a solstitial orientation—but this time to the summer solstice. Happily, the cave was already not many degrees off; but still major adjustments had to be made. The stupa could still be brought significantly forward and then displaced to the right, while the inner façade arch was also adjusted, in an attempt, ultimately not quite successful, to properly align the monument. The Cave 26 complex, along with the Asmaka’s nearly completed Cave 21, is the only excavation at the site where work continued unabated during 478, the year after Harisena died; for the Asmakas alone could view this disaster with satisfaction. However, the carving of Cave 26’s magnificently colossal Dying Buddha, and the richly complex Temptation of the Buddha in that darkening year, closes their involvement with the site as well. They too were suddenly swept up by the flames of the war that they themselves had fueled. Then, just as elsewhere throughout the site, the still-available areas on Cave 26’s facade and in its ambulatory were filled up with the intrusive images that announce Ajanta’s tragic end.
CHAPTER FOUR
A FEW RELEVANT COMMENTS REGARDING DATING
For convenience, I have used specific dates in referring to the evolution of Ajanta’s Vakataka phase. This is because Ajanta’s development during this period can be analyzed more precisely than that of any other great monument in the world; to make sense of it one must discuss it year by year. However, there are no absolute dates in the inscriptions at the site itself, so the sequence has to be located by reference to dated inscriptions describing the events just before and just after Ajanta’s Vakataka renaissance. Thus while the sequence of internal events at the site is secure, its span (462–480) assumes a margin of error of a year or two. Throughout man’s history great monuments have generally been completed quickly—if only because patrons wish to see what they have done (and get the merit or the praise) before they die. My socalled “Short Chronology” for Ajanta’s main (Vakataka) phase in fact reflects such realities; but since it has elicited so much opposition, I offer some supporting comments below. However its ultimate justification involves linkages with epigraphic and literary material, and with evidence from other sites, all of which will be found in my discussions, particularly in Volume I. The craftsmen who, in the early 460s, were told by their patrons to make caves that would “resemble the palaces of the lord of the gods” had never cut into a cliff before. Thus the earliest undertakings, like the Prime Minister’s Cave 16 or the rich Mathura’s Cave 4, are soberly restrained. However, these artisans, many surely sent down from the capital, were highly skilled and eager to outdo each other. Urged on by the pride of their rival patrons, and by the excitement of the monks and merchants and pilgrims as the site evolved, they moved from restraint to ripeness with startling speed. They were, after all, artists of the “Golden Age”; so it is not surprising that they were soon making monuments just as splendid as the lavish wooden palaces—seen in Ajanta’s own paintings—which they had built before.
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Thus the development of excavated forms in Ajanta’s main (Vakataka) phase goes on with a remarkable, but credible, rapidity. The shift from the austere and often clumsy style of the first Vakataka caves to the highly elaborated style of the latest ones did not take centuries (as a few still believe) but less than two decades—perhaps hardly fifteen years. As for Ajanta’s famous murals, all done within about a single decade, their striking differences reflect the fact that the painters who did them were drawn to Ajanta from all parts of the great empire. Indeed, work/time analyses prove that the estimated two or three dozen artists working at the site could have done all of the painting there in a single year. The site’s excavation, and its sculptural detailing—which the painters may have surely on too— was far more time-consuming, but here too the work should never have required twenty years, given the number of craftsmen involved. Therefore the crucial question posed by the “Short Chronology” is not “How could so much work possibly have been done between c. 462 and c. 480?”, but “Why did it take so long?”. The answer of course lies in the site’s troubled history, outlined in the Time Chart. And actuarial considerations too demand a Short Chronology. Except for the local king, who disappears from our record at the time of his defeat, every known inaugurator of the site—a total of five persons—was still alive when all work finally ended; while Harisena himself had died only shortly before. Such evidence severely limits the site’s possible span, for how could six already-mature persons, given life expectancies in those times, all have managed to be alive at the site’s ending, if it had gone on longer than twenty years? One should note, too, that only a single excavation at the site (Cave Lower 6) was ever (almost) completed. That such a vigorously developing site was never finished, also suggests that its life, even if very beautiful, was very brief.
CHAPTER FIVE
A DETAILED GUIDE TO THE AJANTA CAVES
Cave 1 When the Vakataka emperor Harisena began his sumptuous cave in about 466, a little later than those of his courtiers and subjects, he had to locate it at the out-of-the-way eastern extremity of the site, where the rock was particularly flawed. This was because all of the more ideal locations in the curving scarp had already been taken. If the emperor had arrived a little late, it was probably because he, like his family in general, was Saivite. But even so, as Ajanta’s fame rapidly grew he could see the political and social advantage in “getting in on the act”; and he did this with fervor, sponsoring the most splendid vihara in the whole of his expansive territories. Despite its “left-over” location, the placement of his new cave had certain virtues. It was the very first excavation to be encountered by travelers to the site as they came up into the deep valley. One can believe that here, just as in other major caves, an impressive stairway would have once have led up to its courtyard from the river below. And because the slope of this cliff into which it was cut was rather gradual, the excavators had to cut it way back for it to have sufficient height to contain the cave’s façade. This provided another almost unexpected advantage—it made the courtyard very deep, truly “imperial” in size. It would have ideal for ceremonies, if Time had thus allowed. Cave 1’s prestigious patronage is announced by both the quality and the quantity of its unique facade decoration to say nothing of its unprecedented winged format, created by pillared complexes on either side. The facade’s lavish ornamentation, which far outdoes the work on any other vihara at the site, is but a small piece of the evidence supporting the hypothesis that the excavation was the donation of the great Vakataka emperor, Harisena, even though (having been neither completed nor dedicated) it has no inscription telling us that this is the case.
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The beautiful projecting portico, still half-intact in the 1880s, later collapsed completely and (beautiful bracket figures and all) was thrown into the riverbed below in some ill advised (or misunderstood) cleanup campaign; the rushing waters of the monsoon flood have left no trace of it. Fortunately the main porch colonnade, although much warped by the excavators in response to geological realities has not suffered significantly from the serious rock flaws that caused the portico’s collapse; its beautiful pillars survive largely intact. Their richly and symmetrically varied shaft designs, their high square bases, their exuberant detailing, and even the impressive technical control in their carving, support our relatively late dating of Harisena’s direct involvement in the site, for by then his craftsmen were able to draw upon much that had been done and learned over the course of the previous half-decade. In cutting the beautifully designed pillars in Cave 1 and the later excavations which reflect its influence, Ajanta’s excavators were able to keep fine control by starting with a roughed-out square format, and then cutting that at the corners to an octagonal format, and then to sixteen, or thirty-two or even (inside the cave) to 64; or, by smoothing off the divisions, they could achieve a perfect circle.1 More rarely, pillars at the site move not from 4 to 8 to 16 to 32 and even 64 facets, but by multiplying the octagonal divisions of the shafts by 3 instead of 2, the carvers developed divisions of 24 and then 48 facets. At the same time, compared with the later pillars that they in turn influence, Cave 1’s pillars are more attenuated, and also slightly narrower at the top, thus subtly reflecting the continuing impress of their tall tapered octagonal forebears in the caves excavated a few years before. The pilasters also look backward—here to those on the facade of Cave 19—and, with their restrained medallion designs, begin a trend that follows an increasingly elaborate later course. The pairing of a padma (lotus) in one on the right and a sankha (conch) in the other is typically auspicious as well as decorative, suggesting connections with the wealth-bestowing sub-divinities—the padmanidhis and sankhanidhis—found elsewhere at the site. The insistent “royal” focus that we shall see in Cave 1’s interior can also be found in the lively facade friezes, with their skillfully 1 Following the same step by step system, the “kumbhas” at Elephanta have 128 flutes.
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composed scenes of war, the hunt, and amorous dalliance—all important perquisites of kingship. Indeed, the whole complex entablature (upon which traces of the original paint remain) can be read as the accumulating levels of a magnificent palace structure, the whole framed by a regally protective border of close-set lion heads. The partially broken narrative frieze over the left court cell shows Prince Siddhartha’s confrontation with the realities of age, sickness, and death—the shrouded corpse representing the latter being just partly visible at the left. Over the opposite court cell, the story continues with the prince’s renunciation, where he is cutting off his own hair and sending his grieving horse back to the palace, before entering upon his ascetic search. Significantly, the whole story can be read metaphorically as the ideal prince’s appropriate spiritual odyssey, its ultimate goal the releasing of Knowledge invested in the various Buddha figures on the major facade capitals; the more unusual of these are the Temptation by Mara on the far right pillar capital, and the Offering of Milk-rice by Sujata on the right pilaster. Cave 1’s porch doorway is directly influenced by that of King Upendragupta’s Cave 17, which is hardly surprising, since only the royal caves were permitted to be underway during what we call the Recession (469 through 471) the difficult years which finally ended in a destructive war (the Hiatus: 472 through 474) between the local king himself and his aggressive neighbors, the ominously victorious Asmakas. The Cave 17 doorway, with its painted decoration, was probably completed about 469, and this helps us in establishing the date of the Cave 1 example, where Cave 17’s painted couples and other motifs were translated into the more prestigious rock cut medium, the whole being capped by the same lion-head border found on the facade.2 Apart from its new sculptural emphasis, the doorway, probably carved in 470, follows the format of the past, although the pilastered females are somewhat less conventionally posed than previously. The attendant naga guardians which now appear at the door base for the first time, at least in sculptured form, may have been favored by Harisena because of his Naga Dynasty heritage, although this is 2 One has to admit that the Cave 17 paintings “read” more effectively (i.e. beautifully) than their sculptural counterparts, which were very hard to paint effectively. But this was not the point: carved imagery was far more prestigious than that which was merely painted.
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by no means certain; the tradition of propitiating, and utilizing such lesser divinities was well established in any case. By the same token, the frieze of lion heads (instead of Cave 17’s Buddhas) at the top of the door, like the similar frieze on the facade, is probably an intended royal reference, quite apart from a specifically guardian function, which the projecting beasts at the door base could alone assume. Even the doorway’s focus on erotic dalliance, and the related pleasures of music (depicted in the panels at the top of the doorway) reflect the prerogatives of a king. By contrast, a more purely religious focus seems to invest the lesser aisle doorways, where clumsily composed scenes of stupa worship appear at the upper levels, with equally clumsy figural panels showing standing devotees of various types ranged along the sides. Even the elephants at the doorway bases (mostly now ruined, but recalling those on Lower 6’s porch doorway) are diffidently placed, clearly not planned-for until the doorways were actually blocked out, since they were not able to project assertively forward. The doorways are notable for their clumsiness, so much in contrast to literally everything else in this high quality cave; perhaps some incompetent relative of the chief planner got the job merely through his connections. Later on, after the Hiatus, the excavators would not make such mistakes, generally assigning such tasks to more competent workmen. The trend seen in Cave 1’s main doorway toward increasing sculptural elaboration, which is so generally characteristic of the site’s development, has not yet affected Cave 1’s windows, which have an early and highly conservative character. They are in the impractical old style with the shutters cleated on the outside, where they probably slammed against the paintings. The porch end cells, (once fronted by candrasilas) must both have been well underway by about 468/469, for they both contain the projecting door fittings (B mode) specifically referable to those years; however, it is clear that the projections were never used as intended, the doorways having been recut with an improved door (D-mode) fitting after 475. The same is true for the right court cell, although the doorway there was to have double panels, for the chamber was not of the residence type. The left court cell, on the other hand, had its two crowded residence cells (with typically late thick walls) added well after the Hiatus, perhaps because of a pressing need for accommodations. They, being carved very late, are in the very sensible and practical D mode,
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where the doors are simply pivoted from an inner recess.3 The cave’s necessary cistern chamber, at the court right, should also be mentioned, although having been turned into the site’s entrance gate, it is hardly recognizable today. Cave 1’s porch paintings, long since gone, were destroyed in large part by the combined action of the elements, animals, vandals and accumulating debris, but we can assume that two great bodhisattvas, like those still found (in fragmentary form) in the porches of Caves 2, 11, and 17 once guarded the porch doorway. Sufficient fragments remain to make it clear that, just as we would expect, the whole porch—ceilings, walls, and pillars, windows and doorways—had all been painted in due course (probably by 470) as work on the cave continued. The finishing of the sculptured motifs (e.g. the main doorway, the pillars, and the façade friezes) is surprisingly simple, with very simple coloring, mostly plain red, green and white, as if the richness of the carving alone was sufficient decoration; needless to say, the mural and ceiling paintings, to the slight degree that they have survived, were painted with much greater exuberance. Cave 1’s interior was conceived late enough to have been planned with a shrine area and an impressive peristyle from the start. That is, the concept of the shrine had already developed when Cave 1 was underway in about 466, so no “adjustments” had to be made to incorporate a shrine. By contrast, this was the case in no less than fourteen of the earlier viharas at the site. Adjustments, to allow for a shrine, had to be made to the original conceptions of all viharas started prior to 466: Caves 2, 4, 6L, 6U, 7, 8, 11, 15, 16, 17, 20, 26RW, 26LW, 27, as well as the Ghototkacha vihara and Bagh Cave 2. In fact, considering its patron’s importance and the fact that he must have had an experienced staff with an up to date knowledge of developments, it seems just possible that the very concept of the shrine was introduced by the planners of Cave 1 itself. It is also likely, considering the close connections with the contemporary Vakataka site at Bagh, that this shrine was conceived—like the first Bagh shrines—as being a stupa shrine rather than an image shrine. In this regard we should note that the Cave 1 shrine was planned
3
For doorway types see Volume III, pp. 110–118; Volume II, pp. 38–40.
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with a central block, far more appropriate for a stupa than for an image. This does not mean, however, that a stupa was still being planned for Cave 1 by the time the shrine was reached. This was a period in which great changes were being made. It was just at this point—in perhaps 467 or 468—that the revolutionary changes were made in the two great caitya halls, whereby the stupa in such caitya halls would be fronted by an image—for the first time in history—establishing the priority of the image very powerfully.4 This does not mean that the images in these halls had yet been revealed, but the radical change in conception would of course have been known and would have electrified the site. This dramatic change is surely why the stupa that had been started in Cave 11 was peremptorily abandoned in favor of the image; and we can imagine that a similar significant substitution took place in many other caves, Cave 1 included, even though the stupa had not yet been started. Of course in Cave 1, which was started relatively late, the shrine would not have been reached until perhaps 470 ( judging from the character of the cell door fittings at the rear of the cave) and even then the image itself would not have been started. However, the knowledge of what was planned in the emperor’s cave would of course have been common knowledge from the start and would surely have stimulated the common drive for shrines containing the new images in every cave where it was possible. As we would expect in Cave 1, which was started in 466 with a shrine already as part of the plan, the widening of the central pillars, to provide an axial focus, was already built into the instructions sent down from the capital. At the same time, Cave 1 itself was not caught up in the craze for pillared cell complexes at the porch ends, even though its porch end cells can be dated to 468 on the basis of the B mode fittings. It would seem that Cave 1’s own pillared court cells were sufficient in this regard; and considering their prominence, they were almost certainly the source from which the idea of cutting (or adding) such pillared cells at the porch ends spread compulsively through the site starting in 467 or 468, and became conventional thereafter.5 4 Needless to say, stupas as opposed to caitya halls often were fronted by images, notably in Gandhara and in SE India, many years before they appear in these rock cut halls, which surely were influenced by such previous conjunctions. 5 Needless to say, the placement of such cells in the courts of early caves was no longer possible; either the space was insufficient, or cisterns already occupied it on one side of the other.
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The only strikingly atypical feature in this very carefully and conventionally organized cave is its unexpected omission of the cells at either end of the rear aisle, and this was certainly due to a serious flaw (recently repaired) that ran the length of the rear aisle. Since it involved some water leakage too (prior to its recent repair, it was putting the great bodhisattva paintings in even more jeopardy than at present), it is probably fortunate that it was not further opened up by Harisena’s excavators’ trying to cut cells in this area, even if meant the loss of housing facilities for (presumably) four residents. There was apparently some concern that this leakage problem would affect the adjacent Cell L5 too, and so the planners squeezed that cell somewhat forward, even if this meant that it looked directly out on one of the pillars instead of between them. This may seem a nicety, but such precise adjustments were obviously of considerable concern to Cave 1’s planners. Indeed, throughout the site, it is evident that the planners were careful to arrange the view from the cell doorways between rather than at the pillars.6 Looking at the groundplan of Cave 1 we can see that the walls are in far better alignment than in earlier caves, although they cannot compare with those in caves essentially cut out after 475, by which time improved technical skills—stimulated by the proud patrons’ demands—were producing much more consistent results. Cave 1’s cells are disposed far better than in the past too. Even their apparent imprecision is by and large intentional, for it is clear that some of the cells were expediently shifted one way or the other so that the cell doorway did not face straight onto a pillar, following the curious convention mentioned above—a convention more effective on plan, or in the drawing room, than in actuality. Only Cell L5 breaks this rule, as noted above, surely because of the excavators’ concern about the leaky flaw advised against pairing it with the “normal” Cell R5. The front walls of Cave 1’s cells all have the “early” thinness one would expect in about 468–9, about the time when the first cells were undertaken in the B mode. Except for the subsequently completed Cell R1, and the obviously late (D mode) left court cells, all were supplied with monolithic projecting door fittings of the types
6 Such adjustments to the positioning of cells is discussed in the commentary on Cave 17 below.
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(B and then C) used at the site between 468 and 471.7 This caused some problem when, after the Hiatus it was decided to convert all of them, already used or not, into the more modern recessed D mode, abandoning completely the careful work of cutting pivot projections which had been done during the few years past. The carvers obviously did not want to reduce the apparent depth of the cell doorways too much as a result of this inner recessing, since good solid cell walls were a desideratum after 475, probably under the influence of Bagh. Consequently these new inner recesses, like the now-conventional (since 469) outer ones too, are surprisingly shallow, the excavators sometimes having to depend upon the otherwise now abandoned projections to help strengthen the pivot holes, which were often cut back as required by the new fittings.8 At the same time that the new recessed fittings were made, excavated niches were cut into the rear walls of the cells. It is fairly certain that this job was done in 475 or 476, since after that date such niches go out of fashion, perhaps because by that time cheaper and/or more useful wooden units were available. All of these, except for the larger “shelves” in the slightly subsequent court cells, were probably cut by the same “contractor”, at essentially the same time, since they are so uniform. They obviously had a functional purpose, presumably for storing or containing certain necessities; however, they surely were not conceived as shrines for the personal use of the cells’ residence, since they show no evidence of smoke deposits from oil lamps or incense. Lacking the pillared complexes which enhance a number of later caves, Cave 1’s spacious walls are relieved with nothing other than its four fine medallioned pilasters, all in a much more severe style than their many later variants at the site. But what Cave 1 lacks in intricacy, it makes up for in authority. The solidly handsome pillars of its peristyle, carefully arranged in opposing or adjacent pairs, define an impressive space. As one enters, all of the visible faces of
7 Cell R1 was not fitted out until after 475, possibly because it had bad flaws in the ceiling, causing a delay in its completion. The two right court cells were clearly “afterthoughts”, probably cut in 477 when court cells were so popular throughout the site. 8 The manner in which the old projections, although by and large retained, were sometimes cut back is discussed in the chapter on door fittings in Volume VI (forthcoming); also Volume I, pp. 110–118.
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the pillar capitals are carved with richly varied and superbly executed motifs, arranged in almost identical pairs. The central panels of the two axial pillars, appropriately, show finely decorated carved stupas, flanked by attendants at the sides and/or above. One of the side panels of the right capital, showing lions with riders, is particularly notable, since (varied from that on the left) it shows a fallen rider clutching one of the lion’s legs, just as can also be seen in Cave 19. Since work on Cave 19 was not continued after the Hiatus (when its sponsoring king had been defeated) this could well suggest (quite reasonably) that the front row of pillars was already in course of decoration by 471. The central panels of the next pillars, to left and right, show vigorous dwarfs canopied by an arch which spouts from makaras below; the upraised makaras’ tails generate exuberantly spiraling foliage which fills the lateral spaces. Elephants with two riders, a larger driver with a smaller figure behind, fill the flanking side panels. The further pillar capitals on either side show, in the center, a Buddha in dhyana mudra, with two cauribearing attendants (bodhisattvas?), while the side panels show lions with one rider each rather than two, as in the axial pillars reflecting, perhaps their lesser importance. At the same time the fact that the stupas on the central pillars take precedence over the Buddha images here is worth nothing; we may still be in a context where Buddhas had not absolutely expressed their primacy. However, at this point much was in flux. The pilaster capital at the left show a stupa, with a standing attendant on one left and a tree (clearly a “space-filler” on the right, and another elephant with two rides in the adjacent right side panel, while the capitals counterpart at the left shows a seated yaksa—also much honored at the site, but hardly equivalent to a stupa—and an elephant with one rider in the flanking panel. The rear sides of these capitals, not readily visible, are handsomely treated too, but by means of money-saving and time-saving painting rather than sculpture; even the emperor’s projects must have passed through the head of the exchequer for approval.9 Not surprisingly, the rear faces of the axial pillars of the front row show seated Buddha images, carefully painted; the rear faces of the aisle pillars show more “playful” motifs, the most famous of the few which 9 There are many instances at the site (Cave 19 “triforium” frieze and vault, Cave 10 aisle vault, Cave 26 painted yaksas under pillar capitals) where economy clearly plays a role, as here.
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have happily survived, showing fighting bulls on the aisle face of Pillar L4. The most “important” of the pillars are of course those of the crucial central pillars of the rear row, which are closest to the shrine. At the center of their capitals, worshipping nagas coil exuberantly around central stupas, while flying couples soar outward in the side panels. Dancing dwarfs, sacred wheels and stupas and flowers fit for Indra’s palaces fill other panels, always richly complemented by creatively varied carved images on the capitals’ brackets. The panels of pillars L3 and L4 show beautifully rendered representations of the same subdivinities that, perhaps a year later, were so grandly housed in the yaksa and Hariti shrines in Cave 2. Details such as the festooned background in the Hariti panel (L4), and also in the associated lateral panels, where the male figures wield swords as they fly, proclaims the technical sophistication and even the emotional commitment of the carvers who did this work. Since the rule of symmetry was generally honored in such caves, one expect very similar motifs to appear on the corresponding pillars of the left aisle, but since Cave 1 was constantly introducing new conventions, we find instead, on pillar L2, playfully multiform deer, with one head shared by differently posed bodies; and here the “symmetry” is with pillar L5, which bears the same motif, rather than aisle to aisle. In the same way, the battling elephants on pillar L3 are repeated on pillar L4. However, such arrangement was probably experimental, and is not followed in later contexts, at least in the design of the capitals. Cave 1’s special creative intensity bursts forth again in the sumptuous mask designs on the bases of the rear center pillars, which complement the intensive complexity of the elaborated shaft designs. The other now-plain bases must have been handsomely painted (like those with their surviving motifs in Cave 2), in keeping with the high esthetic of the cave, but the damp debris which built up so deeply in the hall over the centuries dissolved all of the plaster and paint at this lower level—as deeply as five feet even along the wall at the very rear of the cave. This is the reason that the legs of the two beautiful guardian bodhisattvas have quite literally melted away. Squatting dwarfs, painted with a carefree immediacy, with no time wasted on fussy detail, “support” the heavy ceiling beams from their stations beneath all of the quarter-round supports under the capitals, adding their auspicious strength to that of the monoliths themselves. The flesh tones used for the toes have in some cases now
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deeply darkened, almost to pure black, due to the oxidation of that particular pigment. The situation recalls the similar transformation suffered by the “black Buddhas” in Cave 17’s porch; there, as with Cave 1’s supporting yaksas, the color change depended upon the pigments, so that in some cases there has been little color deterioration at all. The great carved beams in Cave 1 join with their painted counterparts to form an impressive architectonic grid linking together all of the major pillars and pilasters in the cave. Decorated with groups of roiling aquatic creatures and with exuberantly inhabited floral scrolls they divide the ceiling into disciplined sections, wherein colorful animal, vegetable, zoomorphic and anthropomorphic forms fill the spaces between the lesser cross-beams. The most argued-about ceiling motifs were the four (one now missing) “foreign” bacchanalian groups holding mysterious court at the center of each of the four quadrants. Presumably the representation of foreign—near eastern—kings, they add to the general regal emphasis of the cave; and although they certainly suggest trade and cultural connections with the Sassanian west, their specific significance is not known.10 We only know that such types abound in the paintings throughout the caves. This whole central ceiling, painted with freedom and assurance by two or three different painters (and their sons?) using surprisingly different palettes, is a carefully controlled conception. In fact, it probably was modeled, insofar as possible, upon the ceilings of the structural shrines and palaces that the painters had been decorating all their life.11 The ready ease with which a painter’s skills could be transferred from the painting of walls and ceilings of structural buildings to the painting of the caves modeled closely upon those buildings explains why from the very start the murals and ceilings of the Vakataka phase are fully sophisticated and up-to-date in every way. On the other hand it took a number of years for the Vakataka excavators (as opposed to the painters), who were used to working on structural projects in the great cities where Ajanta’s patrons lived, to overcome their initial confusion and diffidence when confronted with the recalcitrant stone; for although they would have been skilled 10 See Goloubev 1927 for a suggestive but arguable interpretation of the iconography of the ceiling of Cave 1 as a yaksa paradise. 11 In wooden religious buildings in Nepal one sometimes sees the beams, crossbeams, and coffers painted in a somewhat comparable way.
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at building the kind of wooden structures often depicted in the murals, not one of them had ever faced a cliff before.12 Indeed, before Ajanta’s renewal in about 462, no such excavations had been made anywhere in India for about three hundred years.13 It is of course realistic to assume that Ajanta’s craftsmen, drawn by the lure of employment from the various reaches of Harisena’s great empire, could and would turn their hand to any task, be it the slow work with the chisel or the rapid work with the brush. When we see the number of hands at work on Cave 1’s murals alone—and one finds many other hands, as well as some of the same ones, in other caves—it is evident that the paintings alone, if added all together, would hardly have occupied this many artists for more than a year or so. We can hardly believe that they journeyed here for a mere few weeks work to create the paintings alone. Instead we must assume that they were kept busy on the much more timeconsuming task of carving Cave 1’s splendid sculptures in the various caves, or even, when necessary, taking part in some of the always-necessary gross excavation work throughout the site. It should also be noted that the painting and the excavation and the detailed carving of any particular cave was an integrated process. One did not finish the excavation and decorative carving in a cave first, and then turn it over to the painters. This is why, in the porches, the ceilings might well be finished by the painters, while the main doorway was still being carved (note Cave 16), and the whole porch would be painted before the excavators were finished in the interior. In many cases (note Cave 16 or Cave 2) the painting of the ceilings and walls in the front of the hall were completed while the rear areas of the caves were still being revealed from the stone. So there was no point either in a particular cave or at the site in general when one could say it was “ready for the painters”. Any painter who came to the site surely expected to do what was necessary, even if painting was his specialty, for the development of the site was intensely organic, growing according to a variety of factors which
12 As pointed out throughout my study, one must assume that the same artisans responsible for the caves’ carving, either gross or detailed, worked on the paintings as well. 13 A significant exception is a small and undecorated cave that Dr. Arvind Jamkhedkar has located at Patur. Despite its simplicity it seems right to see it as a single predecessor of the excavations at Ajanta.
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depended upon the vagaries of patronage and the predilections of both those doing the work and those in charge. Unfortunately, a number of Cave 1’s beautiful mural scenes were never completed, due to the emperor Harisena’s sudden death. This abandonment is most evident on the typically low-priority dark front wall, all of which was plastered in normal course, but only part of which got painted. At the right of the door is the once-called “Persian Embassy Scene”, supposedly recording the visit of an Indian (Hindu) ambassador to the court of the Persian king Khusrau II in c. 625 A.D.14 Actually it is merely another jataka tale, recently identified by Schlingloff as the Mahasudarsana jataka.15 Like most of Cave 1’s murals, it is datable to 477, a date clearly confirmed by the fact that its lower half was never completed due to Harisena’s death occurring when it was still underway. This notorious misidentification provided the sole foundation upon which the paintings in this and certain other caves at Ajanta were originally dated—and sometimes still are!—to the mid-seventh century. The jataka of King Sibi, who gave his own flesh to save a pigeon’s life, is to the left of the entrance, on the same front wall, similarly unfinished at the lower levels. (Painters understandably tended to work from the top down, just as they normally proceeded from front to back in painting the murals on the lateral walls.) One can easily make out the scales on the right, but the pigeon, on Sibi’s lap, is only half preserved. Beyond is the story of Nanda, the Buddha’s half-brother, who resisted—or tried to resist—renouncing his wife and his privileged world. Then, on the adjoining left wall, on either side of the pilaster, we find the jataka tale of the self-sacrificing naga king Sankhapala; he is seen both in his splendid theriomorphic (serpent) form and also, below at the left, in his human guise. The whole central portion of the left wall depicts the jataka of King Janaka, a prince very much like Siddhartha who, after innumerable births is destined to become the Buddha. Janaka is shown in the midst of the lavish pleasures and powers that he renounced, as he is preparing to move, through both his inner and his outer actions, toward ultimate enlightenment. But here he is still enmeshed in the sensuous—indeed sensual—world, an exuberant world which, “affording enjoyment of well-known comforts in all seasons”, is too 14 15
See Volume I: Chapter 8: “The Persian Embassy”. Schlingloff 1999, 1 (#44).
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irresistible to easily leave.16 Janaka’s desire to stay in the midst of those comforts, and his desire to leave them for a deeper search, poses the very dilemma which face the young prince Siddharta, and which is described by the poet/sage Asvaghosa in his moving Buddhacarita (Life of the Buddha).17 The following—a “transcreation” rather than a precise “translation”—gives something of the flavor of the verses where Prince Siddhartha is still caught up in the wonders of youth, love, and beauty.18 . . . Innumerable jewels, garlands of pearls, With covered terraces, extensive halls, Gardens and balconies; festooned with silver bells On silken cords, and fabrics from the east; Exquisite birds: the kunala, the parakeet Mynahs and koels, cause their sweet singing To resound: and lapis lazuli in every room, Begirt with draperies, And redolent with the fumes of sandalwood, And always the excellent music of flute and horn . . . The girls have rich warm thighs, And their arms are clinging. Their lips are like new leaves, Their voices, the wind, between them singing. And as they fall and rise, Their heavy bosoms and voluptuous hips Assuage the torments they devise; Their breasts are like full honey jars, A thin gauze only, lies Upon their golden zones. And as they dance, The musky odors of their bodies rise Within the heavy air. And in their hair The petals of the lotuses are stars, Above the silken couches of desire . . .
The last painted area on Cave 1’s left wall, with a shipwreck in progress, is the story of Prince Kalyankarin, who first suffered from and then was rewarded because of his generosity. At the extreme
16
The quotation is from Varahadeva’s Cave 16 inscription: see Volume I, p. 414. The best translation from Asvaghosa’s Sanskrit is by E. H. Johnston, 1984 (reprint). 18 Excerpted from the author’s “The Journey of Siddhartha”, loosely based on Asvaghosa’s Buddhacarita. 17
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left of the rear wall one finds the story of Sumagadha.19 Just to the right is the Mahosadha Jataka, with a prince being crowned king in an ablutions ceremony. Skipping to the same position on the right rear wall, we find the story of another naga king—the Campeya Jataka—again involving instructive acts of renunciation. Except for a section of bare plaster toward the rear, (another low-priority area) the right wall of the cave is painted with the Nagakumara Jataka and (to the right) the Prabhasa Jataka, both also involving kingship. The painting to the right of the front pilaster is unidentified; but one can surely assume that the theme here too is kingship. Even on the front wall, near the right corner, there is the briefest sketch of the beginning of a scene; but notably that single sketch reveals a crowned head. What is striking about Cave 1’s paintings—other than their superb depiction of the aristocratic world upon which they focus—is their insistent emphasis upon the theme of kingship, a theme that the motifs on the facade and even on the ceiling further stress. Since such a striking narrative program is different from what we find in any other cave, it seems right to assume that it was especially developed for this one; and such an assumption of course supports the view that this cave was in fact a royal donation—and specifically Harisena’s. Even the fact that two of the depictions involve cobra (nagas)—notably kings, and that nagas are shown on so many of the most splendid (and central) pillar capitals, as well as on the shrine doorway, could strengthen the hypothesis that this was Harisena’s own cave, for nagas must have been the totems of the Naga dynasty, from which the Vakatakas sprang. However, the actual proof of Harisena’s patronage of this cave involves a complex analysis of developments at the site, which we can touch upon only briefly here. A major factor involves the relationship between the patron of this cave and the two feudatory rulers who, at different times during Ajanta’s Vakataka phase, controlled the site and the region (Risika) within which it lay. The first of these, who was ruling when the Vakataka phase started, was the local king,
19 As presented by Schlingloff, there is no reference to king here, which would be surprising since all other stories on the walls of Cave 1 deal with this theme. Since there is not much to go on in what is shown, is it possible that this identification is not correct, or that an extension of the story would involve kingship? The setting is, after all, a palace.
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Upendragupta. But Upendragupta was all too soon afflicted by his old rivals, the Asmakas, also feudatories of Harisena, who were ruling over the region to the south. They, with their expansionist compulsions, soon began to seriously threaten the political and economic stability of Upendragupta’s kingdom, and therefore late in 468 he expelled them from the region, at the same time called a halt not only to their own ambitious developments but also to the work on all of the “Vakataka” caves except his own Caves 17–20 and (notably!) the emperor’s Cave 1.20 The beginning of 469 starts the Recession, obviously instituted by Upendragupta because of his concerns about the Asmaka reprisals— which indeed were sure to come. However, in the meantime, work now continued upon Cave 1 even more vigorously than upon the excavations of Upendragupta himself. Then, when the Asmakas did indeed take over the region in 475, after their war with Upendragupta, they abruptly forbade any further work on their defeated rival’s Caves 17–20; the tables had been turned. However, (notably!), Cave 1 was not in the least affected; it continued to flourish as mightily as before. Thus, although Cave 1’s patron had been given most special treatment by Upendragupta, he was not so closely identified with that local king that either his position, or the development of his cave, was affected by Upendragupta’s precipitous fall from power. The conclusion that this leads to is almost inescapable: since Cave 1 is the only cave at the site that progressed without any break or any apparent problem during both Upendragupta’s rule over the region and also during the rival Asmakas’ subsequent rule over the region, the very special donor of this highest priority cave must have been their overlord—the emperor Harisena. Who else could Cave 1’s donor—standing aloof from the altercations of these two feudatories—possibly have been? Linked to this evidence is the even more compelling evidence of the connection between the very sudden ending of work on Cave 1, and what happened at the site immediately thereafter. 20 The “Vakataka” caves lie in the “old” or main portion of the site, while the caves sponsored by the Asmakas lie at the site’s western extremity. We do not have absolute proof that all of the “Vakataka” caves were given by specifically Vakataka patrons, but (except for the abandoned Caves 17, 19, 20, and 29 of the local king they all appear to have been rushed to the point where they could be dedicated immediately after Harisena’s death, while the caves at the western extremity continue to develop for some months more in that same year.
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Firstly, it seems evident that Cave 1’s patron (whether Harisena or not) must have died suddenly and unexpectedly, possibly of a heart attack, or as the result of an accident. Indeed, given the evidence of the Visrutacarita about pernicious Asmaka influence at the Vakataka court, he may even have died at the hands of Asmaka’s agents. Since the very small amount of painting that remained to be done in Cave 1 could have been accomplished in a few days’ time, the donor of such a significant (and merit-making!) undertaking would surely have brought it to a proper conclusion and had it safely dedicated, if it was within his power to do so. Although it is obvious that the donor never finished the cave, and evident that something very remarkable (and ominous) happened which was responsible for the sudden abandonment of its decorative program, the proof that the cave was never dedicated is more indirect. Various factors, quite apart from the absence of a dedicatory inscription on the cave’s essentially intact exterior, argue this case. First, of all, it is curious but true that, no matter how much already prepared, highly visible, and ideally located wall space was available in the Vakataka caves, no new donor, during the Period of Disruption, ever put an image in any such cave had not its shrine Buddha been completed and dedicated.21 The remarkable fact that in Cave 1, with plenty of space to spare, no such intrusions appear, seems impossible to explain except by assuming that the image had not been “enlivened” by being properly dedicated. As for the inscription being brought down to the cave and ceremonies performed by the emperor’s useless son Sarvasena III, there is no reason to think that such actions, immediately upon the latter’s succession, were at the top of his mind; and the truth is that, with the assertion of Asmaka power in the region, the trip might well be ill-advisedly dangerous, particularly for members of the Vakataka court, for the powerful emperor’s death clearly signaled times of trouble to come.22 A further strong suggestion that the cave had never been dedicated is the fact that revealing areas like the Buddha’s halo and the shrine antechamber ceiling show no evidence whatsoever of the grime typically developed when such areas are used for worship; the painted 21 In some cases such main images had not been completely carved when it was necessary to dedicate them, so they were finished with paint instead. The most evident examples are the shrine Buddhas in Caves 15, 20, and 21. 22 See the differing views of Bakker and myself in Volume II, Chapter 1.
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surfaces, even at the typically affected upper areas, are in quite pristine condition. Furthermore, it would appear that garlands were never hung from the garland hook that once would have been in the (now cemented-in) hole in the center of the antechamber’s ceiling medallion; for when flower garlands were put up and taken down every day, the plaster around the hooks was rapidly broken away, as in Cave 2 and elsewhere. Secondly, by analyzing and comparing the development of the forms in this cave vis-à-vis other caves at the site, we can see that this interruption of work on Cave 1 not only occurred at a very late point in the site’s life, but was immediately followed in other caves by a situation of trauma and disruption, paralleling the rapid and finally total collapse of the site’s patronage, dramatically evident over and over at the site: the sequence of the paintings done in the rear of Cave 2 during the last three or four years of the site’s patronage is merely one case in point. Such a catastrophe was obviously not due merely to religious frictions. It must have been politically and economically engendered; and the death of the donor of Cave 1— or the immediate consequences of that event as they are revealed at the site—would seem to provide the key to this remarkable situation. After all, the emperor Harisena, if he was indeed the donor of our Cave 1—of which I admit of no doubt—ruled India at the time of his death from the eastern to the western sea. He may been the greatest emperor in the world at that time; at least no has come up with a rival. By contrast, his inept son, Sarvasena III, if we can believe the Visrutacarita, lost the entire Vakataka empire to the aggressive Asmakas and their co-conspirators, a conclusion that the evidence at Ajanta, which died with the empire, strikingly supports. Just as significant as why and how and when work stopped so suddenly on Cave 1 is the evidence of what happened next. With the notable exception of the Asmaka-connected Buddhabhadra (in Cave 26), most of the patrons went into a state of shock, suddenly struggling to do little else than get their main images completed.23 Others, with their caves barely started, gave up completely. Again, this can (in fact, really must) be read as a reaction to the unexpected death of Harisena, and his ill-fated succession by Sarvasena III, already under the corrupting influence of the son of the Asmaka 23 For a detailed discussion of the sudden rush to finish shrines in 478, see Volume II, esp. Chapters 10–12; 14.
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minister. This free-living young man, according to the Dasakumaracarita, came to the Vakataka court with his corrupting retinue, really as a “mole”, pretending that he had been exiled from his own region. At this same point his aggressive Asmaka feudatories, who had already taken over the Ajanta region from Upendragupta by c. 475, decided to assert their independence and to instigate a vast insurrection against the imperial house, surely diverting all available funds to that purpose. When, in 478, the monk Buddhabhadra hurriedly dedicated the great Cave 26 complex in honor of the minister of Asmaka, he insultingly (and significantly) leaves out any reference whatsoever to the Vakatakas, even though the inept Sarvasena III was still nominally their overlord. Within hardly a year from the time of Harisena’s death in c. 477, the disastrous consequences of Asmaka’s pernicious action had made any further consistent development of the site by the great patrons impossible. Even Buddhabhadra’s “Asmaka connection” availed him no longer; the strong bureaucratic control of the site had totally dissolved, and suddenly anyone with enough funds and enough pious urgency could put anything —that is, any icon—anywhere, even though it was by and large only the monks still resident at the site that managed to do so.24 In any case, by c. 480, the crushing dearth of funds, the mounting dangers of the roads, and (most immediately) the probable flaring up of war in the region, now put a sudden and irrevocable halt to the spate of anxious votive intrusions that represented the site’s last dying gasp. Incidentally, it is intriguing to note that the very last “gifts” at the site may have included the plastering of the monks’ cells in Cave 1 and many other caves. In Cave 1 this work was clearly subsequent to the painting of the cave’s walls and doorway surrounds, since the plaster from the cells often is sometimes sloppily smeared over the latter; in fact, more often than not such plastering was the surprising activity—perhaps to please the monks?—of the Period of Disruption. Equally surprising is the fact that no cell at the site was ever plastered prior to 477, well after many of them had been utilized for residence. If Cave 1, despite the loss of many of its paintings, is remarkably preserved today, it is (ironically) because Harisena, whose force of 24 See Volume III for intrusions and their inscriptions—the majority of which refer to the monks as donors.
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rule sustained the whole site while he was living, died. Although it is clear from the wear in the cell door pivots that monks lived in the cave for some years—it seems equally certain that the image was never dedicated, for the reasons given above.25 At the same time, the shrine’s large double-doors had already been hung when the image was finished in 477, and it is significant that their pivot holes show signs of wear from much opening and closing. On the other hand, there is not a trace of ritual soot in the shrine, surely suggesting that it was not used for worship—not would worship be expected, if the image was not dedicated. However, one way or the other we must explain why the shrine and shrine antechamber lack signs of the ritual usage that, over the course of only somewhat more than a decade, had so totally begrimed the shrine and shrine antechamber of Cave 17 and Cave Lower 6. It is conceivable, since the undedicated image was surely considered “unenlivened”—one might even say “dead”, that the shrine area was taken over for residence purposes or even for storage; the latter (perhaps dubious) possibility could help to explain why the plastered shrine walls have suffered such losses; for that is indeed remarkable when we note that the shrine antechamber is in almost pristine condition. The shrine area shows a number of significant innovations, due perhaps in part to the ability of its prestigious patron to co-opt the best craftsmen at the site or to have sent them down from the capital. However, Cave 1’s special character, like that of Upendragupta’s Caves 17–20, is more likely due to the fact that these royal caves alone continued under excavation after 468; thus, they could reap the benefit of all that had been learned before, at the very point when they could best utilize such developments. The shrine vestibule pillars, with their ponderous yet handsome brackets, on one of which the beautiful goddess with her attendant is poignantly (and conventionally) paired with a lame old man, are a case in point. Providing the prototype for such bracketed antechamber pillars in a number of other caves, their immediate prototypes would be like the bracketed pillars of Cave 19 (L1 and R1), which 25 Cell R3 was fitted out in the B mode in either 468 or 469, at which point the cave was still very much under excavation. It is of course possible that a monk or monks lived in it, but it seems more likely that it was used for secure storage of tools and the like, while excavation was going on.
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equally “introduce” a shrine. They would have been roughed out by 470/471, by which time this part of the cave was well under excavation; we know this from the character of the original C-mode fittings (with projections above and below) in all of the cave’s rear cells. The shape of the antechamber brackets is very revealing of their origins—of the fact that they were defined by the excavators before the Hiatus occurred. This is because of the manner in which the female figures are cut so closely to the pillars; they do not project outward like their counterparts in Cave 2, which were cut later, with the female brackets planned from the start. It is clear that the Cave 1 shrine antechamber pillars were roughed out before the Hiatus, and at that time bracket figures had not been planned for. However, after 475, when brackets had come into fashion, the goddesses were indeed included, but had to be “squeezed” from the matrix left when the square pillars were originally roughed out.26 This was accomplished—with much compression—when, to keep up with the new trends in taste, the goddesses were finally realized when work started on the antechamber in 475. A similar kind of revision affected the Buddha in the shrine. When work broke off on it in 471, there were deep cuts made on either side, which if work had not broken off, would have been extended all around the image, to locate it on a “block” in the shrine center—a recollection when shrines were conceived for stupas, not for images. But when work resumed in 475, no one wanted such centralized images, so the lateral cutting was abandoned, and the image was carved as well as possible upon the portion of the block which was left. This of course made the image group very constricted, since after 475 it was “necessary”, according to the new convention, to include bodhisattva attendants. These were squeezed in with some difficulty, the one at the left having no visible arm. Cave 4’s image, really a copy of that of Cave 1, suffered from precisely the same constraints. We must look a bit later, to Cave 2, to see how well and logically the image group is spread out on the rear shrine wall, and by the same token we can see that the antechamber goddesses fit comfortably on their pillars, which were not blocked out until 475 or after, when such complexity had become conventional. 26 They were of course to be decorated; but at that point not with the brackets which were finally (with difficulty) added.
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Cave 1’s very complex shrine doorway, like the antechamber pillars and the main Buddha image itself, may have been already conceived when the Hiatus interrupted work on the cave in 471, but the complexity of its motifs suggest that its detailing was started in 475, as part of the exuberant renewal of late activity at the site. Thus it was already in place, and—given its revolutionary form— was ready to find its rich expression when work began again. Possibly itself influenced by ideas transmitted from Bagh, it is a fundamental source for later doorway forms, mediating between earlier doorways with females on the pilasters and later “trabeated” doorways where (as in Bagh Cave 4) the pilasters—displacing the goddesses to the sides—support the lintel. Here the doorway’s transitional nature is very evident indeed, for although the doorway is now securely trabeated, with a tall pilaster on each side holding up the lintel, shorter pilasters, as if from the past, are still provided for the tree-cum-river goddesses too. The goddess on the left retains the familiar and conservative pose, with her lowered hand upon the makaras tail; but the other, more progressive, strikes a provocative pose and holds a vina. The overall richness and exuberance of the doorway is magnified by rearing viola brackets, projecting dwarfs, and fine versions of the expected loving couples, nagas, and decorative forms. Two iron garland hooks, the left one very bent, can be seen near the tops of the taller pilasters; but it seems likely that they were never used. It is interesting to note that when the doorway was finally finished (in 477), painted “structural” details were utilized to “complete” the carved “structural” forms; this is most evident on the undersurface of the lintel. The lintel’s design, with its pentad of intersecting vaulted structures, is of course an established one, found on structural temples in other areas well before this phase began at Ajanta. The Cave 1 Buddha and its attendant figures, seen through the shrine door, give a fine effect because of their compact grouping and their forward placement. However, this effect is largely due to fate, since it reflects the way the image was originally planned, not the way those who finished it necessarily wanted it to be. After 475 it was customary to cut such groups into the back wall of the shrine, but like the shrine doorway, the Cave 1 Buddha was in fact planned before the Hiatus, in 470/471.27 It had no choice but to be fitted 27
For further discussion of the Cave 1 shrine and image, see Volume I, Chapter 9.
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onto the front of the constricting central block. Thus, like all early images (some never realized as planned) it was originally designed to be centered in the shrine, like its immediate precedent, the image in Cave 17, started perhaps a year earlier.28 It is likely that when work was interrupted on the Cave 1 image in 471 the base level had not yet been reached. This meant that when work was renewed in 475, the effective (even if damaged) group of devotees could be added, along with the fancy new type of garlanded wheel; both of these features were copied in a number of later images, the most immediate example being those in Cave 4, as well as in the Ghototkacha vihara. What happened after 475 is that the decision was made not to center the image in the shrine (with space all around), which would have been very difficult, since the side areas (now like truncated “corridors”) had already been cut away prior to the Hiatus. So the image group was left as it was, still attached to but projecting forward from the back wall, into which, if it had been started at a later date, it would have been cut.29 Actually, this central placement, planned for all of the earliest shrine images at the site, was something of an anachronism from the start, since none of them were ever circumambulated, nor intended to be. The painting in the shrine has all fallen away, except for minor details of one of a pair of standing bodhisattvas that occupied the front walls. Another pair flanked the front of the shrine doorway, near the Buddha’s exuberantly embattled Temptation by Mara on the left, and the damaged but beautifully realized Sravasti Miracle on the right. Last but by no means least, the entrance to the shrine antechamber is flanked, on the left and right rear walls respectively, by superb bodhisattvas. Their identification is not certain, but the one on the left, the more ascetic in cast despite his gem-strewn headdress and upper torso, is probably Avalokitesvara, surrounded by terrestrial and celestial attendants. He is connected with compassion and the priestly virtues, while the beautifully balanced image on the right—probably Vajrapani, leaning upon a burly personified vajra
28 See Cave 17 below, for the adjustment of the still-roughed out central block, to better contain the attendant bodhisattvas. 29 Had the half-finished central block been cut back so that the image could spread out of the rear wall, the shrine chamber would have been unnaturally deep.
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(thunderbolt)—is connected with knowledgeable power and kingship.30 The pair is ultimately linked with Brahma, the priest of the gods, and Indra, the king of the gods, who attended the Buddha at his birth, as can be seen in the mural in Cave 2, and continued—productively—to be honored by the sangha. It is instructive to note the remarkable stylistic differences between these two superb figures, for Ajanta’s murals draw from a wide spectrum of painterly traditions. Judging from the rather predictable way in which the painting program developed in the cave, they must both have been underway at precisely the same time—probably in 477, the very year that Harisena died. The figure on the left (like the Sibi Jataka on the front wall) is linked to a southern—one could say “pre-Calukya”—tradition. By contrast, the figure on the right (like the Janaka Jataka on the left wall) has distinct connections with a more northern, Gupta, idiom, but with a pronounced western Indian flavor. On the other hand the wonderful jewels—the necklaces, the intentionally mismatched earrings, and Vajrapani’s crown containing its three miniature thrones—must have been modeled upon those worn by Harisena and his Vakataka courtiers in the great cities of the empire. The painters did not make these things up; they painted what they knew.
Cave 2 Cave 2’s decorative program characterizes it as a typically late cave, generally more developed than Cave 1; yet if this is true their positions would appear to be reversed, for (except for a few exceptions like the Cave 26 complex) the site developed fairly consistently outward from its early center. It is hard to believe that the emperor would not have taken this closer (and better) portion of the cliff-face for his own Cave 1 had it been available when he began that cave in about 466. The solution to the (apparent) dilemma raised by the positioning of Caves 1 and 2 emerges when we go beneath and beyond Cave 2’s 30 John Huntington relates them to the virtues of karuna (compassion) and prajna (power) respectively. It should be noted that scholars are in great disagreement over the proper identifications; for instance, my “identification” of the personified vajra is by no means accepted by all.
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decorative overlay and analyze the cave’s “structural” core. Not surprisingly, the cave turns out to have been started in the “proper order” after all, probably in 464, just shortly after Caves 5 and 4. This recasting of Cave 2 as, at least “at the core”, an early excavation also explains the otherwise surprisingly outmoded format of its “capital-less” porch pillars, which are cousined to those of Caves 19’s portico and those of Cave 20. But the most telling proof of all is hidden deep within the cave, in Cell R2, where one finds a halffinished and abandoned projecting door fitting of a type (B mode) which was used at the site only in 468 and 469. It is evident from this fitting’s presence that work on cell R2 had been underway just before work on the cave had been interrupted by the Recession. Then, not unexpectedly, when work began again on this and so many other caves in 475, this old fitting remained untouched, because the far more practical recessed D mode had by then come into fashion.31 With this important evidence at our disposal, we can reconstruct the early phase of work on the cave, hidden though it may be under the obscuring later forms. The porch was probably reamed out by 465, with the pillars roughed out with the still primitive octagonal shafts found in the earliest Vakataka caves, following Hinayana precedents. The interior would have been penetrated, perhaps as early as 465, since the transforming concept of adding shrine to such simple “dormitories” had not yet been developed at the site at that time. This would explain the remarkable fact that in such a “late” cave, there is no widening of the central (axial) pillars’ intercolumniation, which would be expected if a shrine were already anticipated when their positioning was established. Of course the actual decoration of these pillars belongs to a much later date, but our present concern is whether or not they are disposed in a way which reveals an axial emphasis, to enhance the approach to the shrine. The evidence at Ajanta shows, invariably, that if there is no such focus, it means that when the interior pillars were cut, the shrine concept had not affected the cave; this is true even though, as in Cave 2, an elaborate shrine was later added.32 31 Actually the old half-cut fitting was not cut away, but sensibly retained to strengthen the D mode recess and pivot. 32 For the apparent later widening of the intercolumniation in early caves such as 16 and 17, in response to the addition of shrines to such caves at a time when the pillars had not been fully trimmed, see the analysis of those caves below.
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Work seems to have progressed quite slowly in Cave 2; this was a time of very vigorous but competitive activity, where workmen probably had all the benefits of a seller’s market. It is quite possible that when the highly ambitious emperor’s cave next door was begun, many of Cave 2’s workers were summarily—and perhaps happily—preempted to forward their ruler’s impressive undertaking. The dilatory nature of the work on Cave 2 could also explain why the porch ends, originally conceived as plain, were not later supplied with simple cells, or even pillared cells, at some point prior to the Recession; the thick-walled format and close-set pillars of the porch complexes would seem to prove that they are as wholly late in their definition as they are in their decoration. A further suggestion that work moved slowly is seen in the notable thickness of the cave’s front wall, more characteristic of post-475 excavations; it seems likely that this wall, always given the lowest priority, was so little defined by 468 that it could be finished in the thicker later mode when work was taken up again after 475. Although it is possible that some other cells toward the front of the cave also once had Cell R2’s “468-type” projecting fittings, which (whether fully revealed or not) were cut away by later excavators, this seems unlikely; only Cell R2 has the relatively thin front wall associated with such projections.33 Furthermore, evidence from the other caves shows that, just as here, when such projections were abandoned, they were more likely left than cut away, either to act as strengtheners or to save time.34 Thus the likelihood that this was the single example further confirms that work did not progress very fast over the course of the four years or so that the cave’s first phase was underway. In this it was like the similarly small Cave 5, which (if we perhaps double the amount of work done in the interior) gives a fair example of how Cave 2 probably appeared when work first broke off in 468.35 Indeed, it is 33 Cell 2’s excavation understandably started from the top down, so it is the upper part of the doorway (notably just below the projection) that shows the early intention of making the doorway relatively thin—typical of B mode doorways. As the cell was more and more revealed at the lower levels, the wall was intentionally thickened. 34 For a conjectural reconstruction, see Bakker 2000, 7:18. The abandoned B mode fitting is in Cell R2. 35 However, the Cave 5 interior was penetrated a bit later, after the shrine concept had been introduced; therefore, as can be seen, the intercolumniation of the central pair of the (very unfinished) front pillars is clearly widened.
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interesting to note that throughout the site the smaller rather than the larger caves seem to run into more delays; this may well speak to the lesser clout of their respective patrons in the crowded milieu of this vigorous early period. When work began again in 475, the porch doorway, the newly designed and decorated windows and the elaborate porch end cells were all completed in a late style, as was the final carving of the whole interior. The porch doorway, with its empanelled lovers and richly decorative moldings, rather closely copies that of Cave 1, being very conservative in this regard, resisting the new ideas about formatting of doorways that were in the making when it was underway in about 476. However, the panel motifs are quite varied, and beautifully rendered. Except for the dominating corpulent yaksa, leaning upon his bolster in the central space, all six other panels show seated loving couples in various stages of often amorous activity. Starting at the left, we see a man playing a vina, while a lady accompanies him with percussive “castanets”. Next a man embraces a lady while she holds up a pot of some type. In the next a woman attends a man who appears to be grinding something—possibly erotic in impact—with a mortar and pestle. On the other side of the yaksa, we see a couple (it might be two ladies?) with a pot into which one of them reaches. Next, a man and a woman are comfortably seated, while finally a woman holds out to her male companion something, presumably delicious, from the ubiquitous pot. Surprising as it might seem in such a monastic context, the whole lintel decoration, with its insistence on gustatory, auditory, and erotic delights, is clearly an incantation to love. The corpulent and self-indulgent yaksa presiding over the richnesses that surround him, would surely approve.36 The pilastered goddesses flanking the doorway also show a new vigor, making some break from the past; they have at least temporarily rejected their makara vehicles, although they still keep one hand lowered as before, letting it now rest upon a small attendant figure. A new sense of focus has developed too, as the flying dwarfs above converge at the doorway’s center, holding aloft a crown. Obviously intended for the Buddha within—who will continue to
36 There are two “L shaped” old iron hooks still in place at the upper corners of the doorway. They were surely used for the hanging of garlands.
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refuse it for another two hundred years—it may reflect the motifs at the entrance of the beautiful Cave 19, where crowns are held aloft over Buddhas at either side of the door. A crown being offered is also the central motif of the porch doorway of Cave 24, a design datable to 477, which is considerably more developed than that of Cave 2—and revealing the speed of developments at the site. Cave 2’s windows, unlike the doorway, go far beyond the oldfashioned Cave 1 types. Like those in Caves 5 and U6, where the earlier evidence is still intact (and Cave 4, where it is not), they must have originally been cut out as smaller vertically oriented forms, typical of the pre-Recession period. Their present up-to-date design surely was evolved under the influence of forms from Bagh, where many workers appear to have gone when, between 468 and 475, the Ajanta region was in such distress. Like the windows at Bagh, these are now conveniently recessed at the back with the shutters conveniently hung from within, freeing the outer border for decorative designs, and better preserving the paintings on the surrounding walls. In fact, these in Cave 2 were probably the first of this new and much-copied type created at the site. Cave 4’s windows copy these very directly, while those of Caves 21 and 23 provide a transition to those of Cave 24, 6L, and 5. These changes are significant, for they define a clear course of development over the span of as little as two or three years. Cave 2 was probably also the first cave to have been decorated with rich panels over the pillared porch end complexes; most, like those here show a naga in one central panel, and the yaksi Hariti (or a yaksa) in the other, with corpulent yaksas seated on either side. This discreet imbalance is further reflected in the different designs of the pillars of the opposed porch complexes—an almost invariable convention (except in Cave 23) in post-475 contexts. The intended differences may seem surprising, since the compulsion at Ajanta was generally for a nearly absolute symmetry; at least that was the norm.37 The simple and uncommitted way that these panels are painted is the rule rather than the exception throughout the site, where elaborately carved doorways and windows and pillars too are often finally 37 If Cave 23 was being rushed unsuccessfully toward completion in 478—and the hypothesis (see Cave 23 below) is arguable—it is possible that the stresses of that ominous moment account for the sculptor’s not going to the trouble to work out a new design for each side.
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finished in a most cursory way. It is, after all, difficult to paint (or perhaps better, “color”) elaborate carved figural or floral or geometric motifs with any subtlety; one need only look at many richly detailed motifs throughout the site to see the greater effectiveness of the decoration when carved forms are not “in the way”. However, sculpture always appears to have been accorded priority. Although the world pays little heed to Ajanta’s sculptures, and many would honor its paintings exclusively, those who made the site, and were all too aware of the time surely held the opposite view, swayed by an awareness of the time and the funds expended on the carving, as opposed to the easy and relatively inexpensive creations of the brush. Inside the cave, the late decorative overlay is immediately obvious, while the skillful leveling of the walls and ceilings (easily overlooked) also speaks of how well and quickly the excavators had learned this new discipline since the time of their diffident early start barely a decade before. The peristyle’s twelve pillars are typically late square-based types, with up-to-date rib-less capitals, and as many as thirty-two flutes, arranged in different configurations, on their notably thickened shafts. The front and rear central pillars, not surprisingly, are particularly elaborate, for they are on the cave’s major axis, leading to the shrine. They have highly intricate decorative bands of ornament arranged, appropriately, in coronet-like forms. It is only the lack of any widening of the space between them that proves that they were in fact laid out as early as 465 or 466 before the shrine concept had affected the site.38 Surprisingly, painted nagas and other figures are still visible on many of the base panels; the very format may have found favor because it offered such excellent surfaces for unencumbered painted compositions.39 This is because this cave suffered less than most from the effects of washed-in debris, which invariably dissolved any plastered and painted surface that it settled against. The fact that such distinctively late pillars—so greatly (and untypically) contrasting with those of the outmoded porch pillars—could still be so fully defined
38 A conjectural reconstruction of the early phase of work in the cave, up until 468, will be included in the Volume VI (forthcoming). 39 The trend away from the earlier ribbed capitals to the late type, with unencumbered and easily decorated bottom surfaces, was rapidly accepted in the latest caves, probably for the same reason.
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after the Hiatus, offers proof that work had not progressed very far on them by 468. Indeed, they could not have progressed past the roughing-out stage or, after 475, they could never have been supplied with the high square bases that we see today. On the other hand, understandably, the porch pillars had been early defined, at least roughly, with octagonal shafts by the end of 468, when the Recession started. After 475, they could be enriched with multiple flutings and the like, reflecting developing taste; but there was no way that they too could have the strongly founded high square bases favored after 475.40 Thus one finds a surprising disjunction between the design of the porch pillars and those of the interior, which was forced upon the planners, and has its parallels, for a similar reason. The elaborate interior pilasters too, with dwarfs between their medallions like those of Cave 26’s porch, boldly break with the differently formatted types in the porch, whose design, for the sake of consistency, follows the pattern of the colonnade. In terms of its decorative sculptural detailing, Cave 2 stands to Cave 1 as Cave 26 stands to Cave 19. More derivative than authoritative, it tends toward repetition and even fussiness, with quantity as much as quality the rule. The complex carvings crowded in at the top of some of the pillar bases (especially R2, R3) suffer from their own complexity, and the shaft designs are sometimes too intricate to “read” well, especially in the dim light of the cave. The same might be said of the pillar capitals, which lack the expansiveness and inventiveness of Cave 1’s, even though the crowded compositions are still richly varied, with their stupas and loving couples and dancing dwarfs. The medallioned pilasters are a perfect case in point; more expensive (and clearly more “developed”) than those in Cave 1, they are nonetheless less powerful in their impact, as if in the midst of increased skill and assurance, there was a diminishment of creative energy. The rear of the cave, probably not even penetrated until work on the cave was taken up again in 475, handsomely complements the elaborate entrance to the shrine with an almost equally elaborate pillared shrinelet entrance on either side. The shrine antechamber pillars, now intended to have brackets from the start, with their attended females again show the influence and the authority of their 40 The interior pillars of Cave 26, defined at first as roughed out octagonal types, also had to be treated like those of Cave 2’s porch.
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Cave 1 precedents.41 Compared against a less forbidding master, they would receive fine praise for their achievement. The shrine doorway beyond also gets somewhat a bit lost in its fussiness, complexity and ingenuity, although many of its figural and floral details are superb. Its carving, probably finished in 476, also has trouble knowing “just what to be”, having broken with the simpler forms of the past, but not having had time to assimilate the new trabeated format so recently (475/476) and so authoritatively established in Cave 1. Its introduction of arcs and angles on its inner surround, and of a “squared-meander” motif provided a promise (reflected in Caves 26’s Left Wing and Cave 14) that was suddenly aborted by Harisena’s death. However, such new features, known in other contexts in this same general period and in many sixth century temples, show how open the site was to outside influence in these exuberant years, when more and more artists, monks, and merchants were coming to the developing site. Like the antechamber ceiling (but not the walls) it was hastily painted in 477, or possibly in a more anxious way early in 478, the work having been reserved until the final stage of work on the shrine into which it leads. The central Buddha image, with its attendant figures, has finally broken with the past, being spread out more comfortably on the rear shrine wall. This is the first main image at the site to have been planned from the start in such a way, although it is possible that the expedient arrangement of the Cave 20 group suggested the idea.42 Also, it could have been yet one more “import” from Bagh, where (in Cave 3) the groups were sometimes composed of separate figures attached to the shrine’s rear wall. Although the image was not painted until just after Harisena’s death, it had probably been started by 476, which accounts for it still having accompanying bodhisattvas (now for the first time with carved haloes), rather than the standing Buddhas which would probably have taken their place in 478, when they were just coming into favor. By the same token “oldfashioned” flying dwarfs appear above, rather than the flying couples that everyone wanted starting as early as 477; in fact, such couples are already nascent here in the beautiful but bat-excrement-stained 41 As pointed out above, the Cave 2 brackets, like those of Aurangabad 3, were cut from matrix reserved from the start. 42 The Cave 20 arrangement was wholly expedient, due to lack of time. It had surely been planned as a “centralized” image. See discussion under Cave 20, below.
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images painted just over the conventionally carved throne base. The throne base certainly reflects the authority of the earlier Cave 1 image not only in its newly gathered devotees—the omitted lions will come to the fore again in 478—but also in the elaborate pedestal on the wheel that the deer attend. In caves whose interior plans could still be modified when work started up again after the Hiatus, pillared cell complexes—presumably for residence—were generally added in the left and right rear corner. Here, probably at the behest of the donor, these complexes were redesigned as ornate shrinelets housing significant lesser divinities, readily visible to all who visited the cave, in their richly painted chambers, fronted by ornate pillars and auspicious friezes. The shrinelet at the left rear houses two impressive yaksas or nidhis, seated at ease above piled-up (carved) offerings and attended by beautiful female fly-whisk bearers. With their crowns and their corpulence, they are the literal embodiments of wealth, quite at home in this, the most lavishly decorated of the viharas at the site. The shrinelet at the right rear is the residence of the formerly cannibalistic demoness Hariti, seated with her husband Panchika. Her quelling and conversion by the Buddha, which turned her into the powerful protectress of children so popular in this period, was effected by his hiding one of her own five hundred children—the number varies according to tradition—to teach her the error of her ways. The encounter between the two protagonists and the forces that they represent is shown in the small sculptures above, while the school scene below reveals the difference between the assiduous frontrow scholars and the obstreperous backbenchers. The walls are effectively decorated with groups of Hariti’s female devotees approaching the carved divinities with their offerings, while their less pious children play games on the ground below. The medallioned ceiling, like all of the ceilings nearby, had just been painted when Harisena died; and considering the care with which the shrinelet walls are composed and executed, it seems likely that this painting, which is all of a piece with the painting of the carved images, was also completed just before the shocking news of the emperor’s death was heard. The fact that Hariti’s shrinelet was completed before the Buddha’s shrine, and even the surprising attention to narrative details seen in it, could well suggest that the cave’s patron felt a particular attachment to this demonic goddess, so connected in particular with the protection of children. This is of course speculative, but could
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support the hypothesis that the cave’s patron was a woman, as mentioned earlier.43 The painting of the cave, done by artists who were probably adept at both brush and chisel, progressed quickly once it began, in 476. Starting quite logically with the ceilings, work progressed, by and large, from the porch toward the shrine. The ceilings throughout reveal an architectonically based beam and crossbeamed arrangement, with a particular axial focus emphasized by no less than seven beautiful medallions, often held aloft by soaring couples, on a direct (axial) line between the center of the porch eave and the shrine. All but the rushed example (painted in early 478) in the shrine itself had garland hooks at their centers, mostly now missing, having been removed, most probably, by local people over the centuries.44 Throughout Cave 2, the ceiling motifs are more varied in subject, more playful, and more richly colored than those done in other caves a few years before, so quickly did developments go on at the site, where everyone was trying to outdo everyone else, and where new ideas (and often new artists too) must have been arriving every month. By the time of Harisena’s death at the end of 477 all of the ceilings, except that of the shrine proper, had been completed in normal course. Indeed, the expansive central ceiling had been done twice! One can see, where the present plaster and paint has fallen away, that there is another layer underneath, with a very simple laid out “beamed” pattern painted upon it in black. It is also evident that this abandoned pattern was not “architectonic”—it is not “properly tied in” with the pattern of the cave’s monolithic beams and pillars. Quite possibly, the patron, seeing it in progress, was dissatisfied either with the awkward design or the manner in which the first layer of plaster was applied to the stone. If this were indeed the case, we can imagine that the chastised contractor opted to just apply a new and more level layer, rather than first going to the trouble and mess of taking the old ceiling down. It would surely have been the case that the original excavated ceiling surface, cut well before 468, had the warped and/or wavy quality typical of such surfaces
43 This would not be particularly surprising, since female figures are often included among the devotees in the Period of Disruption. Brancaccio 2000, 42, 43 sees the elaborate figure of worshippers in Aurangabad 3 as possibly donors. 44 For the later date of the painting in the shrine antechamber, see Volume I, Chapter 11: Cave 2.
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in all of the earliest excavations; and such technical flaws would have been hardly acceptable to those in charge of properly bringing the cave “up to code” when its painted decoration was in progress. However, it may well be that the final word has not been stated with regard to this quite unique “double” surfacing. It might be added that, as is often the case in other caves, much of the work in Cave 2 appears to have been done not so much by single artist as by a related group of artists—quite possibly a master craftsman and his sons—who followed the same general pattern of work but with individual idiosyncrasies. One can also note how special attention was given to the porch ceiling, probably because it could be so readily seen by all who passed it. The variety of forms upon it is far greater than in the interior, with a typically late gathering of fanciful figures, while the expensive (?) imported (?) lapis lazuli (?) blue pigment has been used lavishly. The fact that it was very evident to all in this location surely had much to do with its being used so freely in this area, as compared with the ceilings of the interior.45 By contrast with the ceilings, which typically were painted first, Cave 2’s murals were far less fully completed when the cave’s untroubled ongoing program was suddenly interrupted by Harisena’s death. The porch, not surprisingly, was fully done, with its major emphasis upon the once-splendid but now ruinous bodhisattvas (probably Padmapani and Vajrapani) on either side of the doorway. They (or more properly their remaining crowns) are surrounded by hosts of converging devotees, which at the higher levels have survived in a lavish setting of cubistic cliffs and forests and clouds; indeed, the whole rear porch wall was focused upon these elegantly crowned colossi; even the divine Indra and his company to the right of the right window soar toward them. The pillared vestibules of the porch end complexes were plastered in the same program as the porch, using in part the characteristically late red brick mix that comes into wide use throughout the site in 477. The inner cells of these complexes may have been plastered at the same time too; and if so, this is the first instance at the site where residence cells were so surfaced, for this is always an extremely
45 After all these years there are still differing opinions about the nature of this blue pigment. See also discussion in Chapter on Cave 21.
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late phenomenon at Ajanta.46 Until 476, and perhaps even 477, monk’s cells were invariably bare-walled. Here in Cave 2’s porch, the vestibules were both painted while Harisena was still alive—most likely in 477—for although the fact that one can find a number of inscriptions in the left vestibule might at first lead one to think they belong to intrusions, the records are in fact verses or “labels” from Aryasura’s Jatakamala. The various scenes in the two vestibules have been identified by Schlingloff.47 Inside the residence cell, one can see a typically developed example of the late doorway fittings characteristic of Cave 2. The very deep (D mode) recesses both inside and out in the now thick-walled doorways, securely and comfortably hold the carefully cut pivot holes which here, as in the other cells in the cave, the turning door pivots have gradually ground smooth. The deep doorlatch cut in the inner cell at the right end of Cave 2’s, happily, still retains a teak fitting, once part of the door, while one can also see a hole for a latch-pin (also still in place) to secure the door on leaving the cell.48 There were equally ways of securing the door from within, with droplocks at the sides (clearly visible here) and/or holes for stoppers (often now missing or cemented in) on the floor. Inside Cave 2, all of the walls were plastered in preparation for painting, probably in a few fairly comprehensive campaigns. In the end, because of Harisena’s death, certain areas, such as the dark and therefore low-priority front wall—still showing paint spatter from the recently painted ceiling above—was never decorated. The more rearward wall surfaces along the left side of the cave, the extreme end of the right wall, and all of the major wall surfaces in the rear of the cave, excepting those of the Hariti shrinelet, have all been no more than merely plastered when Harisena died in 477. The portion of the left wall which had been completed by that time 46 There is no absolute proof that the inner cell was plastered at this same time, although the plaster mix is very similar. Nearly all residence cells at the site which were plastered, were plastered during the Period of Disruption. However, Cave 8 may be an exception, with the plastering of both the main interior and the cells being started the early in 478, or possibly in 477; see discussion under Cave 8, below. 47 See Schlingloff pages 13–15. 48 Sadly, one cannot see this teak fitting at all, since a new door has been added, which totally obscures the only remaining evidence of this uniquely remaining fitting. Happily, there is one other (very broken) teak insert of the same type in Cave Lower 6, Cell R2.
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shows, at its extreme front, the story of the sermonizing Golden Goose—the Hamsa Jataka, while to the right of the pilaster one sees various scenes connected with the Birth of the Buddha. The princely figure seated in the assertive bhadrasana pose at the upper level is apparently the bodhisattva, still in the Tushita Heaven, making his decision to take birth on earth. His descent as an elephant is briefly suggested by the figure of that animal at the lower left. Farther down, the future Buddha’s mother, Queen Mahamaya, is seen holding a tree at the auspicious moment, while the gods Indra (wearing his crown) and Brahma (with his ascetic’s hair-style) receive the child, who then takes his seven auspicious steps. However, before the story could be completed, work on this wall was drastically interrupted; the related scenes just below are unfinished (work generally proceeding downward and from front to back), while those beyond this distinct break are intrusive images dating from the Period of Disruption. The right wall fared better, being largely filled with various stories. One sees the Ruru jataka—the story of the Golden Deer whose sermon the queen desired to hear—as well as the Purna Avadana, relating the monk Purna’s pious powers, including the story of a rescue at sea. The larger portion of the wall recounts the Vidhurapandita Jataka, the story of a yaksa who wins the hand of the naga princess Irandati. So many of the stories in Cave 2 involve queens or princesses—or even the demi-goddess Hariti—that one is tempted to think that the donor may have been a lady of the imperial house, or that the cave was made in her honor. The suggestion gains some credence from the fact that Harisena’s own Cave 1, which influenced Cave 2 very directly in its decorative forms, has an insistent kingly focus throughout, while the very fact that the narrative murals in the two caves were essentially contemporaneous (belonging mostly to 477) would make it reasonable to suppose they were thinking in similarly programmatic terms. On the other hand Cave 2 was drastically affected by the Recession, while work of course continued both in the emperor’s cave and in the caves of the local king. Thus it is evident that the patron of Cave 2 was not granted any special privileges, as ought to have been the case if she (or he) had royal connections. Except for the scenes of devotees bringing offerings on the walls of the Hariti shrine, this is as far as work on the cave’s murals had progressed at the time of Harisena’s death. Then here, as elsewhere, during the following year (478), expediency became the rule, and
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the hurried finishing up of the main Buddha image, and its immediate context, to the exclusion of everything else, became the rule. At this point the painters, surely intending to turn to the already plastered but still undecorated walls of the shrine antechamber later, turned to the completion of the shrine itself in this troubled year. Fortunately, the main image itself was already carved (or very nearly so) by this time. This seems evident, since the far less crucial shrine doorway had itself been fully carved (although probably not painted) before Harisena died, as we can deduce from the fact that by that time the surrounding antechamber walls had already been plastered and the ceiling painted. Work in the shrine, which had probably already been plastered along with the shrine antechamber, would have started, logically, with the painting of the ceiling. The exuberant medallion in this area, unfortunately smeared with a film of conservator’s cement, is painted in a style quite different from that of the other medallions at the rear of the cave. It is done with great authority, but in a manner suited to a concern for speed; its borders in particular are done much more broadly and hastily than their less hurried counterparts of a year or two before. The ceiling, following normal procedures, would have been completed first, and work then continued down with no discernible break over the carved flying dwarfs and the Buddha image, with the groups of seated Buddhas on the side walls and the standing bodhisattvas on the front wall being completed as part of this same decisive effort. It is evident that at least three and perhaps more painters were simultaneously at work here; a mere glance at the beautifully drawn toes of the Avalokitesvara (as Protector of Travelers, on the left as you enter) with the toes of the other (unidentified) bodhisattva shows how different the approaches could be. One of the hints of the lateness of the work can be seen in the eyes of the throne back makaras, which now have the elegant lapis lazuli “eye-liner” seen elsewhere in very late contexts at the site. One should also note the fine flames on the Buddha’s halo, and the painted tree at either side. The hurrying painters in 478 also completed the sloppily rendered Vajrapani on the right rear wall of the hall—which cannot bear comparison with its superb model in Cave 1!—but they were not able to even begin the anticipated Padmapani on the left, despite the great significance of this pair. The embarrassingly slap-dash kind of work that characterizes the Vajrapani is seen in the painting of
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the yaksa shrine at the left rear (note the backs of the pillars!) where only the beautifully painted ceiling with its playfully varied procession of twenty-three geese had been completed at the time of Harisena’s death. However, the elaborate shrine, with its impressive carved images, must have been of much importance to the cave’s patron. Thus he (or she) gave its completion priority in this difficult year, even though the hasty character of its wall paintings is manifest. At this point the original patron’s involvement in the cave came to a surely grudging end, and new donors took over. They typically inscribed their images separately, something the original donors, who were donating whole caves, would never have done. In Cave 2 most of these “intrusions” are merely painted, the only exception being the carved Buddha panel at court right, once fitted with doublepaneled doors, whose attachment points remain. The first of the painted intrusions, all of which are inside the cave, dating to 479, would be the fine Sravasti Miracle which usurps the high-priority space on the left rear wall previously planned for a bodhisattva Padmapani. It surely dates to 479 or even to late 478, because its already-plastered location was such a desirable one. The Eight Buddhas, with their own “priority location” at the right of the shrine doorway, at eye level, were probably painted next, probably by the same painter. However, the way their inscriptions were adjusted so as not to overlap the haloes below, shows that they could not have been inscribed until the so-called “thousand Buddhas” had been started, either in this same year or in 480, turning this area into a veritable “radiation” chamber. Work on the similarly inscribed multiple Buddha series on the lower priority left wall of the hall, rearward of the abandoned Birth scenes and painted on the plastered surface prepared for its continuation, probably extended into 480. This is surely when a small inscribed image covering the lower right corner of the earlier (i.e. 479) Sravasti Miracle scene described above was also done. At the same time—again in 480—another eager donor had taken over the lower front panel of the adjacent antechamber pillar; it had the advantage not only of its location but of the surface having been already plastered (for decorative motifs) in 477. The other plastered pillar panels would also have surely attracted donors other intrusive donors too, had time not just then, implacably, run out. After this burst of intrusions the cave was not touched again, although it is clear that the monks continued to reside and worship here for another few years. This is clear from the evidence of sig-
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nificant wear in the pivot holes of the doorways of both the cells and the shrine. Although monks may have moved into some of the cells a year or two earlier, while the cave was being completed, the cell doors appear to have been hung all at the same time. They are cut in a very consistent (surely contractual) fashion, once all the cells were fully excavated, most likely in 477. Indeed, the fact that they do not have niches, which never are found after 476, and if present were always added when the doors were hung, would confirm such a dating. As for the shrine doors (characteristically double-paneled) it is unlikely that they would have been hung until the shrine had been completed and the image dedicated in 478. Although such wear in the pivots could be caused by daily opening and closing of the heavy doors, the rituals at this sad point in the site’s history were probably relatively simple and relatively cheap, for the heyday of the site was clearly over. This may account for the lack of a great amount of darkening due to oily grime (from burning lamps and incense holders) in the shrine and shrine antechamber, although there is indeed some.49 Further clear evidence of the cave’s (presumably ritual) use remains in the breakage of the plaster and paint at the centers of the cave’s ceiling medallions. This invariably has occurred where one can see remaining hooks or else the holes which once held iron hooks for garlands—functional features that do in fact remain in place in many of the caves. Such damage, understandably, was done when monks, or their servants, used poles with hooks on them to put up or take down garlands such as are seen hanging from ceiling medallions in a number of Ajanta’s paintings of palaces or shrines. In so doing, little by little, they broke the plaster ground upon which the medallions were painted; so this provides a valuable even if imprecise key to the duration of a cave’s use.50 And since, in Cave 2, the first garland was of course not put up until the ceiling was finished in 477, and in fact probably not until the image was dedicated in 478, it seems evident that usage continued for a few years after the site’s 49 Mr M. Singh, the chief conservator at Ajanta, finds no ritual soot in the Cave 2 shrine and antechamber, which is curious when we not the many damaged garland hook-areas in the cave. Of course the latter damage could take place quickly, if the garland changers were careless (as they obviously were). 50 There is, however, no damage—and no hook or hook-hole at the center of the shrine ceiling, probably because work in this area had to be completed so hastily, just after Harisena’s death.
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proper patronage had ended. After that, the only evidence of later interest in the cave is to be seen in the smashing of the faces of some of the small images in the interior, notably a few of those within easiest reach on the shrine doorway. This iconoclastic effort seems to have been so laxly accomplished that is may represent only the private project of an irresponsible individual, rather than work of a committed zealot, or of an authorized wrecking crew. Providentially, the faces of the major image and its attendants, perhaps being too high up or too large for proper destruction with the tools available, escaped damage. The reader is further referred to the discussion of Cave 2 in Volume III. Entitled “Do Your Own Analysis” this traces the development of the cave’s paintings stage by stage from the beginnings in 476/477 until the total collapse of work at the site at the end of 480.
Cave 3 Had excavation at the site continued after Harisena’s death, we can believe that caves would have eventually filled much of the scarp at a higher level than most of the excavations, because the quality of the rock is sufficiently good in much of that area. This notably contrasts with the impossibly faulted and fragmented “jointed basalt” still higher up, which reflects the action of quite different geological forces. “Late arrivals”, after 475, were already starting to excavate in the upper area, but it would appear that pressure from the established (and elitist) patrons was at this point sufficient to keep such new excavations from being placed directly above any of the present Vakataka caves; it is worth noting that the grand new Cave 14 is over a modest little Hinayana vihara, and so probably caused little concern, while the only other major late undertaking, Cave 28, appears to signal an expansion into the geologically well integrated but precipitous area to the west of the great Cave 26 caitya complex. Work on typically late vihara, the porch of which alone was started, would surely have continued had time and fate allowed. Cave 3, like its very late and also unfinished counterparts, Caves 22 and 23A, is relegated to the upper level over the relatively secure rock between the two caves below (in this case Caves 2 and 4; there could have been little concern about possible breakthroughs, since
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it is placed well above, and extends only over those caves cells, rather than the halls themselves. Nor would it detract significantly from the earlier caves’ appearance, a factor that may well have been of importance to these proud patrons. Cave 3 did have its problems with the rock, however, which would seem to account for its being located well to the right within the area available to it; this violation of the expected symmetry characteristic of undertakings at this late period (note Cave 14’s placement above Cave 13, for instance) was almost certainly a response to the presence of the major flaws visible at the left. Furthermore, the cave was carefully adjusted in its position to take account of major horizontal flaws at both the floor and ceiling levels, but here they in fact worked to the excavators’ advantage. Such flaws, as readymade lines of weakness, could greatly facilitate the removal of the rock; and once removed, the cave had greater integrity. Cave 3 is extremely unfinished. It must have been started just a few months prior to Harisena’s death, and then immediately abandoned, as an obviously hopeless project, when that crisis occurred. With its reamed-out surfaces, it provides an interesting example of the excavating process, but it has relatively few features to either recommend it or define it. The particularly wide intercolumniation of its central porch pillars is a characteristically late feature, even though porch colonnades (unlike the interior arrangements) had a somewhat widened central intercolumniation from the start, reflecting the significance of the main porch doorway. One can also note Cave 3’s low ceiling height, which was both economical with regard to excavation and would at the same time take best advantage of the cooling effect of the surrounding mountain mass; in this regard caves, which do not welcome the outer air, are quite different from structural buildings, where high ceilings, allowing the hot air to rise, are a distinct advantage in the hot season. Perhaps most notably, its porch pillars have been blocked out without any provision being made for the by now expected bracketed capitals. It is possible that its planner was looking to the past, and copying the expedient but nonetheless effective pillars of Cave 2 below, with which (considering its proximity) the patron may have had a particular connection. But it is more likely that he was looking toward the future, following the lead of the equally late Cave 14, where a new type of pillar, perhaps deriving from the (more attenuated) entrance pillars just inside Cave 26, had been developed. This
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pillar type admits quite openly that bracket capitals have little relevance in monolithic structures, and therefore omits them.
Cave 4 Mathura, the viharasvamin or “owner” of the huge Cave 4, although not a noble or courtly official as far as we know, must have been a very wealthy and powerful devotee, for as one of the inaugural group that began Ajanta’s renaissance in the 460s, he undertook by far the largest vihara at the site. It was started very shortly after the smaller Cave 5, for this reason occupying the area to the right. However, its planners were already aware of the corrupted nature of the rock in the immediate vicinity of the right end of Cave 5, which had caused difficulties in Cave 5 itself. Therefore, they wisely placed Cave 4 at a significantly higher level, where the rock was better—although far from perfect, as experience would prove. Originally there was a flight of stone steps leading up diagonally from the right of Cave 5 into the courtyard area of Cave 4; unfortunately they have recently (and unnecessarily) been covered by cement, although old photographs exist.51 There was also a large block of stone with arch-motifs lying in the court where it had fallen from the upper level of the façade; again, old photographs supply the only remaining evidence of what must have been a heavy course of decoration, somewhat similar to that on the front of Cave 7.52 Cave 4’s early inaugural date—about 463—is immediately suggested by the severity of the eight porch pillars with their “primitive” octagonal shafts. At the same time, its early date is further confirmed by the very early treatment of the undersurfaces of the capitals of the porch pillars. They show 5.5 volutes—an “advance” (toward simplification) over the 6.5 found in Cave 11 and the right side of Cave 7. The Cave 4 pillars which were completed before the Recession (some were not) must antedate—if only by a few months—the final detailing of the pillars of Caves 16 and 17, since the latter’s capitals show only 4.5 volutes. Even though Cave 16 was certainly underway slightly before Cave 4, we would probably be correct in assuming that Cave 16’s capitals, after having been roughed 51 52
ACSAA Ajanta fiche 12:29. ACSAA Ajanta fiche 12:30, 12:32.
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out, were somewhat delayed in their completion, due to the pressure of other work or of other priorities. Since the capitals of the interior pillars of Cave 4, some of which (toward the rear) could not have been finished until after the Hiatus, still show the early 5.5 volutes, we must assume that this was a treatment ordered by the planners for the sake of consistency, always an important consideration at Ajanta. Like so much else in the porch, some of the porch pillar capitals were still unfinished at the time when work stopped abruptly on the cave late in 468, because of the Recession. Later on, after 475, there was a sporadic attempt not only to finish them, but also to “improve” some of them with a decorative “strap” probably suggested by interim developments at Bagh. However, the one with a strap at the extreme right fails to be matched by its counterpart on the left, and the same mistake is made in another pair—an unusual situation, since symmetry is such a guiding rule at the site. We should probably ascribe it to lax controls. The history of the porch, which mimics in miniature the history of the cave, shows yet another development during the patron’s own tenure there. The barely penetrated area at the left of the court was to be a pillared cell complex of the type put in this position at the site in 477, but never before. Possibly developed in response to projected residence requirements, such special court complexes, similar to such complexes started in other caves in 477, suddenly became popular only months before Harisena died, and are invariably unfinished for that reason. Such court complexes were probably suggested by those of Cave 1 which, however, were part of the cave’s plan from the start, since they connect integrally with the front of the cave. The elevation at which Cave 4’s complex court cell was placed is untypical, and requests explanation. The most convincing suggestion is that the planners were planning to cut another large cistern in the left court area, to match that at the right, and thus to assure an adequate water storage area for the cave, which would have had more residents, if completed, than any other cave at the site. Of course the need for water was not great at this point, when no one would have yet been living in the cave, and probably for this reason other priorities must have intervened. But the fact that the more forward cells in the interior at the left, are raised up far more than those toward the rear, as were the more forward cells at the right,
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is fairly clear evidence that the cave was ultimately to have two cisterns rather than merely one; and the need was perhaps confirmed by the fact that the “original” cistern had to be shared with Cave 2. Thus one has a situation which parallels that in Cave 17, which also has two cisterns, that at the right being shared with Cave 16. Such court complexes were probably suggested by those of Cave 1 which, however, were part of the cave’s plan from the start, since they connect integrally with the front of the cave.53 Since the Cave 4 left cell complex was much elevated, presumably to allow for the second cistern, it had to be set a few feet back in the left court wall (which had long since been cut) to allow for the excavation of the (barely started) monolithic steps. The unfinished complex shows clearly how the roughing out of the front of the complex was effected, using large chisels and/or perhaps pickaxes. The manner of opening up the space between the two intended fronting pillars is conventional and sensible; there are a number of similar examples at the site where what at first glance appear to be the beginning of a doorway is actually the area cut out between the projected pillars.54 Evidence of the cave’s troubled history continues once you walk from Cave 4’s courtyard into the great porch. The excavation of the porch walls was never fully finished, nor was the expected painting program (which would not have been started until the walls had been smoothed) ever begun, even in the excavation’s post-475 phase.
53 That at the left of Cave 17 may well have been shared with Cave 19, although in the latter complex the right front cell appears to have been converted to a cistern. But if this is so, the conversion could not have been accomplished until after 470, when C mode fittings (abandoned in this case) first made their appearance at the site; and by then the cistern at the left of Cave 17 (upon which work suddenly ended in 471) was almost certainly cut. The cementing of the floor in the converted cell at the right front of Cave 19 makes it difficult to know whether or not a cistern was once in the area underneath, but the treatment of this cell certainly suggests such usage (see Cave 19 discussion). Could this area, like that at the left of the court of Cave 20, be opened up, the problem could be solved. It might be noted, too, that Cave 2 almost certainly had a cistern at the left of the court (related to the present much reconstructed chamber in that area) which would have been shared with the extensive cistern (still supplying water year round) at the right of Cave 4. This double usage would surely have inclined the planners of Cave 4 toward adding the (hypothetical) cistern at left court. 54 Some examples are: Cave 4 left end of rear wall, Cave 5 right end of porch, Cave Upper Six right end of rear wall, Cave 7 left side of court, and many others, some masked by later conversion into pillared entrances to complex cells.
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Instead, many years later, in late 478 and in 479, eager intruders appropriated the already well-prepared wall surfaces at either side of the porch doorway, as placement for their own self-seeking iconic images. Originally, these areas must have been intended for the great attendant (painted) bodhisattvas typically placed at these points, as remaining evidence in Caves 1 (a mere trace!), 2, and 17 proves; they must have been planned for various other caves as well, but have been either lost or still not created. It is clear that the excavators’ attention had early turned to the exposure of the huge interior, rather than immediately defining the plain porch ends during the first couple of years of activity. This turned out to be fortunate, because when, following the demands of changing convention, cells were started at the porch ends by 465 or 466, there was enough uncut matrix in front of them to allow for monolithic steps leading into the cells, which could consequently be placed at a higher level, to compensate for the cisterns below, which were already cut at the left and (we assume) anticipated at the right.55 For the same reason cells R1 and R2 (and even R3) of the interior are set at a considerable height, like their counterparts in Cave 17 or the left porch cell of Cave 20, or near Cell R1 of Cave 26RW. The fact that the equivalent cells at the left are also raised high up strongly suggests that a cistern was planned for this side too, and at that point there was still space for it, the present court cell not having been started until 477. However, this (hypothetical) “second” cistern’s excavation was put off, probably because only one was needed while excavation was going on. Presumably, the intent was to carve it later, which made sense, since the cave as originally conceived (considerably before 466, when the shrine concept developed) was going to house forty-four monks (two to a cell) even without counting the porch end cells, or the extra cells which could be added in the rear corners, but generally after 475. However, it is reasonable to assume that when activity in the cave’s second phase started in 475, after the almost unbelievable problems caused by the collapse of the hall ceiling sometime between
55 The right cistern must have extended quite deeply into the cave; at least even today it appears to be an unending source of water, which tourists can drink. The actual extension of the cistern, now closed in, cannot now be measured, but the evidence of the cistern at the right of Cave 17 suggests how huge such cisterns, extending even under the forward portion of the interior hall, could be.
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469 and 474, any plan for a second cistern was given up.56 Surely monolithic steps had been reserved for the more forward cells at the left, just as at the right, but the stone was now trimmed away with the expectation that the doorways to those cells could be cut lower— which never got accomplished; and indeed those cells never got finished or put into use. It is even conceivable that the matrix had been cut away early, through some misunderstanding, for the chief supervisor in the early period was far from careful or watchful; we shall see how this is revealed in the early course of the cave’s excavation. For the present we might note how lax he was about making sure that the view out from the early cell doorways into the hall was unobstructed—a curious but strong convention at the site. Thus since he adjusted (even if inconveniently) the opening of Cell R3 to provide such a view, the placement of the equivalent Cell L3 would not have been tolerated by most planners, while Cell R4 (like R5 barely started at the time of the Recession) is very badly positioned indeed. The cells farther down the aisles (L5–7 and R6–7), started after 475, show no such problems. Only the cell positioning just to the right of the antechamber is a bit misaligned, but this may well have been penetrated before the Recession, since as we shall see the excavators had actually got as far as the rear wall of the shrine when their vigorous work was interrupted. Although most of the more forward cells in the interior were still being exposed at the time of the Recession and were not properly shaped until later, it is significant to note that Cell L1 (even though itself unfinished) was provided with a monolithic B mode projection, albeit on the “wrong” side, due to a flaw or possible breakage. The presence of such a fitting, in style only in 468 and 469, allows us to date the cutting of this fitting precisely to 468, since work had been interrupted on the cave at the end of that year (= start of the Recession). This gives us insight into the progress of work on the interior hall, where the cells were obviously given only a low priority in the early phase. It is relevant to note that, as we might expect, both Cell PL and PR were originally provided with monolithic B mode projections 56 We know that the main hall ceiling did not collapse until after 468, since the left aisle ceiling had been fully excavated by that time, as had the ceilings of the antechamber and shrine. (See discussion below) Work on them would not have been continued if the main hall ceiling had already collapsed.
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(PL’s being broken), which would also date to 468; later, after 475, like other doorways put into service in the cave, they were “updated” to the more practical D mode.57 It is obvious that Cave 4’s doorways and windows had been penetrated by 468, if only to allow the removal of the excavation-debris from the interior, which in fact had been consistently excavated, at least at the ceiling level, deep into the shrine itself by this time. But the doors and the windows were surely not decorated by this time. The doorway could not as yet have had defined surrounds, or else the vigorously leaping vyalas at the top could never have been so forcefully revealed when carved nearly ten years later. One might note that the porch colonnade shows an enhanced central intercolumniation, reflecting the importance of the entrance to the cave; such a widening in the porch colonnade appears to have been a feature of the caves from the start of work at the site. However, this has a very different significance from the widening of the space between the axial pillars of the interior, which was specifically developed in response to the creation of shrines in the cave. This is also where, on the basis of its relationship to the shrine doorway of Cave 1, the porch doorway fits most convincingly. This doorway, although it of course had to have been penetrated early, ultimately became a post-Hiatus conception, being clearly (if confusedly) based on the revolutionary model of Cave 1’s shrine doorway. Thus it has the new (even if not yet fully developed) trabeated format, with a quasi-structural lintel supported by the pilasters upon which the tree goddesses once stood. Here they have not only lost their supporting pilasters, but their supporting makaras as well; the one at the right, however, leans upon an old man with a crooked cane—a conventionally poignant pairing. The one at the left has a tree for comfort, upon which a squirrel climbs. The seven seated Buddhas on the lintel are dramatically interspersed with the dwarfs that, now quite conventionally (and suggestively), dump out coins in the panels between them. Above, three seated Buddhas under arches are flanked by two other arches containing loving couples. Such a non-conflictive contrast is further elaborated by the different group of standing and flying lovers below. Again reflecting the influence of 57 These porch cells were probably penetrated by 466, before pillared complexes for the porch ends became popular; it is likely that, had time allowed, they were have been thus converted after 475.
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the Cave 1 shrine doorway, vyalas rear forth at the upper corners. At the base there were once two nagas, now nothing more than remnants, again following the Cave 1 model, and not yet as fully projecting as in Cave 23. Throughout this rather jumbled conception, which produced no progeny, and in fact was never quite finished, the details—often superb—are better than the whole. The original windows of Cave 4 must have been the smaller and vertically oriented early types also originally planned (and also later transformed) in Cave 5 and Cave Upper 6.58 They were easily enlarged at a later date, and then decorated with post-Hiatus motifs. The shutters could then be conveniently located within, as was never the case before the Recession. After work on the cave had started up again, the window borders were decorated as in all of the late porches at the site. The fine windows of Caves 21 (476), 23 (476–7), 24 (477), 5 (477), and 26LW (477–478) are all so standardized in design that it would hard to put them in a sequence, except by considering the date of their porch contexts. From that evidence, we can establish (a bit tentatively) a trend from single standing male/female figures in Cave 21, to a transitional type in Cave 23, and finally two active dwarfs on each side in Caves 5 and 26LW. The window of Cave 4, with its attended females, fits most convincingly (even if not with absolute certainty) between those of Caves 21 and 23, suggesting a date of 476 or 477, which is highly reasonable. Cave 4 is so large that one cannot believe that its interior had originally been conceived as astylar, as were most of the earliest (and smaller) caves at the site. This would suggest that Cave 4’ interior was not begun until the Prime Minister’s authoritative plan for Cave 16—the model, with its strong peristyle, for the basic plan of many later caves—had made its impact upon the site; and this impact may have been magnified in 466, by which time the Prime Minister had surely decided to transform what was to have been a mere dormitory into a shrine. Indeed, he probably decided to do this to emulate his emperor’s plans for the authoritative Cave 1, with which, as prime minister, he must have been intimately familiar. Even though in 466 Cave 1 had barely been started, the fact that it was going to have a shrine—the first conceived even if not the first excavated 58 The windows of Cave 2 (and probably of Cave 21) would have also been of the early type when first penetrated, but the evidence for this is missing, since they have been totally incorporated into the wider later windows.
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at the site—clearly had a transforming impact on all of the site’s donors, probably the highly placed donor of Cave 16 most of all. Thus, while the excavation of the new Cave 1 itself could go on with untroubled consistency, the plans for every one of the many caves already started (see Time Chart) had to be shifted drastically in mid course. Although none of the early caves had been started with the idea that they would house a Buddha image (or probably, as first conceived but not realized, a stupa), and although the idea was soon enthusiastically accepted, it appears that, along with the prestigious Cave 16, the other large early caves began the transformation earlier than the smaller caves. This seems evident, since as we shall see in studying them, shrines were not started in any of the smaller caves until sometime in 468; had such a transformation been started when the idea first hit the site in 466, shrines in these lesser caves could surely have been completed prior to the Recession; but this was not the case. The idea of drastically transforming the caves was first developed at the site by the planners of the prime minister’s prestigious Cave 16, for it appears to be the first excavation at the site where it is evident that a shrine was intended by the time the front row of the peristyle was finally being finished in course of excavation. This is because Cave 16’s front center (axial) pillars are spaced wider than the others, which would never have been done if a shrine had not been planned by the time they were finished. In “peristyle” caves conceived and started before 466 (Caves 2, 4, Lower 6, Upper 6, 16, 17 and Ghatotkacha vihara) there must originally have been no stressing of the central axis; there would have been no need to do this, since at that time no shrine was planned. Indeed, this is confirmed by the example of those caves in which, because excavation had proceeded too far by the time a shrine was to be added, it was too late to widen the intercolumniation between the central pillars; therefore, although they have shrines, they have no axial emphasis, at least of this type. (See plans of Caves 2, Lower 6, and Upper 6) Of course it can be assumed that in 466, just as the new concept developed, the center pillars of the front row of Cave 4 were still only roughed out (with plenty of extra matrix on the shafts), making it possible to widen their intercolumniation by what carpenters call “cheating” or “squeezing’; that is, the space between them could be slightly expanded as they were being finally finished, thus achieving
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a proper axial emphasis. Or it is perhaps equally possible that in 466, there was still time to adjust the central spacing of the peristyle’s front row, given early excavation procedures, whereby the general plane from which the six pillars would be cut may well have been established before their positioning was at last finalized and their cutting started.59 The great peristyle of Cave 4, as originally planned, was to be entirely composed of relatively simple pillar types, similar in shape to those in the very slightly earlier Cave 16 or 17 variety. However, it may be surprising that the interior pillars of Cave 4 all show 5.5 volutes under the side extensions, being consistent in design with those of the porch, whereas the porch pillars of the “earlier” Caves 16 and 17 have the later arrangement of 4.5. However, as explained in connection with Cave 4, the 5.5 pillars of Cave 4’s porch must have been defined some weeks or months earlier, while the finishing work on the pillar capitals of Caves 16 and 17 was somewhat delayed because the planners had other priorities. The walls of the side aisles were also gradually being smoothed down, starting at the top level, and proceeding toward the rear, while the more forward cells were also penetrated. However, as noted above, only the most forward cell of all (the unfinished Cell L1) was exposed sufficiently by the time work was interrupted by the Hiatus (end of 468) to be provided with a B mode fitting, as was also the case in the two porch cells; significantly, because of the onset of the Recession, none of these B mode fittings were ever used.60 Because the excavators had in fact reached the very rear of the shrine by the time of the Recession (end of 468), it is clear that work progressed faster on the hall itself than on the cells. By this time it is clear that the ribbed capitals of the pillars of both the front and the two side aisle had already reached their present form, although they probably still were somewhat rough, particularly at the floor level. It is reasonable to assume that, considering the overall progress of work in the cave, the front pillars were still being worked on in 466 when, responding to the revolutionary new idea
59 For an example, note how such a plane was established before the porch colonnade of Cave 23 was begun. See below, Cave 23. 60 The front wall of the cave, typically trimmed down later than other elements, would probably have been considerably reduced in thickness, had work not been interrupted by the Recession. However, after 475, when thicker elements were the rule, it would appear that the original thickness was preserved.
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that shrines should be added to all viharas then underway, it was deemed necessary to widen the intercolumniation of the central pair in order to provide an axial focus. Whether the front colonnade was still so undefined that this could be immediately accomplished, or whether (as noted above) a degree of “cheating” was required, it is clear that an axial focus was established almost immediately after the new shrine concept impacted upon the site in 466.61 The chief concern, from 466 on, was to reach the shrine and of course the Buddha image within it—a new and revolutionary conception which now dramatically impacted upon the site. Surely in all of the major caves then underway the excavation of the shrine and its Buddha image became the priority concern while, as noted above, the lesser patrons within the next year or two were following suit. Nonetheless, despite these intentions, no Buddha image was actually completed until early 469, and most (as here) were not revealed until much later. As work gradually progressed rearward in Cave 4, the newly conceived shrine antechamber was soon reached by the excavators. Of course, they were generally cutting the cave at a level well above the floor, working from the ceiling downward, as they gradually exposed the more rearward areas. (The half-finished interior of Cave 24 gives some idea of how work also must have progressed on Cave 4.) The excavators, when they reached the antechamber, probably in 467, roughed out the two fronting pillars in that area. It is significant to note that they left little or no matrix near the tops of these pillars, from which later brackets (decorated with goddesses) could be defined. At this date (467), there was no reason to do so since such brackets never were cut in pre-recession antechambers. This is an observation of importance, for since such antechamber brackets had become conventional only after 475, their absence here is clear evidence that the shrine antechamber pillars had already been roughed out by 468, and that there was no way to later provide them with monolithic brackets.62 61 The widening of the intercolumniation of the central porch pillars has no necessary connection with developing an axial focus for the shrine, even though it contributed to it. This widening, which is evident from the very inauguration of the site, is to emphasize the porch doorway. 62 Such brackets were indeed “squeezed” in, in the case of Cave 1’s antechamber pillars, but with difficulty. Furthermore, the Cave 4 antechamber pillars may have already been octagonal in shape, rather than still squared, when abandoned.
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Shortly after the shrine antechamber was begun, the excavators were already opening up the shrine, still retaining the old, even if outmoded, format, with an image block located in the shrine’s center. Such a format was not only appropriate but conventional for stupas, which have no “front” and which encouraged circumambulation by their form. But the same format, retained in deference to tradition (which often means a lack of serious thought) was highly inappropriate for shrine images, which are by and large attended from the front. Especially when, from 470 on, bodhisattva attendants were “required” as part of the Buddha group, the images in Caves 1 and 4 and even 17 suffered from a serious and unnecessary constriction, because they had to be cut out of the obsolete central blocks; indeed, it was not only in images started after 475, that this outworn convention was finally rejected.63 When work broke off in Cave 4 at the end of 468, the excavators, working typically from the ceiling level down, had already started to reveal the front and the two sides of the intended central block. The “last cut” which they made was the deep “notch” at the extreme upper right, representing the start of a further stage in the conventional step by step exposure of the lateral “corridor” on the left, a process which, had time allowed, would have finally revealed the whole image block in the center of the chamber. Of course the originally intended image had not been started at this time, but in any case it would have been relatively simple, without attendant bodhisattvas, so it would have fitted onto the block without difficulty, in the manner of the early images in Caves Lower 6 and 11. At this point, at the end of 468, all work suddenly stopped on the cave, as per the order of the local king. During the subsequent Recession and the time when work started up again in 475, with the Asmaka “restoration”, a catastrophe occurred. A portion of the finished hall ceiling collapsed, revealing a pervasive “wavy” flaw, its surface in fact being an impression of the upper surface of the nowdetached basalt layer beneath, the troubling stratification of course caused by the way that the lava flow was laid down layer by layer, with lines of poor adhesion in between, some sixty million years ago.
63 The pre-475 images in Caves 7, 15, and 20 are not constrained by such blocks, but this is only because they were all so rushed toward completion that they were not “properly” revealed.
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It was clear that still other portions of the central ceiling might well also collapse; in fact the peculiar character of the individualistic flaw made this almost inevitable.64 Therefore, understandably, the patron gave the order to raise the ceiling up to the level of the flaw, not only in the central hall, but also in the front and side aisles, even though in these latter areas the span was so small and the stone so strong and thick that their original ceilings would surely have stayed intact in any case. One rather suspects that this clearly excessive reaction to the problem—the absurd raising of the aisle ceilings too—was a response sent down by the patron from the city, and that he did not realize how unnecessary it was to remove the front and side aisle ceilings, with their modest span. Or perhaps his contractors gave him the wrong advice, for there were of course many reasons to “make work” at the site.65 However, the main hall ceiling, at least at the front and central sections, was quite a different matter, and we can still see in the front right corner how, probably starting immediately in 475, the workmen were chiseling to still intact areas away, often as much for consistency as for safety.66 The collapse of the central ceiling can hardly be considered the fault of the planners, for when they started Cave 4, they knew that the flaw in question was there; they could see it running along the upper level of the façade. However, from what they could ascertain from the evidence on the façade, it would be a good four feet above the expected hall ceiling level in the hall, so should have caused no problem. However, as fate would have it, this particular flaw, by the time that (quite unseen) it had entered the hall, was starting on a gradual but insistent downward course. The gradual angle of its 64 There is no way of knowing how large a portion of the ceiling fell, but we can assume that it was in the “unsupported” center of the cave, presumably in the area where the space between the ceiling and the plane of the flaw was diminishing. 65 Ajanta, as a site, still suffers from bad, or profitable, advice today, as is evident from the obsessive creation of often unnecessary walls and pathways into the site, and unnecessarily huge bridges, all done under contract, often without proper consideration. The vast expansion of the already usable “road” up to Cave 1— called by some, “National Highway #3”—was undertaken exactly at the time when the “expert committee” had decided to reduce the use of that approach. The onerous task of raising the front and side aisle ceilings of Cave 4 required the removal of tons of rock, all of it above the heads of the workmen, making it all the more time-consuming. 66 The ceiling in the front right corner did not fall, and is so thick and so connected to the matrix over the pillars, that its breakage was well nigh inconceivable. Nonetheless it was being cut away after 475—a process never finished.
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descent can easily be traced, visible first above and then “etched upon” the hall-side face of the beam over the left aisle pillars. Finally, at the point where it reaches Pillar L6 it can be seen plummeting soberingly (but in fact quite safely) downward. In other words, although the already defined original ceiling, near the front, was well below the undulating plane of the flaw, by the time the ceiling reached about midway in the hall the space between the ceiling and the flaw had diminished to virtually nothing. With an “unsupported” ceiling expanse of nearly sixty feet, this heralded a potential disaster. But the remarkable thing is that the whole hall ceiling got completed, by 468, without any collapse whatsoever. We know this because, as we will show, the left aisle ceiling gives clear evidence of having been completed prior to 468, and if the less important aisle ceiling had been finished, it is certain that the high priority main hall ceiling would have been finished too. Nor would work on the ceiling in the shrine antechamber and shrine have been continued to completion without concern in 468, as was clearly the case, if the ceiling of the main hall had fallen in the interim. Since the original left aisle ceiling was fully finished by 468, as the smoothing of the wall beneath reveals, it is evident that the main hall ceiling had already been completed by that time; if the latter’s collapse had occurred before 468, the lower-priority work on the left aisle ceiling would never have gone on. Although the left aisle ceiling itself was cut away in the revisions made to the cave after 475, its original level is clearly revealed by the smoothed character of the early wall beneath it, at least at the upper levels, which continues without a break up to the rear of the aisle. Thus the evidence is indisputable: the whole original ceiling of the central hall was still intact by 468, along with the original ceiling of the left aisle. Undoubtedly the old right aisle ceiling was essentially finished too, but the evidence is less clear, because the right aisle wall had not been so revealingly smoothed as that of the left aisle. It is hardly surprising that the front aisle ceiling had also been finished, probably well before 468. It was compulsively (and unnecessarily) raised too, after 475, as traces of the old ceiling level show.67 67 The division between the old ceiling and the new is obvious, because the earlier wall surface, at least at the upper level, was already fully smoothed, whereas the later cutting which extended the wall surface up to the new ceiling level was not trimmed so completely.
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This was presumably done for security, even though it is inconceivable that the thick layer of consistent matrix above it (and below the flaw) could possibly have fallen.68 As for the rear aisle ceiling, to say nothing of that of the shrine, they were already at an elevated level, because of the angling upward of the whole early ceiling; and of course both were well above and beyond the problems caused by the fickle flaw, which took a downward course as it continued rearward.69 As to why the ceiling “held”, at least temporarily, this again reflects the peculiar nature of the flaw. When it started its plummeting course toward the floor of the cave, near Pillar L6, it had turned into a vertical crack, instead of a horizontally angled flaw; and vertical cracks, while hardly welcome and which sometimes leaked, were not inclined to disaster, since the matrix on either side would have a solid consistency. Thus by the time the plane of the ceiling reached the plane of the flaw, the flaw had already started its downward descent, while the space between the ceiling and the flaw was still thick enough to have at least some holding power. Had the flaw merely continued at its slowly (rather than abruptly) angling downward, the space separating it and the ceiling would have diminished to effectively “nothing” and it would have started collapsing along the points where the two planes coincided even as the carving of the ceiling was in process. As it was, there were at least a few inches of thickness which served (at least temporarily) to keep the ceiling intact, plus whatever benefit the weak adhesion between the upper and lower fault layers would offer. In any case, the ceiling held, at least for the moment, its precarious stability being augmented by the fact that the undulating fault plane varied in its position from left to right across the hall, and may have provided more security at some points than at others. Be that as it may, we can happily report that no one was killed when, in fact, the main hall ceiling did in fact collapse. But this it of course eventually did, sometime between 468 (when all the original ceilings were still intact) and 475, when the order was given, in
68 The porch ceiling was not raised, and of course it did not need to be; but the reason may be only that priority was given to such work in the interior. 69 It seems likely, however, that both of these areas were leveled, after 475, in the compulsion to improve upon the “primitive” early angling of all of the early ceilings in the cave.
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response to the catastrophe, to raise the ceiling levels through all of the more forward parts of the cave. And revealingly, the minute this was started, it gives us insights into the difference between the quite undisciplined original excavation procedures, and those evidenced when the properly adjusted later ceiling levels were established above the worrisome fault plane. If we look at the wall in the left aisle, we can see that it was in the process of being carefully smoothed, starting from the upper levels downward, when work was interrupted in 468. And furthermore, we can see how the excavators, with an improved technology and probably under the eye of a more watchful planner, established the new ceiling level after 475. The new ceiling level, as is most evident in the left aisle, was creating by cutting away the old ceiling, until the desired new level was reached. All along the wall, above the level of the removed old ceiling, we can see the rough area (which was never finally smoothed) between the two. Furthermore, we can see that, whereas the new ceiling is perfectly level (discipline was greatly improved after 475), the old ceiling angled almost startlingly upward. The roughness of the post-475 extension visible along the top of the left aisle wall clearly reveals that the space between the two ceiling levels changes from over three feet at the front of the aisle, to hardly more than one foot at the rear of the aisle. This is the same upward angling that characterized the original main hall ceiling, although the various excisions and adjustments make this difficult to see very clearly now. When we seek an explanation for this surprising angling (which has nothing to do with the problems caused by the faults) it will tell us much about early excavation procedures, not just in Cave 4, but throughout the site. When the excavators of Cave 4, faced with the blank face of the cliff, started their work, no one had ever carved a cave in a mountain for over 300 years; so they had neither developed procedures, sufficient discipline, nor knowledgeable supervision. When the workers started exposing the excavation, working from the ceiling level downward, they little by little, even grain by grain, innocently cut away a bit too much of the matrix; and once taken off it could not be restored. In fact, the evidence of Cave 4 suggests that either they did not know that their ceiling level was little by little angling upward, or they did not care and just kept on going in the same way. After all, the angling is very subtle—at least this would have been so in the early stages of the ceiling’s exposure,
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before the capitals of the aisle pillars, at first merely roughed out, were finally defined, making the imprecision more obvious. As it turned out, by 468, when they reached the rear of the shrine, this upward course of the original ceiling rose well over four feet! And no one seems to have been concerned. By the same token, and for the same reason, the side walls of the cave gradually angle outward; no one at this early stage had thought to take a string 70’ long—the width of the front of the hall—and to use it to keep the vagaries of the excavators in check as work proceeded toward the back. Such evidences tell us much about the problems which the hard-pressed workers, armed with little more than inexperience, faced; and this is by no means characteristic of work in Cave 4 alone. One can, in general, identify an “early” cave (like 17, or 4, or 11 or Lower 6) by looking at its ground-plan. If it splays outward it is early; whereas in “late” caves like Caves 21, or 23 or 24 (where the definition of the interiors took place after 475) the hall is properly square, reflecting the far greater discipline characteristic of later excavations. By the same token, the ceilings in the late caves no longer angle upward but are essentially level. Somewhere between the technological virtues of the latest caves, and the embarrassing imprecisions of the earliest ones, major caves like Cave 17 or even Cave 1, show a continuous process of adjustment, as the supervisors insisted on corrections being made in the course of excavation. Thus the beautiful ceiling of Cave 17 shows a distinct waviness; as the workers kept drifting away from the required horizontal, they were required to get back on course; but the result is what is often referred to as a “shamiana”, as if the excavators had intentionally created a ceiling which gives (and was intended to give!) the effect of something like a flying carpet.70 Ironically, if the cutting of Cave 4’s hall ceiling had been better disciplined, if it had been kept level, or nearly level, it almost certainly would not have collapsed. This is because the ceiling plane would have reached the “safety” of the downward plummeting crack— i.e. the drastic and comforting shift in the direction of the plane of 70 Discussing the poorly controlled excavation of the hall ceiling in Cave 17, Behl (1999, 156) marvels at the “skillfully executed undulations (made) to suggest a cloth canopy of a shamiana”; guides have been saying the same thing for years, often referring to the warped ceiling as a “flying carpet”.
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the flaw—at a much lower level. This would have added at least a foot more of matrix—and of security—between the flaw, as it approached pillar L6, and the more proper (much lower) plane of the original ceiling. And if the hall ceiling managed to stay intact for some years after having been abandoned in 468, it almost certainly would have survived thereafter, its potential problems never even suspected. No one would ever have been aware of the presence of the problematic area of weakness residing well above, and vast amounts of work and vast amounts of money would have been saved. Furthermore, the central ceiling would have retained its originally intended (but never achieved) horizontality. As it is, no matter how the patron struggled to fix the looks of the central hall—more fascinating to us today than it must have been to him—it appears to have been essentially “unfixable”, at least in its more forward portion, where the dramatic surface of the flaw could never be masked. On the other hand, no matter how bad the result of this really unnecessary angling was, it turned out that a very definite providential compensation was finally realized. Just as at Elephanta, where the necessary gradual heightening of the flawed ceiling ultimately allowed the great Sadasiva image to be as colossal as it is, the surprisingly “innocent” heightening of the shrine ceiling in Cave 4 ultimately allowed for the creation of a stupendous image, enshrined within an impressive space—something never dreamed of when the shrine was first underway.71 The reason for this potential amplification of the ceiling level as it moves toward the rear is as obvious as it has gone unnoticed. As the cutting of the original ceiling of the hall progressed rearward, rising at its slight but unnoticed or at least untroubling angle, the cutting of the floor followed suit, so that the two gradually rising surface planes were parallel. The distance from floor to ceiling at the front of the hall—where the angling-upward had not yet started— is 13’ 8”, and we can assume that, by using a bamboo pole of this length as a guide, the distance between the floor and ceiling was essentially maintained, as the floor angled gradually upward, in parallel with the ceiling above. The implications of this are remarkable, and remarkably productive; and at the same time remarkably unexpected.
71
For the curious heightening of the ceiling at Elephanta, see Spink 1983.
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By the time that the last cut was made in the extreme right corner of the shrine ceiling, the height of the ceiling, measured from the true level of the hall floor, as it was later adjusted, was well over 18’; that is, it had angled upward nearly 5’ by the time it reached the rear of the shrine; and of course the floor level (or non-level!) was going to be established in relation to it, even though surely a great deal of uncut matrix at the corresponding floor level would have remained when the excavation of the shrine chamber, probably very incomplete at the lower level, had to be abandoned at the time of the Recession. When the planners came into the shrine after 475, they would have realized that there was a vast amount of uncut rock at the floor level, which they (with their new concerns about making whole floor of the cave consistently horizontal) would have to cut away. There was no question but that impreciseness of the early work was not only offensive but embarrassing from a later and more sophisticated point of view. We have seen how precisely the new ceilings in the hall were leveled, and now, after 475, the process of leveling the floor of the hall and aisles went on apace, with the result that the cave’s aisle pillars would have to gradually increase in height as they progressed from the front to the rear. However, because the shrine was at the most extreme point of the upward angling, to reach the “proper” new shrine floor level would require removing at least 4’ of matrix (allowing 1’ for the normal elevation of the floor in this special area) to reach a point where it would parallel the ceiling above. The necessity for making these corrections turned out to have happy results. It meant that the superb gathering of kneeling devotees at the throne-base, together with the fine large deer flanking the late-type wheel, could now all be revealed when the heavy burden of matrix was cut away. Indeed such a grouping of devotees was expected—even necessary—for a proper post-475 image, even though neither they nor the attendant bodhisattvas would have been included if the image had been cut before the Recession, which of course was not the case, because time did not allow. Instead, as a result of the later (post 475) planners’ compulsion to lower the floor of the shrine to its proper level, the Buddha image, when it was begun shortly after 475, turned out to be colossal in size, a result which must have somewhat compensated the patron for the troubles—indeed the initial technical errors—which in fact made the remarkably impressive image possible.
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Although the pillars of the front and side aisles, at least at the upper level, had surely been revealed and probably defined by the Recession, reflecting in their changing height the gradual upward angling of the ceiling, work on the rear aisle pillars was far less developed when work was interrupted. For this reason, the important rear center pillars, were able to be given very special treatment after 475. Although like most of the other pillars of the rear row, which are given special treatment almost from the start, they had probably been roughed out by 468. By that time it had become conventional to decorate them more elaborately because of their axial positioning. Thus their present square rather than octagonal format was surely provided to them by 468, even though their decoration all belongs to the renewal of work after 475. The eight corpulent dwarf musicians seated upon the corners of the pillar bases are variously playing a flute, a sarangi, a “mandolin”, a drum, and cymbals (played by two), the octet being completed by another dwarf proffering flowers or fruits, and one holding up a sword or a knife. These delightful figures are among the most exuberant carvings at the site. Like their painted counterparts on the shrine antechamber pillars of Cave 17 they bring music into the environs of the shrine; and in fact they represent a pervasive trend at this time, for the related Caves 3 and 1 at Aurangabad have many similar musicians on their equally late pillar bases, while their descendants adorn pillars throughout the sixth and seventh centuries in monuments such as Elephanta and Ellora. The front faces of the heavy square bases of these same axial pillars have vigorous carved designs consisting of central kirttimukhas, from which flower garlands descend and are caught up by dynamically conceived beasts at either side. The shafts above are decorated with richly varied fluted and floral bands, whose thirty-two flutes or facets announce the post-Hiatus date of these carvings. Above, the finely carved capitals sustain the energy, each with splendid pairs of amorous couples. One pair seems to be grinding something delicious and probably intoxicating; the other may be a playful punishment scene, the man holding what may be a stick, and the woman clasping her hands in a gesture of supplication. The second pillar on the left, less fully revealed than most in 468, was also able to be decorated in the “late” fashion after 475, but its counterpart on the right appears to have already cut down too far in 468, to make a proper match, although there has been some
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attempt to do so. The resulting asymmetry, seen also in some of the porch pillar capitals, is hardly characteristic either here or in other caves. By the same token the excavators in the second phase could obviously not decide how to adjust the height of the front pilasters in the main hall to the now-raised ceiling; they offer two different solutions, neither very successful. On the left, where the pilaster had already been conventionally defined by 468, the added design elements give a particularly clumsy effect. The treatment of the left rear pilaster is more successful, partly because the new ceiling was much closer to the old in this rearward area of the aisle and the space above the originally roughed out pilaster could be filled with a simple beam. This left rear pilaster was then defined in a post-475 way, with the curved undersurface of the capital now smooth, and with a conventionally late medallion design—closely related to those in Cave 2 and 26—on the main face of its shaft. This was probably not done until 477, since its counterpart on the right rear pilaster never got carved, although it appears to already have been supplied with an early “ribbed” capital, like those seen throughout most of the cave, by 468. When they were first done, all of Cave 4’s cells (at least those first revealed) were planned very simply, as we have seen. However, in the second phase of work on the cave, in 475 and after, “late” pillared complexes were started at the left and right rear, and a number of other cells were worked on and sometimes finished in a late fashion, although some remained no more than barely penetrated. The shrine antechamber, as we shall see, had already been begun when work was interrupted in 468, so it is conceivable that some rear cells had been penetrated then too; this might account for the slightly thinner front walls of the cell just to the left of the shrine area, or in the center of the rear wall at the right. The cell just right of the antechamber, never finished, could have a somewhat thicker wall because it may have been merely penetrated in 468, but not further defined until after 475. As for the fitting out of the cave’s cells, there is no evidence that anything at all was done by 468, which makes sense, since the cave at that point was so incomplete. Even the B-mode (468) projections in the porch cells and in Cell L1, were never provided with pivot holes; and (except for the very unfinished Cell L1) were later updated with D mode fittings. Considering how great the need for residences
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was as the site developed, it would not be surprising if some cells were being utilized even when the cave was still very much in course of excavation; and the fact that niches go out of fashion by or in 476 might well suggest that the three cells with niches (R6, R8 rL1) were already in service by that time. The other five cells which show signs of use in their doorway pivot holes were probably fitted out later, presumably in 477, after which the total attention of the workmen (and the patron) must have been centered on the shrine. However, it is likely, especially considering the wear in some of the pivot holes, that the cells continued in use over the course of the next decade. This assumption would seem to be confirmed by the fact that at least one (but apparently only one) cell (R6) has remaining traces of plaster, generally applied to cells (and then not to all) only during the Period of Disruption. Once the deep matrix in the shrine was removed, when work began again on the cave after the Hiatus, the Cave 4 image was probably started in 476 under the direct and of course authoritative influence of the image in Cave 1, which it essentially copies. Although its composition was fixed by that time, the carving of the huge image must still have been underway late in 477. At the same time, in these happy days, the shrine doorway and the still mostly rough walls of the shrine would also have been well underway. As it was, when anxious 478 came, the shrine walls were abandoned and the shrine doorway totally changed in concept, as we shall see. In some ways the derivative Cave 4 image is an improvement upon that of Cave 1, even though the huge figure is carved with less skill and sensitivity. For instance, the splendid kneeling devotees (now fourteen!) at the throne base—images which find their most superb expression a year or so later in the related Cave 3 at Aurangabad—now can be more amply spread out in complex double rows.72 The deer are also more amply composed, while the elaborately composed wheel provides yet one more link with the Cave 1 image, where this complicated late type first appears. However, the image’s bodhisattva attendants, although less constrained than their prototypes in Cave 1, still had to be crowded into the confines of the “block”, and the left hand of the left bodhisattva still has to be “missing”. As in Cave 1, Vajrapani, with crown and vajra, is on the right,
72
Brancaccio 2000, 42, 43.
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while Avalokitesvara, with his jata headdress, his lotus, and antelope skin, is on the left. Overhead, corpulent converging dwarfs appear, as in Cave 1; had work not started, in the normal fashion, from the top in 476, there is a good chance that flying celestial couples, which became all the rage in 477, would have been converging from overhead instead, unless the sculptor had been ordered to copy the Cave 1 image precisely. As impressive as the main Buddha image itself are the six colossal Buddhas in the shrine antechamber. Their lowered right hands (one of which, to the left of the doorway, retains an auspicious painted wheel on the palm) literally push their message of generosity at anyone entering that area, despite the group’s unfinished state. At the same time, the four on the side walls with their subtly mirrored poses, direct one’s focus to the shrine, which the two Buddhas flanking the doorway even more closely attend.73 A very new conception at the site, these standing Buddhas would not have been started until 477. Thus, quite understandably, they were still underway when Harisena died in that same year. At that point Mathura, who was by now inured to such afflictions, knowing that there was not time to complete them all, concentrated his efforts on the two colossal Buddha “door guardians”. He left the others revealingly unfinished. This is particularly true of those on the right, one of which was to be worshipped by a conventionally kneeling devotee still “trapped in the rock”. As for the doorway itself, the decoration of which had not been started when Harisena died, he radically changed the design to include a convocation of Buddha images rather than the flowers and the lovers (and probably the flanking goddesses) that had earlier intended. One can assume that the doorway’s decoration had been conceived in 475 or 476, at which point the conventional goddesses would have appeared. But in 477, before the decoration of the door was started, the positions once intended for the goddesses would have been preempted by two great Buddhas flanking the door; this impressive new conception understandably took priority. The fact that the “Eight Buddhas” on the lintel show Maitreya, the Buddha of the future, unconventionally, at the left end, together 73 Albert Hoffstaedt and Andre Kalden noticed that the figures on the right and those on the left, are not mirror images; the poses are adjusted to subtly direct the attention toward the shrine.
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with the treatment of the little figures attending the seated Buddhas, links this group closely to that in the right aisle of Cave 26, also done in 478. Both may well have been done by the same sculptor, but the group in Cave 26 would have been done first, since that sculptor had a valid reason for the untypical arrangement which (presumably) he merely repeated in Cave 4.74 In the same way, we might well link the splendid series of devotees under the main image with their similar but greatly magnified counterparts in Aurangabad Cave 3, where work continued even after mid-478, by which time Mathura would have had to abandon his great cave. Of course, the patron’s main concern in 478 was to finish the colossal main image and get it dedicated, in order to get the merit. He did indeed manage to do this, and even, albeit hastily, inscribed the base of the main image, assigning the merit, with conventional generosity, not to himself, but to his mother and father, and most particularly to his “paternal grandmother—to whom belongs the principal share—as well as all sentient beings’ attainment of unexcelled knowledge”.75 Not surprisingly, the shrine itself was woefully incomplete at this point (in early 478) and since the huge doorway was never supplied with the conventional pivot holes, the great double doors were never hung. In the following year or two, drawn in by the impressiveness of this image and the availability of the sanctified (even if still rough) wall space, a number of “uninvited” new donors started carving various standing and seated Buddha images on the front and side walls of the shrine. However, only a few of these intrusions had been finished when time ran out in 480. In fact, work on some of them— which needed nothing more than to be painted, broke off so precipitously, that one must believe that the artists here, as in all other caves where such late intrusions were still in process, suddenly left the site on one particular day, never to return. This moment—admittedly an intellectual construction only tangent to reality—was “December 31, 480”, perhaps the very day that 74 See Cave 26 discussion for the effect of the flaw at the left end. If the Cave 4 image is indeed a copy, which seems likely, then Buddhabhadra’s series must have been done before mid-478, by which time Cave 4’s original patronage had ended. Consequently the three Sravasti Miracles would date to early 478, which is reasonable in any case. 75 Cohen 1995, #17; for a valuable discussion of the “transfer of merit”, see Schopen 1985, reprinted (with slight stylistic changes) in Schopen 1997, pp. 23–55.
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the “coalition” under the Asmakas was passing through, or near, the region on its way to confront the doomed forces of Harisena’s successor on the banks of the Narmada. The arguments supporting such a conclusion have been presented elsewhere, as has an analysis of the various interesting intrusions here in the shrine, as well as the splendid intrusive representation of Avalokitesvara as Lord of Travelers and a fine bhadrasana Buddha in the porch.76 Sadly, the era of intrusions was never over for Cave 4. Just a few years ago, considering this fascinating cave to be of little interest because it contained no paintings, certain authorities charged with the care of the site decided to turn the excavation into an exhibition hall, where copies of the various murals could be displayed. Thus all of the cell doorways were cemented in, and literally hundreds of 2”–4” holes were drilled in the walls in order to affix the pegs needed to support the exhibition boards. Fortunately or unfortunately, as soon as the reproductions were up, various insects gathered to eat them, so everything was taken down and the holes eventually filled in, resulting in the present strangely spotted appearance of the walls of the cave’s great hall.
Cave 5 One could easily think that the very unfinished Cave 5 was started after the Asmakas took over the region in 475, for its trabeated “T”shaped doorway and its large square decorated windows are such distinctly late features. In this late phase too, we would expect pillared cell complexes at the porch ends, and one (looking like a cell door at this stage in its cutting) has indeed been started at the right, despite the disastrously flawed character of the rock in this area. However, the fact that such a pillared complex could not be added at the left, because the cave abuts Cave Lower 6, is clear evidence that the cave was actually first under excavation over a decade before, when cells were never planned for these areas. This conclusion is further confirmed by the remaining traces of previous excavation that prove that the present windows have cut
76 See Volume I, Chapter 4 for the likely danger to the region, as the insurrectionists traveled northward to the Narmada for a confrontation with Sarvasena III”.
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away earlier smaller and more vertically oriented (unfinished) openings. In fact the curious notch in the sill of the left window defines the lower margin of the older window, which had been reached by the early excavator; like similarly early windows in Caves 15 and 20 it was closer to the floor than later ones—although not as close as the thick layer of cement on the porch floor makes it presently appear here. The notch would surely have been filled in and plastered over when the present windows had been completed, very much in the elaborately decorated mode of their very late counterparts in Caves 21, 23, and 24. The typically late “T-shaped” doorway too is related to that of Cave 23, although here too we have a situation where a very late design has been imposed upon a simpler earlier format, blocked out prior to the Recession. Thus it was impossible to include the projecting guardians typical of the later types such as that of Cave 23. Possibly the carvers were going to paint such nagas or possibly lionheads on the uncut lowest panels, just as he was surely going to fill the lateral pairs of candrasalas above with appropriate motifs to flank the vigorous six-armed dancing dwarf at the center. Otherwise, the doorway’s design is both conventional and authoritative. Its treecum-river goddesses, attended with a sakhi on the left and a crippled old man on the right, are a developed version of this expected motif, as are the expected lotus-petal and floral-coil margin motifs which enclose the projection within the bounds of which they stand. This displaced positioning allows their “pedestals” to become supporting pillars for the architectonic lintel; such a trabeated format is characteristic of all doorways carved in 477, but not before. The expected loving couples, now quite amorous, stand on the vertical face of the adjacent surround, and are seated on the face above. A new feature, however, is the placing of a seated padmasana Buddha, with two cauri-bearing attendants, at the crucial center of this area. His hands, in the dharmacakra mudra, reflect the increasing popularity of the preaching gesture in the late 470s, even though the loving couples seem to be paying little attention. The positioning of Cave 5, between Cave Lower 6 and Cave 4 further argues that, despite its slow and sporadic development, Cave 5 was one of the Vakataka’s inaugural excavations, and was begun by 464 at the latest. Indeed at that time it was probably conceived as astylar, and certainly without a shrine. This is hardly surprising, since
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the fact that the end-walls of the porch were originally plain shows that it was underway prior to 465, while the fact that a single porch cell was not added at the right strongly suggests that work on the cave had for some reason been given up by that time. The very unfinished character of the (later recut) windows would support such a conclusion, as would the fact that the porch pillars must have been left so rough that they could be reshaped with (moderately) high square bases, like those in Cave Upper 6, when work began again after 475. The much reduced number of ribs on the capitals, following the lead of Cave 17, also connects these pillars (still much unfinished) with those in Cave Upper 6, upon which work had started again after 475. By the same token, it appears that the mere reaming out of the few more forward interior pillars—the central pair with their strongly widened intercolumniation—did not take place until this same late phase; this is also strongly suggested by the very “late” thickness of the cave’s front wall, which would certainly not be expected if it had been fully cut out in the first few years of activity at the site. It is curious that the new (post-475) work on the elaborate doorway and windows, as well as the right cell-complex, was started before the walls of the porch were “properly” smoothed. This may merely reflect the patron’s eagerness to get the most “interesting” things done first, but it might also be due to his not being able to get enough workers in this period of tremendously vigorous and competitive activity, when many mere laborers must have been in great demand. It seems possible that the Cave 5 patron, from the start, lacked a certain amount of clout, or money, or friendship in high places; both in the cave’s very early phase and in its late phase, he seemed to have trouble getting things done. Indeed, the extremely late character of the doorway and windows alone, and the fact that so much in the cave never got finished, suggests that just as its first phase is particularly early (prior to 465), its late phase is particularly late, all ascribable to the vigorous contexts of 477.
Cave Lower 6 When Cave Lower 6 was begun at the very beginning of the site’s Vakataka renaissance, plans for an upper story had not been conceived;
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nor had the shrine concept yet come into fashion. Indeed, as originally designed, its inner hall would have been a simple square celllined hall, without any pillars whatsoever. The ruinous porch, which must once have been colonnaded, enclosed a cistern at the right end, the outer walls of which have long since broken away. The cistern’s placement within the porch is unusual, but was probably recommended (and necessitated) by lack of sufficient space in the court area; furthermore at such an early date the planners had no established conventions to follow. In any case, since no cells were planned for the porch ends until 465, this must have seemed an appropriate use for the space. By the same token, the left porch end was utilized for a tunneled stairway leading down to the contemporaneous Cave 7 through a doubled-paneled doorway. A century ago the frame of this rock cut doorway, with its pivots for double doors, still survived.77 Now, however, only its more secure right side is intact, along with traces of a broken upper pivot hole in that area. Close to the doorway, as one descends to Cave 7, one can see traces of a small window, now cemented in, which looked out onto the tunnel from the interior, and also lit Cave Lower 6’s now-dark front corner. Above, one can notice how carefully the roof of the tunnel has been curved, in parallel with the old steps (now much cemented) leading down to the adjacent cave. Although all traces have gone, Cave L6 must have had a colonnade with four pillars, surely simple octagonal types reflecting an early dependence on Hinayana prototypes. The presence of the railmotif on the porch’s rear wall, never seen again at the site in such a meaningless position, further suggests that at this point the planners had not separated the functions of the porch from the functions of the courtyard. The unconventional character of the porch is surely a reflection of its early date, which is strongly announced by its diffident doorway design and its clumsily framed windows. The porch doorway is also notably “primitive” blend of rock cut and “structural” features—a combination unique at the site. Its conventional river goddesses were carved on separately inserted slabs and then held in place by sockets (still visible both behind and below the now-missing figures. Such pegged-in sculptures reflect a proce-
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See ACSAA fiche 15:21.
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dure characteristic of contemporary structural temples, but particularly inappropriate (and totally unnecessary) for monolithic architecture; understandably, it was not used again. The fact that the site’s carvings are almost invariably integrated with the stone, as well as the generally low relief of most of Ajanta’s sculptures, is why human predators have not carried very many of Ajanta’s sculptures away.78 As in all of the other earliest doorways at the site, the crocodilian vehicles—fortunately monolithic—have their tails raised high, to contact the hands of the (missing) goddesses. Below, vigorous dwarfs support the pillars that flank the doorway, their anomalous running pose—hardly suggesting stability. The fact that elephants rather than the soon-to-be-standard lions project from the doorway base, are further suggestions of the doorway’s still-tentative character. The little “stupikas” up above are evanescent forms too, which disappear after making one further modest appearance on the early porch doorway of Cave 16; they may well reflect details from the structural prototypes upon which these monolithic forms were ultimately based. Cave L6’s windows, supplied rather clumsily with notches at the four corners to hold what must have been an outer wooden frame, are surprisingly wide (and square); other early windows at the site are vertically oriented, a design which is almost always used up until the time of the Hiatus, at which point square windows become the norm. However, those later square windows (accomplished after the Hiatus) are shuttered far more conveniently at the back, while these, which would have facilitated the removal of excavated rock in the course of the cave’s exposure, are undeniably early. Of the four, the two at the far left and right have been largely cemented in, and the margins of the central pair are also much obscured with this too-familiar substance. However, one can still see that the outer margins of the reveals, between the notches, have sometimes been smoothed, obviously to facilitate the fitting of the wooden sections of the frame. However, sometimes this was not done, possibly because fitting was possible anyway, but more likely because many such “inessential” details never got completed because of the impact of the Recession. This may also account for the fact that the larger inner areas of the reveal, in all of the windows, have been left very rough, their smoothing (which would be expected in the early 460s 78 The inset goddesses were already missing over a century ago. See ACSAA fiche 15:20.
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when the windows were cut) being understandably low on the planner’s priority list. They could easily have been plastered at some point, but this probably was not the case; at least no traces now remain. In fact, all of the plastering of the main hall and the shrine area in the cave was accomplished before the Recession, while the only other plastering is that of the many cells, and (as pointed out below) that was done in the Period of Disruption, when nobody was interested in window frames. Although all of the cell doors were fitted out (being transformed from the abandoned A mode to the more practical D mode immediately after the Hiatus), no other excavation work was done at this later date. Thus the primitive doorway, and the equally out-of-date windows, were never transformed to the post-Hiatus mode, featuring fine carved borders and a more convenient closure, as were the windows of Cave 5, U6, surely those of Cave 2 and 4, and possibly even Cave 21. But none of these windows had been fully finished prior to the Hiatus, so they had to be worked on anyway, and in the process were very amenable to change; by contrast, the early windows of Caves 11, 16, 17, and 20 had been (like those of Cave Lower 6) fully defined at an early date, and remained essentially unchanged. By the time that Cave Lower 6’s front aisle was underway, the patron’s vision, or his budget, had changed. He now decided to increase the number of cells by extending the front and rear aisles, and also decided to add an upper story. Both decisions may seem to be unexpected, given the character of other contemporary undertakings; but again, this was a period when conceptions were constantly and necessarily developing, since there was no strong contemporary tradition to provide a guide. The fact that excavating an upper story was an afterthought is sufficiently proved not only by the character of its slightly more developed forms, but most strikingly by the position of the staircase leading up to it. No provision had been made for this staircase when the front of the cave was cut, so it had to be unhappily located in the front aisle, blocking one of the windows.79 Furthermore, the rock in the aisle area already having been 79 A number of scholars, such as Sundara Rajan, have argued that the upper story was started first, because caves were conventionally excavated from the top down. But this applied only to the ceiling to floor excavation of single caves; such a procedure would be pointless and counterproductive in a two storied monument, although it is of course conceivable (although not here) that both stories could be simultaneously underway, working from the ceilings down.
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cut away, only the stairs leading upward from the level of the ceiling could be monolithic; the lower ones (long gone) would have been expediently constructed, just as today, although it is conceivable that they were originally made of wood. In fact, the planners may have opted for a simple level at this lower level, so that the light from the adjacent window would not be blocked, as it so unfortunately is from the expedient construction today. Because of concerns about properly supporting this novel upper story, a veritable forest of pillars was added to what was surely, before the upper story was conceived, a simple astylar hall. Still severely primitive in their plain octagonal format (without projecting capitals) Cave Lower 6’s sixteen pillars, along with those of Cave 11 (before revision), are the earliest interior pillars at the site. Significantly, they lack the axial focus which characterizes caves planned with a shrine from the start. Such considerations support the assumption that the pillars were conceived and started (and the Upper Story conceived) in about 464/465, before shrines had been introduced as virtual requirements for the site’s viharas. There is good reason to conclude that the front aisle of the interior had already been (slightly) penetrated before any of its sixteen pillars had been started; and this would in turn “prove” that the upper story had already been conceived at this point, since the pillars were clearly added for the upper story’s support. Striking evidence of the transformation of the cave from an astylar to a multistylar hall is to be seen in the subtle but significant elevation of the ceiling of the front aisle. When that aisle ceiling was defined, the plan, certainly, was to carve the whole interior ceiling as a mere flat plane, without its present architectonic beams; there was no reason for beams in an astylar hall, as examples such as Cave 15 (or the various Hinayana caves) equally show. The beams were added, conventionally, when the peristyle was started; but the front aisle was already simply a flat plane. Therefore, to “correct” this, the front aisle ceiling was raised enough to be able to define the beams. Furthermore, although the ceiling rises, as a result of early imprecision, from the “second” aisle onward, the newly raised ceiling of the front aisle is flat.80 It undoubtedly was angled when first cut, as
80 Burgess, with characteristic precision, shows this on the plan of the cave’s crosssection. Significantly, and typically, the ceiling of the later upper level is properly
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the excavators revealed it from front to back; but when, later, they were merely raising it, they no longer would have done the cutting in the same necessarily front to back way; it would be chiseled away as expedient to raise it to the newly desired level. Although it seems likely that shrines were first conceived for major early viharas such as Caves 16, 17, and 4, the idea was so compelling that by 467 or early 468 every vihara, no matter how minor, had to have one—even though the goal was not always achieved. When Cave Lower 6’s novel interior arrangement was conceived, the cave was still, along with the upper story, intended as shrineless, a conclusion which the lack of the widening of the intercolumniation of the axial pillars supports. However, it is reasonable to assume that plans for the shrine were underway by 467, and the antechamber started, even though the carving of the image would probably not have been underway until 468, and its painting and dedication not completed until early 469. It follows from this that the six cells in the cave’s rear wall would have been underway in 467, since they clearly respond, in their imprecise early way, to the presence, either actual or intended, of the antechamber. Furthermore, they all originally had A mode doorways (converted after 475 to D mode), which would be consistent with a date of 467; by 468, B mode doorways were in fashion. At the same time it is evident that the unusual extensions at the four corners of Cave Lower 6 had already been begun at this same time, since four of the rear cells (all apparently once with A mode doorways) open into the rear extensions. The idea of making these extensions may have been thought of by the planners in about 465, when the upper story (still shrine-less) was conceived, because of the need to put a staircase in such an area, and the characteristic compulsion to organize the cave in a symmetrical way.81 It is even possible that cells had earlier been penetrated at these four points (two at the front and two at the back) and that they were cut away to allow for the extensions. The extensions actually provided the cave with two extra rear cells, and at the same time, at the rear, made provision for two major and highly useful storage
horizontal; only that of the lower story angles notably upward as it continues toward the rear. For such angling of early ceilings, see discussion in section on Cave 4. 81 The date of the development of the upper story is discussed in the following chapter.
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areas placed at a high level in the rear extensions.82 So there were many advantages to this anomalous plan; and its enthusiastic development may in fact have been made in response to the knowledge that the cave was now destined to be a shrine, not a mere dormitory. Like the whole rear wall of the hall, and indeed the shrine antechamber and shrine area beyond, these extensions were never smoothed to the insistent degree evident in the left and right hall walls, which were finished earlier, when the excavators were still very much influenced by the smooth-walled Hinayana prototypes. However this may be, there is a distinct difference between the treatment of the “main” left and right walls, and the treatment of the walls in the four extensions and at the rear of the cave. The “main” left and right walls alone are surprisingly smooth—clearly dependent still on Hinayana precedents; and at the same time the six cells (three on a side) opening into them are provided with low semicircular candrasilas—another typically early feature, not found in front of the other cells in the cave. So it would appear that the three cells along each of the “main” left and right walls (like all the other cells, in the A mode) were already underway either before, or while, the cave was being extended and before the other cells were started. It would be reasonable to date the cutting of the six early cells to 465; they were probably finished a year or so before the similarly A mode cells at the ends of the extensions and at the rear could be started. It would appear that the cells at the rear were penetrated and probably largely defined even while the rear wall was extremely rough; it is realistic to think that there must have been a great need for residences here at this time, for most caves were far less advanced than this one at this early date. Although the walls in Cave Lower 6’s extensions are far rougher than those on the “main” left and right areas, this is not surprising, for planners at the site soon learned that an absolute “polish” on the walls was not only unnecessary but provided poor adherence. Mud plaster is very different from Hinayana lime plaster in this regard, and requires some roughness to insure that the mud plaster would properly hold; furthermore mud plaster was much cheaper, as were rough walls as opposed to smooth ones. However, the rear wall of the cave was so unfinished, requiring a massive amount of 82 The upper level of the rear wall of the shrine was cut back in 468 (before the shrine was painted) to provide another storage area.
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mud-plastering, that we can only believe that it was still being cut out at the time of the Recession, and had to be surfaced in a rush early in 469, so that it, along with the shrine/shrine antechamber could be painted in the time allowed. To alleviate the sloppy appearance of the thick mudplaster where it met the plain cell doorways, the planner now ordered that a simple recess be put around all of the doorway openings in these rough areas; significantly, they were not added, because not so necessary, to the six doorways in the highly smoothed areas. Such recesses did serve a useful purpose in keeping the thick mud plaster from abutting the very edge of the doorway. However, beyond this, they must have impressed other planners as a neat way to give a nice finished effect, and a cheap one at that, being useful wherever the mudplaster on the wall was relatively thick, as was more and more the case in later caves. It must be for this reason that such outer doorway recessing immediately became one of the inexorable architectural conventions which develop so often at the site. After 469, when the idea was introduced in Cave Lower 6, every doorway at the site follows suit; before 469 one will find none. Another “primitive” feature which helps to establish the very early date of Cave Lower 6 involves the early lack of excavating discipline. As in most early caves (for reasons explained in our discussion of Cave 4) the ceiling gradually angles upward toward the rear, and the walls splay outward as they are gradually revealed. The latter “error” is clear on the groundplan, while in his sectional view of the cave Burgess, with his remarkable preciseness, shows how the cave’s ceiling angles subtly upward from front to back; note that the upper story, where the ceiling was carved a few years later (and surely still underway after 475), is properly level. We can well imagine that from the start both the planners and the intended residents of such caves were concerned to have at least some places for storage, even though this need was not very widely satisfied. However, in Cave Lower 6 ingenious platforms were fixed, neatly “out of the way” in both of the rear extensions. Since this was hardly the kind of thing which would have been done in the image-oriented frenzy of 469, we can assume that the supporting poles (functioning as beams) were fitted into the receiving holes either in 468, or in 467, years when work was proceeding in a normal way. This fitting was clearly done before the wall was plastered at
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the very beginning of the Recession in 469, since the thick wall plaster was later packed around the inserted poles. By the same token, when the poles were later pulled out (probably by villagers sometime during those centuries when the site was deserted) we can see how the plaster was damaged as the supporting poles (which functioned as beams) were wrenched up through it. It is significant to note that, sensibly, the walls in these storage areas, although plastered, were never painted; there would have been no point in wasting the time and money, when the paintings would necessarily be obscured. In passing we might note the great care with which a serious geological fault, causing a hole in a high level of the left wall, was neatly repaired with blocks of stone, then plastered (and painted) over. This example may be unique at the site, although this is by no means certain, since many wall surfaces, which might have incorporated such repairs, are covered over with plaster. Of course, there are many repairs to sculptures, where projecting elements all too easily broke. The shrine antechamber’s exuberantly jumbled doorway seems to show both the confusion and the excitement that the sculptor must have felt on being called upon to make something that no one had ever made before, at least in an excavation; for this complicated conception is almost certainly the first sculptured shrine doorway to have been decorated at the site, predating for at least a few months the start on the early shrine doorway of Cave 7, datable to 468. Although not yet truly sorted out, numerous auspicious characters as well as decorative natural forms that will appear on later doorways are already here: the goddesses on their makara supports; the converging celestials, the rearing vyalas, the supporting dwarfs, and even a multi-hooded naga, here holding an offering casket (?) at the very center of the lintel. As we would of course expect, the Buddha image is one of the very earliest at the site. This is evident from its typically “early” placement—almost as if it were a stupa—in the center of the shrine chamber. In fact, it is likely that when the idea of adding shrines to the viharas first impacted upon Ajanta, influenced by the stupa shrines at Bagh, stupas rather than images were intended; in Cave 11 a stupa was even started and here in Cave Lower 6 it is tempting to think that the unusual lotus-medallion carved directly into the
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stone above the Buddha’s head might represent the very start of a stupa, with this reflecting the form of the honorific umbrella so generally found over stupa representations. We could further surmise that the large (“early”) halo may actually reflect the outlines of our imaginary stupa’s dome, which was transformed into this halo when the shift was suddenly made, in late 468 or early 469, from stupa to image. In support of such a reconstruction we have the clear evidence of Cave 11, where the circle of the halo very self-consciously reflects and in fact hides the dome of the abandoned stupa behind, while the shoulders of the throne base (again as in Cave Lower 6) hide could have been carved from the matrix then surrounding the unfinished stupa’s drum. The fact that in other regards—such as the overall shape and treatment of the simple throne sides and throne base—the Cave Lower 6 and Cave 11 images are so similar, might also suggest that we should look at them not only as (probably) the first two images at the site, but should see them as jointly effecting the transition from the aniconic to the iconic forms. The very early date of the image (completed and dedicated in 469) is confirmed (if confirmation is needed) by the absence of attendant bodhisattvas (who never appear before 470), and from the still uncomplicated composition of both the throne base and throne back. Even the fine “lotus umbrella” above, and the way the head is positioned so far forward from the halo, set it off from later images. Most of this Buddha’s features contrast greatly with those in the Upper Story’s main Buddha, one of the last to be completed at the site, although as I shall explain, the anomalous base of the latter image seems to have been hurriedly copied from its earlier counterpart here. As we might expect, the shrine doors were also hung, presumably by the time that the image was dedicated in early 469. The projecting beam “reserved” behind the doorway is in fact a variant— perhaps anticipatory—of the B mode fittings that came so widely into fashion in 468, possibly influenced by the assertive prototype which held the great doors of Cave 26. It may well have been cut in 467, at about the time that the carving of the beautiful door front was started, and the shrine was being first penetrated. That it was significantly used—as is attested by much evidence of wear in its two pivot holes—is hardly surprising, since Cave Lower 6 is heavily begrimed, suggesting that (like Cave 17) it was one of the caves which was put into use and in which worship continued for at least a decade, and probably even into the Period of Disruption.
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Despite the corners that had to be cut (or left uncut) in its excavation program, because of the oncoming Recession of 468 Cave Lower 6 had developed swiftly enough so that all of it got fully plastered (the more rearward areas only in early 469), and nearly all of it got painted. The unpainted areas are revealing, being in the very back of the shrine, where the rear wall itself, the back of the image block, and the rear half of the ceiling merely show plastering, but no designs. It is hard to assume that these hard-to-see areas were left unpainted by intent; indeed, the fact that the painting of the Buddhas on the side walls was never completed almost surely means that time ran out at that moment; working from front to back and from the top down in a consistent fashion, the painters abruptly gave up their efforts when they reached the lower rear part of the left wall, the last area which would (and should) have been completed in normal course. It seems possible that the precipitously plastered rear wall of the cave’s main hall, although plastered, had not yet been decorated when time ran out in early 469, for it was clearly (and properly) given a lower priority than the shrine and shrine antechamber. Instead of the expected paired bodhisatttvas, one finds multiple Buddhas in this area, which might even suggest that this final painting was done in the Period of Disruption. The begriming and recent damage to the paintings on the wall make it hard to judge, but the fact that a reliable authority has said that an inscription was once visible (never read, but conceivably donative?) on the right wall, would support such a late dating, as would the fact that fairly vigorous work was going on in the Upper Story after Harisena’s death. On the other hand, the balanced arrangement of the Buddha images painted there, the fact that the whole wall (although now mostly illegible) appears to have been consistently painted, and even the fact that the images are in padmasana rather than the later-favored bhadrasana, all argue for a dating to 469, after the whole wall was so hurriedly plastered. The painted decoration of the forward portions of the walls is almost obliterated, but we can assume from the progress of the rest of the work, that (like the plastering) it had been done in normal course. Prior to this the carefully placed holes (for iron garland hooks, some of which remain) had been cut at each of the four lesser directional points at the tops of all of the pillars. Although they are much damaged, one can still make out the tellingly simple early ceiling designs in the hall, with their alternation of square and circular decorations. The ceiling in the shrine,
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like other extremely early ceilings, concentrates on repeated floral forms of great simplicity: the competition which was to force-feed the development of “style” and iconography at the site over the course of the next decade would soon leave such designs, although effective, looking very primitive indeed. The most curious thing is that although every one of these ceiling designs once had an iron garland hook—a few stumps remain where later residents of the area were not able to pull them out—there is no breakage of the plaster around them. That is, almost certainly, they could not have been used, particularly since the cave was in worship for an extended period. Apparently, for some reason, the cave was not garlanded in the expected manner, possibly because there were not sufficient funds, or just because no one took sufficient interest. What might help to explain this curious neglect is that the cave was by no means properly fitted out when the Recession occurred; although the cells were all underway (with A mode doorways) and all possibly (but not surely) finished, no doors were hung in the cells, nor other fittings supplied, until after 475. Thus it is by no means certain that monks resided in it before that time, unless they took up abode in cells which were not yet properly fitted out. The image surely was in worship from 469, but perhaps all of the focus of worship was in the shrine area, with the supply of garlands in the hall outside not being a matter of concern. One can see a very heavy eye-hook fixed in the shrine ceiling in front of and to the right of the Buddha image; its surprising size and thickness, and even its eccentric positioning suggests that instead of being for garlands, it held a strong chain with an attached lamp or perhaps a bell. The fact that the plaster around it is still intact equally suggests that it held a chain, with the lamp or bell, as we would expect, well below the ceiling level. The stem of another hook appears near the center of the shrine antechamber ceiling. It was typically inserted prior to the ceiling’s plastering and painting, but was abandoned—apparently because it broke off when being pounded in. Since the first fixture had to be abandoned, a new hook was sunk in the ceiling a few inches away, just as was similarly done in the case of Cave 21’s main hall medallion. It was possible for the workers to leave the abandoned one stuck in the stone, because it is in a badly flawed area which had to be filled with a very deep patch of mudplaster. The new hole can be seen at the very center of the painted medallion, the antic-
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ipated location of which would have been slightly shifted as a consequence. Such expediency is very characteristic of the site, and very understandable; and once again we have support for the (not surprising) assertion that, as far as we can tell, the many hooks found at the site were invariably inserted in the rock before the plastering and painting was done. The paired bodhisattvas, conventionally flanking the doorway, like the seated Buddhas that fill the front and side shrine walls, had remained safely for centuries under a thick covering of sooty grime, but can hardly be seen today because of too-aggressive cleaning, which has removed nearly all of the carbon black defining lines in the process of getting off the deposits (carbon, particularly) which covered them. The finely detailed waist ornaments which, being at a lower level, had remained quite free of grime, give one an idea of the remarkable character of the two paintings that have been lost.83 The boldly-drawn representations of The Temptation by Mara and The Miracle of Sravasti on the right and left walls respectively have survived somewhat better, although the Mara scene, like all of the multiple Buddha images in the shrine, has been sadly overcleaned.84 The Miracle scene fortunately received no such attention, and the strength and subtlety of the drawing remains visible.85 Judging from the hastily finished character of the antechamber’s wall surface—suggesting that it was still underway at the time of the Recession—it would probably be correct to assign all of these paintings on the antechamber walls, like those on the even more unfinished rear wall of the hall, to early 469; such a dating, to a period when work in the cave had to be rushed, could also explain the fact that they have (or had) something of the unfinished character of drawings. The situation with the multiple Buddha paintings which almost obsessively cover the walls of the shrine appears to be similar; however, they were essentially ruined in the recent past by a particularly 83 It is hard to understand why these details were so much less begrimed than the rest of the figures; since they are extremely detailed, possibly the character of the painted lines was different; or, since the details were painted on a white pigment that tends to “clean itself ” (elsewhere at the site too) this may have kept these areas more visible. 84 Ironically, it was lauded in the newspaper some years ago as an example of successful conservation. 85 See Schlingloff 1999, 21; however his arrangement implies that that the Sravasti Miracle is on the right wall, and the Mara scene on the left, when the reverse is true.
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heavy-handed laborer; one could hardly call him conservator, given the evidence of his transgressions. Within the shrine, too, the preparation of the walls was far less complete than would be expected, considering the care with which the image itself and the shrine doorway was accomplished; and the Buddha images, although done competently, have few elaborate details, and could not have taken very long. And the work not only was not continued on the rear wall, but even the farther portion of the left wall was left incomplete, as noted above. It seems likely, on the other hand, that the simply composed shrine ceiling, with its typically early painting of faux beams with nothing more than lotuses and geese between, was painted in 468; in fact it may never have been finished at the rear because of the sudden pressure put upon the patron at the time of the Recession. Alternatively, if it was not started until the Recession had begun, then it is possible that the order was given to stop the ceiling decoration in the area behind the image, so that the wall painting could be started more quickly. However, even if Cave Lower 6’s cells were not thoroughly finished, it seems reasonable to assume that they were all now put into use by 468, for at this relatively early point in the site’s history when so many caves were barely underway, monks must have been waiting for cells to live in. Furthermore, it seems evident that the cave was used for worship from 468 or 469 on, for the shrine and shrine antechamber in particular, but other areas too, are so begrimed with soot. At the same time, one must note that the cells were not properly fitted out for residence until after 475, when all of its simple early doorways were at last supplied with up-to-date recessed fittings. At the same time, almost equally up-to-date niches for personal articles were cut in the cells’ rear walls; such conveniences—for personal and/or religious articles?—do not even make their appearance at the site before 471 and, almost invariably throughout the site, such niches were cut at the time that the cells’ doors were actually hung. Indeed, here, the cutting of both these features is so uniform that they must have been done, all at once, on a “contract” basis, to get the cells finally finished once and for all. The work can be assigned with a certain confidence to 476, by which time the recessing of such doorways had become more assertive than in 475 (vide Cave 1), while the excavated niches of this type apparently go out of fashion by 477 (vide Cave 2).
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The various holes, for pegs and poles and shelves, seen in abundance in these cells, are also very uniform (even if hardly very neat) in character, so it would seem reasonable to assume that they were cut at the same time too. Those facing each other on opposite walls were surely for “clothes-poles” or (more often in this particular cave) for shelves, for they often appear in pairs or triads, as if for closely placed parallel poles, which would then support (or even form) a shelf. In at least one instance, smaller and slightly higher holes on the side toward the cell’s center may have held a “guard rail”, like the racks for baggage above one’s head in certain busses. Sadly, many such holes in Cave Lower 6, along with nearly all of the door latch-holes, have been cemented in during the course of “restoration” and “conservation”, so that a considerable of amount of evidence is unnecessarily gone. Nonetheless, enough areas were missed so that one can still see a few pieces of teak in the latches; since that in Cell PR of Cave 2 has recently been covered over by an applied door frame, a still more damaged one in Cell R2 of Cave Lower 6 provides our best surviving latch fragment. Happily there are still a few remaining wooden receptacles for the lower pivots, placed here as in a number of other caves to facilitate and ease the turning of the cell doors. An unusual survival is seen in the inner threshold of Cell L5, where a piece of teak has survived in the rectangular door-stop. This suggests that when the door was closed some kind of tough wooden peg (perhaps hitched to the back of the door with a string) would be pushed into the hole to keep the door shut. There are also a number of surviving “drop-slots” on the latch side of the inner recess, presumably another way to secure the door by dropping the end of a wooden arm into the receiving slot. The slot is always deeper at the bottom than the top, reflecting the arcing swing of the arm. Since these require an inner recess for their placement, they are found only after 475, in D mode fittings, as here. There is also a place cut back for the hand, to facilitate the lifting of the latch; most of these have been cemented in. The plastering of the cells—another very recent innovation—also appears to have been done all at once, in a cost/effective way. This seems evident from the way that recognizably different mixes are used in different groups of adjacent cells, as if different crews were efficiently at work—quite possibly simultaneously. However, this work was probably done somewhat later than the fitting out (in 476) of the cave’s cells. It can reasonably be assigned to the Period of
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Disruption, when such plastering of cells became a seemingly compulsive pursuit throughout the site. Significantly, the red (ground brick?) plaster used in so many of this cave’s late cells, and in many other invariably late contexts throughout the site, is a mix never found earlier than that date. Why (as much evidence suggests) was the plastering of cells never done prior to 478, but was often done in the site’s difficult final years thereafter. Possibly increasingly hard-pressed devotees could thus cheaply and quickly provide welcome “meritorious gifts” for some of the resident monks. Needless to say, in the anxious years just after Harisena’s death the workmen, no longer employed on the splendid conceptions of the past, would have been glad to get any employment whatsoever, even at the cheapest wages.
Cave Upper 6 (Since Cave Upper is filled with a remarkable spate of intrusions, they have been discussed in detail in Volume III. The following general discussion of the development of the cave necessarily includes references to many of them, but in a summary fashion.) The Upper Story of Cave 6 progressed very swiftly, after it was started in about 465. At that point it would have been almost as simple a conception as the lower story, being originally planned as a mere dormitory without a shrine and with no cells at the porch ends. Even the forward portion of its peristyle was probably already roughed out (but hardly defined) by late 465 or early 466. However, having been started so much later, and still being very incomplete when work was interrupted in 468, when work could start again in 475 it was able to incorporate many features that developed over the interim years at the site. Of course the dark side of this coin is the fact that it was still so incomplete when, just a few years later, Harisena died. Furthermore, as we shall see, despite its staggering profusion of Buddha images, not a single one of them, except for the expediently rushed main shrine image, was finished during the site’s heyday, while not a single inch of the ceilings, walls, or images, either in the cave’s porch or interior, was ever either plastered or painted until the Period of Disruption (mid-478–480). The Upper Story of Cave 6 is set much deeper into the cliff than the lower story. This may have been necessary because, its presence
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not having been anticipated when work was started on the lower story, and because of the receding angle of the scarp, it was not possible to place it directly above the earlier excavation. At the same time, the relative location of the two caves now made it possible to bring the expedient stairway up into the upper story’s porch, rather than, far more disruptively, into the latter cave’s interior. Much of the porch front (now improperly reconstructed) has fallen, due to a huge fault that, at the left, caused a major collapse in some later century. The great crack, clearly seen running through the ceiling of the left pillared cell and (obscured by repair) that at the porch’s left, may have run through that area from time immemorial, but its dramatic widening to a rift of as much as six inches was surely a response to the weakening of the mountain’s fabric in this area by the very intrusion of the extensive excavation. However, just as the response of the great fault in Cave 4 was delayed for some time after the ceiling was finished, the problem in Cave Upper 6 obviously remained “potential” until after the excavation of the cave came to a halt; this is evident from the fact that the row of eight carved (intrusive) Buddhas on the front of the left pillared cell were completed in normal course during the very latest years of excavating activity at the site (the Period of Disruption, ending in 480 C.E.). It was only later—we can probably never know exactly when—that the geological stress manifested itself and the rock in this area gave way. This was responsible for the destruction of the left part of the porch’s colonnade and much of the ceiling in that area; and a particularly telling evidence is to be seen in the surprising “dislocation” of the shoulder of the fourth Buddha image in the intrusive group mentioned above. It is evident that this image was harshly split asunder when, at some later point, the fault opened up, displacing much of the left side of the body. This is not immediately evident now, because the deep crack responsible has been filled with cement; but it is clearly revealed after a moment’s study. Fortunately, the stump of the right porch pillar survived the shock, while the fine right porch pilaster, protected by being integral with the rock behind, also remains as a vestige of the original colonnade. Both—surely underway in 465—must have been roughed out with more primitive intentions, but by the time they were finished shortly after 475, they had been redesigned to reflect the up-to-date features developing at this point in the influential Cave 19 and Cave 1. At the same time, (as the one remaining stump reveals) the porch
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pillars had already been too fully roughed out in their first (octagonal) phase to be converted into the new square-based types found in the slightly later interior peristyle. By the same token, the originally intended plain porch ends which (on the right would have been abutted by the staircase, were eventually “improved” by the addition of the newly popular pillared complexes cut in those positions after the Hiatus. As their shallow vestibules alone would suggest, they were not converted from simple cells (as was the case in Cell L1) but must have been started as new complexes in 475; the fact that their inner cells have D mode fittings would confirm this. On the right the pillared porch cell complex had to be inconveniently set back, since the end wall would originally have been located at the same point as the balustrade at the top of the monolithic stairs. Of course here, as in so many other features in the cave, much that was originally planned by the patron did not get done; therefore the complexes were not supplied with the decorative friezes, centered upon nagas and yaksas, that were conventional by this time, and seen in the porch complexes of Cave 2, 21, 23, and 26LW, all accomplished a year or so earlier, in better times. As mentioned above, the frieze of Eight Buddhas which front the left and right pillared porch complexes are intrusions of the Period of Disruption, like nearly all of the rest of the sculpture in the porch. In fact, all of the imagery in Cave Upper 6’s porch, whether carved or painted, belongs to the Period of Disruption; and this is true of all of the imagery in the cave’s hall too, to say nothing of the many architectural features which are either half done or not done at all. What the patron did manage to do—given his priorities as his world was suddenly falling apart—is to get the shrine image completed (even if somewhat expediently) and then dedicated, probably within mere days from the time that he must have fled the site. The porch doorway and (more obviously) the windows had already been roughed out well before 468, and then were reworked after 475, neither being completed. It is evident that the windows were originally narrower early types which, when work started up again on the cave after the Hiatus, were candidates for upgrading, even though the improvements never got finished. Later both windows, their conversion to the later square types never fully realized, were used as grounds for intrusions. By the same token the doorway was being “improved” too, starting with the addition of a conventional
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(for post-475 doorways) floral coil; surely other late features would have been carved too, had time not run out. However, as it was, the unfinished doorway—surely originally intended to have sculptural decoration, was expediently plastered over (as if to excuse its incompletion), along with the adjacent porch walls and ceiling during the Period of Disruption, at which time dozens of intrusive Buddha images—the painted ones mostly fallen away—were placed here by the new and anxious late donors who used such caves as the ground for their votive gifts. We know that this plastering (and painting) was indeed done during the Period of Disruption because traces of it can still be seen on a few of the random (clearly intrusive) Buddha images farther down the wall. It is worth noting that the porch ceiling, showing a number of distinctive mixes (surely all applied at the same time) never got decorated, even though we can assume that if the painters of the main wall had not been in such a rush (in 480), it would have been covered with simple designs to “honor” them, as was the case elsewhere in the cave. The two court cells (now shrinelets), necessarily cramped in their locations, clearly represent that compulsion that impacted upon the site in 477 (and only in 477) when anybody who could find the available space added cells—pillared complexes if space allowed—at either side of the caves’ courts. The apparent compulsion to add them is characteristic of the rule—the demands—of taste which dominated Ajanta throughout its development. Here, at the left, there was insufficient room because of the understandable narrowness of this upper court area, but a single cell was started in any case, with some simple decoration around the door to perhaps excuse its constriction. The right cell was more amply supplied with space, but like its counterpart on the left had almost certainly not been finished when time ran out with the sudden death of Harisena. Thereafter, not surprisingly, both of these already partly reamed out areas were taken over for intrusions during the Period of Disruption, adding to the host of such “uninvited” figures which fill the porch and court areas, to say nothing of the interior of the cave. They both contain fine examples of very late image types, with complex throne back and throne base motifs, dating mid 478 to 480. The figure in the left shrinelet is a splendid and very late example of the bhadrasana type; that on the right would also probably have been of this newly popular form had it not been for the flawed nature of the rock at its base level.
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Farther to the front of the narrow courtyard, abutting the left shrinelet, a burly standard-bearer, with a hole for a pole through his hand—once held aloft some kind of flag or banner; he is aided by a naga attendant who also once helped hold the pole, although his outstretched arm (not surprisingly) has been broken away. These delightful figures—proclaiming and supporting the faith—obviously date from the site’s halcyon days; no one would have bothered with such wonderful things in the Period of Disruption. It seems likely that they were done in the busy year of 477, when things were going so well, for they seem to utilize the rock left over at the left of the opening into the left court cell, prior to its conversion to a shrinelet; had they been done before the cell, it seems likely that they would have utilized more of the then available matrix in that area. Since the porch did not get painted in the normal course of work, it is hardly surprising that the main hall was also unpainted. Indeed, its excavation was still very unfinished, especially at the lower levels, when the patron’s involvement precipitously ended with the shock of Harisena’s death. When the interior of Cave Upper 6 was penetrated in about 465, it was far more simply conceived than its final form would suggest. As the lack of any axial focus in its peristyle suggests, the shrine itself would not have yet been conceived at that time, so it must have been started as a simple dormitory at that moment, before the shrine concept was introduced at the site. And although, during the next couple of years, plans must have been made for a shrine and shrine antechamber, the excavators had not reached that point before the Recession put a stop to any further activity. As noted below, the shrine antechamber pillars could not have been revealed until 475, since they have brackets which only come into fashion starting at that date. Furthermore, none of the six elaborate pillared complexes which were being excavated in the main hall in the cave’s second (post-475) phase had been either started, or indeed planned, by the time of the 468 recession. This is why those toward the front (L1, R1) where excavation work was further underway, got treated as simple cells, which later on had to be converted to later and different uses: the left cell (L1) was converted to a pillared complex after 475; the right cell was going to be treated in the same way, but had progressed only to the point where the space original defined for the cell’s early doorway was being enlarged to the point where the fronting pillars were
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about to be cut from the reserved matrix at the sides; however, at that point any further plan to turn it into a pillared cell complex was aborted when Harisena died. Instead, later on, in the Period of Disruption, the half finished project was taken over and a fine Buddha installed in it.86 When work was interrupted in 468, the pillars of the peristyle had all been at least roughed out, but none of them would have been finally defined. This was presumably the case because of the vast amount of work that had to be done in the interior, and the planner’s decision to get the interior’s different features roughed out before their detailing. In this regard, Pillar L3 serves as a particularly interesting example of how the originally squared matrix was gradually cut down to form the design of the center of the shaft. It also shows how matrix would be expediently reserved before the final cuts were made, to save time and effort. The fact that Cave U6’s pillars were not properly finished until after 475 is suggested by the reduction (to three) of the number of volutes beneath the capital ends—a later variant of the type that one finds in Caves 4, 16, and 17; the U6 capitals are similar to those on the (also square-based) pillars in Cave 5, which although roughed out very early were also being defined after the Hiatus. It is likely that, just as is the case with the (mostly lost) porch pillars, Cave U6’s hall pillars must originally have been planned with shafts of the “standard” old octagonal type; but they would have been enclosed with a thick enough matrix that, at least at the lower level, the newly-desirable square bases could be revealed. However, again like the related porch pillars of the adjacent Cave 5, the square bases are cut quite low, as was required by the limitations of the available matrix. It is possible too that there was some attempt (or at least a desire) to widen the intercolumniation between the central pairs in order to now provide an axial focus, as was apparently done in Caves 4, 16, 17 and the Ghototkacha vihara, which were equally innocent of the need for a shrine when first conceived. However in Cave Upper 6 such a widening of the intercolumniation of the central pillars of the front aisle, by means of shifting those pillars slightly farther apart (i.e. “cheating”) in the process of finally defining the shafts, is almost imperceptible; such an adjustment may not have 86 This “conversion” of the simple cell, and the ultimate carving of the Buddha image, is discussed in Volume III: Cave Upper 6.
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even been desired or considered by the planners who ordered the later work, since the surrounding matrix may have been sufficient only for the creation of the square bases. Probably being given precedence, the central pillars, now being redesigned, may have required nearly all of the still-available matrix, making any widening of the space between the central pillars quite impossible. To support this argument—to justify such previously unanticipated adjustments by what present day carpenters call “cheating”—we can turn to those instances at the site where pillars still remain “in process”, only partially revealed. There are numerous examples which define, or remain in, the first stage of cutting, showing how “gross” this often was, as the intended forms were only roughly blocked out, and thus by chance, as it were, could allow for change. The massively revealed central pillars both of Cave 5’s porch colonnade (see un-adjusted right pillar) and of the later central pillars of the front row of its barely revealed peristyle are particularly relevant cases in point, as are the various unfinished left and right aisle pillars of the partially excavated interior of Cave 24; these all still show us today how much surrounding matrix was often left in the pillars’ roughingout stage. The right pillar and pilaster of the porch of Cave 25, with much matrix still at their bases, and indeed pillar L3 of Cave U6 itself, also show how much remaining matrix was still later available for the reshaping of these forms. In a somewhat different but relevant example, we must note with surprise, in a day when massiveness was a prime desideratum for all of the later pillars at the site, how constricted (in fact, reduced) the porch pillars of the great caitya hall Cave 26 appear when compared with its now-expected heavier counterparts in its attendant vihara, Cave 24. These pillars of Cave 26 would have been first roughed out with conventionally early octagonal forms in the first few years of activity at the site, but they did not receive their present much-elaborated form (specific evidence for which is preserved only in an old photograph) until after the Asmaka takeover of the site in 475.87 By that time, high square bases were almost universally desired, where it was possible to make them, and the planners 87 See ACSAA fiche. The richly decorated upper shaft of the right porch pillar is still precariously intact. Later it must have fallen and been disposed of by rolling it into the ravine. A single capital fragment with a loving couple, still lying visible in the garden below, must have originally belonged to one of the porch pillars.
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of Cave 26 were highly sensitive to such demands of taste—requirements to which they themselves contributed. However, to make the “required” high square bases when these early and unfinished forms were later transformed, a degree of massiveness had to be sacrificed, making them considerably more attenuated than expected for pillars of this importance and developed design. Significantly, to achieve this, it was necessary for the carvers to make the dimensions of the pillar bases somewhat smaller than the width of the monolithic “floor beam” upon which they stand; and although this was necessary, it was hardly desirable, running counter to the situation in other caves, where the front and rear margins of the pillar bases are “properly” and more “solidly” aligned with the rock cut beams upon which they are founded. Such a telling adjustment, required by the fact that the available matrix must not have been thick enough to otherwise allow the desired change in design, has a somewhat similar counterpart in the treatment of the elaborately multi-facetted pillars of Cave 26’s hall. They too, like the eight “hidden” pillars in the apse, must have been planned with octagonal shafts, according to the retardatory style of the early 460s, when they were first roughed out, strongly reflecting the old forms of Cave 10. However here, even more than in Cave 26’s porch colonnade, it was impossible to make massive (or indeed any) square bases without drastically attenuating the pillars. Therefore, the carvers concentrated upon elaborating the shafts more practically and more easily, by multiplying the facets, to achieve a desired richness. The ceilings of the, main hall and surrounding aisles of Cave Upper 6 had all been fully cut and leveled by the excavators in normal course well before, but the floor below was still very much in process when interrupted by the Recession. Understandably, and typically, the dark front wall was merely roughed out, but the more frontal sections of the left and right side walls were smoothly finished (down to their still rough lower levels) in a typically “early” way, seen in the first stages of such work in the lower story also. The rear aisle wall, although still quite rough, was surely in process at this time, but it is clear that the shrine antechamber had not even been penetrated. Otherwise, the matrix for the vyala brackets (which would not have been conceived or started until the second (postHiatus) phase of work on the cave had been begun) would have been cut away when the adjacent ceiling was excavated, as was the
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case in Cave 4, 7, 15, 16, 17, and 20, where the antechambers were at least minimally penetrated before the Hiatus. At this earlier date, the antechamber pillars were invariably defined with no brackets whatsoever; by contrast, in Cave Upper 6, 1, 2, and 21 (q.v.) the presence of brackets proves that they must have been cut in or after 475, when this elaborate feature became conventional.88 Revealing evidence of just how far excavation had proceeded when work broke off in 468 is provided by the half-cut projecting pivot holder for the doorway of Cell L2—actually a variant of the B mode—perhaps not fully cut down for lack of time. This is a feature that never appears at the site until 468—indeed probably just before all further work in most caves was disallowed—so we can say that this cell was well underway but by no means completed at that date. As for the cells beyond, L3, if indeed started by 468, would have been cut away in its post-475 conversion to a pillared complex, while those beyond, along with those on the cave’s right, must have been too little started to have such a projection defined. Later on, after 475, all such cells, including cell L2 (whose projection becomes vestigial), were provided with more modern (D mode) recessed fittings. The presence of carved niches in cells L2 and R2 suggests that these two were finished and fitted out by 476, while work must still have been proceeding on the others, which were either farther back in the cave, or (in the case of the pillared complexes) more complicated. As for Cave Upper 6’s pillared complexes, they represent a relatively delayed extension, one could say, of the delights offered by the similarly developed porch complexes, into the contexts of the interiors, not only in this cave, but in all other major late caves as well. Thus, just after 475, we find that both in Cave 21 and in the Ghatotkacha vihara, such complexes were started, as here, at the left and right rear as well as at the centers of the side walls; the positioning at the rear becomes conventional in all major later caves at Ajanta, although the complexes at the centers of the side aisle have no descendants, perhaps because of cost considerations.
88 Cave 26LW’s antechamber pillars, roughed out early, were probably planned as bracketless too; but this must remain a conjecture, since the relevant portions have been lost. For the unusual situations in Caves 21 and 23 see discussion of those caves in Volume I, Chapter 12. See also discussions of situations in Caves 22 and 27.
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Having already proved himself very responsive to new developments, the cave’s patron, starting in 475, began to add the newly popular pillared cells both at the center of the side walls and at the left and right rear. As noted above, he even undertook to convert the cells at the ends of the front aisle into similar complexes.89 This conversion from a characteristically thin-walled early cell explains why the fronting pillars of the complex cell at the left are so surprisingly attenuated—their possible dimensions had been previously defined by the thickness of the front wall from which they had to be cut. This uncharacteristic attenuation also explains why they can be made to ring with different musical tones when variously pounded— a phenomenon which has greatly profited guards lucky enough to have been assigned duty in the cave. This pillared cell complex was more or less fully excavated by 477 and the handsome elephant frieze above had already been completed, when such “inessential” work stopped; however some details remained to be done, as one can see from the presence of the revealing but unrealized patterns for decorative motifs laid out in red at the right. The area above, still very rough, was later plastered by intrusive donors, and then probably painted with Buddha images— now impossible to see. One might also note how the expansion of the original cell necessitated constraints in the definition of the new vestibule’s right wall; even so, a breakthrough occurred, probably the fault of the carvers of Cell L2, who were finishing that cell at this same time (475–476). Unlike the latter complex on the left, the opposite complex at the right end of the aisle—also converted from an almost finished cell, as its unconventional depth reveals—had progressed no further than the cutting of the wide opening between the anticipated (but never carved) pillars when the cave’s overall program was interrupted in 477. Then, in mid 478 or perhaps 479, an intrusive donor named Govinda took over this convenient space, which could be so easily transformed into a votive shrinelet.90 With more funds and more artists available than would be the case a year later, he even ordered the carving and elaborate painting of a distinctly late doorway (based loosely in its design on the hastily finished shrine doorway), in front 89 Only in Cave Upper 6 were such cells planned (admittedly via conversion from simple cells) for the ends of its front aisle. 90 See Cohen 1995, #19.
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of which the artists decorated a large section of the otherwise abandoned front aisle ceiling. His almost illegible donative inscription appears under a painted bhadrasana Buddha on the side of the large pilaster to the left. The richly painted carved Buddha inside the right front shrinelet is attended by standing Buddhas raised up on lotus petals, and is honored by dramatically projecting flying couples above—all confirming the lateness of this conception. Hidden behind the latter figures are two remaining iron hooks for garlands; no less than five holes for such hooks circle the halo, while another can be seen in the center of the ceiling medallion. These are generally readily visible, since they have usually been filled in with a white deposit by insects, who have appropriated them (here and elsewhere at the site) to secure a hatchery for their offspring. By the same token, another donor took over the similarly unfinished space at the right end of the cave’s rear wall in 480, but was able to do nothing more than to very expediently paint the finely carved main image (only) before time ran out. His shrine too was made from what had once been started as a pillared residence complex, the pillars of course to be ultimately revealed (though never actually revealed) at either side of the large opening, which itself was cut from the previously planned cell doorway. It is instructive to recognize that except for the main image every Buddha in the cave—in the courtyard area, in the porch, in the main hall, and (at least by the time work was finished) in the shrine antechamber—belongs to the Period of Disruption. Even the seated Buddhas on the capitals of the unfinished pillars are all intrusions, typically avoiding flawed main faces and at the same time not hesitating to add an image in the lower priority (and less visible) left aisle, which the original planners would never have done. For some reason, this cave was particularly attractive to intrusive donors, possibly because (with the exception of the fine shrine Buddha itself ) there was not a single “original” image in the porch, in the main hall, and even in the shrine and shrine antechamber; every one is an intrusion. Even the five large images which the original patron started in the shrine antechamber were taken over and finished by intruders, after which they too were responsible for the final plastering and painted.91 91
For discussion, see Volume III: Cave Upper 6.
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Many small intrusive Buddhas (sometimes interspersed with stupas, particularly where the rock is flawed) were carved along the tops of the walls. One can see where similar painted groups appeared because the surfaces are cleaner where the plaster which had been supplied as their ground eventually fell away in more recent times, leaving the rock relatively clean where the plaster had become detached. The same kind of evidence often reveals where plastered and then-painted “canopies” once ran along the ceiling above these intrusive friezes of carved and/or painted images. Intrusive images, throughout the site, are often “honored” in this way. An abandoned series of padmasana Buddhas, merely sketched in (with the chisel) on the left rear wall just below the level of the ceiling, is of particular interest, because it was partially obscured by a later series of bhadrasana images; it would be fairly safe to date them to mid-478/479 and 480 respectively, for the padmasana images occupy a fairly high priority location, likely to have been chosen early in this intrusive phase, while such small bhadrasana images never appear at the site until the very last year of patronage activity. An interesting but elusive and fragmentary—much damaged— sketch of Avalokitesvara as Protector of Travelers (the so-called Avalokitesvara Litany), with a monk’s donative inscription, appears on the already (from 468) smoothed wall to the right of the left front pilaster. Not only because it is merely sketched rather than painted, with a cursory (not even level) treatment of the inscription, this appears as a most hurried and probably very late intrusion.92 Although the rear wall was never properly finished, the two large standing Buddhas on either side of the shrine antechamber entrance must have already been completed in 479, because this is such a high priority area. In fact, their upper frames appear to interrupt the series of seated Buddhas above, suggesting that the large figures were put in place first. The same typically late red plaster seen on one can be found on the porch ceiling, and in some of the cells of the lower story. Contrasting with the far more desirable rear wall, the dark front wall, far from the shrine, and far from having been fully excavated by the time that Harisena died, was not utilized for intrusions until
92
For the painted inscription see Cohen 1995, #18.
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480; not surprisingly, many of its images, which often are partially defined by the brush alone, were never completed.93 Although most of the cells had been fitted out for residence, with typically late recessed door-fittings, by Harisena’s death, the finishing of the floor was considered less essential—given the realities of time and money in this period of decline. As a consequence, especially toward the sides and back, much remains unfinished today; one can see, in the right aisle, how numerous excavators (paid according to how much they did) were at work, and how they were using the weak “flow-line” of the ropy lava to make their task easier. On the adjacent pillar one can see how two of the most common types of chisels used at the site—one rather wide (about a half inch) and flat and one pointed—were used in the finishing of the base. Not surprisingly, the hall floor leading up to the shrine was expediently completed, although in normal course it would have been lowered somewhat more, at least in the rear aisle. The shrine antechamber pillars, with their rearing animal brackets, were underway shortly after work started up again in 475, for the cave had nearly reached this point when work broke off in 468; they appear to reflect the earlier rearing vyalas on the shrine doorway in this cave’s lower story, or such figures on the first pillars inside Cave 19. They apparently anticipate the more elaborate female brackets carved in the antechambers of 476/477 in Caves 1 and 2. Cave Upper 6’s Buddha image, influenced in type and placement by the conception in Cave 2, must have been mostly carved in 477, so advanced and so exuberant is the throne base with its architectonic references and its eight frolicking dwarfs dragging coiling flowers out of the makaras’ mouths. Since the image was already underway by or even before 477, its attendance by bodhisattvas (rather than by standing Buddhas) is as expected. They are the conventional types, with the crowned figure (probably Vajrapani, but without that attribute) on the proper left and Avalokitesvara (having a seated Amitabha at the front of his jatamukuta and an antelope skin over his shoulder) at the proper right. Significantly, both are now haloed, as was conventional after 476. Above the throne, flying couples, and even triads now replace the soaring dwarfs invariably found a year or so earlier. These were also
93
These intrusions are discussed at length in Volume III.
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forms characteristic of the happy context of 477, but it is possible that, having already been planned, they were finished early in 478. But the anomalously flattened throne base shows an expedient adjustment typical of 478, when political realities were suddenly replacing esthetic ones, and the patron was now intensely focused on getting his image done and dedicated; for this reason, the matrix that had been reserved for the now-expected kneeling devotees like those found in the closely contemporaneous images in Caves 1, 2, or 4 has been hastily cut away, and anomalously flat deer and lion and wheel motifs of a distinctly early type were quickly added in front of the typically late arcing throne-cloth—an anomalous combination. In fact—further suggesting the haste involved—these curiously “early” motifs appear to have been copied quite directly from those of the image in the lower story. Only the “late” nubs characteristic of images made from 477 on are not seen here, almost certainly because the throne base draws upon that in the lower story for its forms, and of course that early image does not include them, for they had not yet come into fashion.94 A serious crisis is reflected in the shrine antechamber, where the patron, who certainly would have finished all of his six great standing Buddhas if he could, decided that since only five were underway when Harisena died, he would at least get those five done during 478, when he was still controlling the cave’s sculptural program. The sixth had been delayed, almost certainly, because two of the three could only be worked on conveniently at one time, given the demands of the scaffolding; for this reason, typically, work on the center one was delayed. But he did not even manage to get the nearly finished (but not painted) five images fully done, as it turned out. This is clear from the fact that the central standing Buddha on the right side has a little seated Buddha cut from the matrix which had obviously been intended for a conventional kneeling devotee at the large Buddha’s base. Like its missing counterpart on the left, the central standing Buddha on the right had been placed last in the sequence of work on this side, so that the sculptors carving the figures to its left and right could have more space for themselves and their scaffolds; thus it, in particular, had not been fully finished during the anxious year of hurried activity just after Harisena died. The
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The Cave Upper 6 Buddha is discussed in more detail in Volume I, Chapter 11.
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little seated Buddha under discussion is of course an intrusion, like all of the varied images—also intrusions—that invaded the panel reserved for the “missing” Buddha on the left side. All of these small carved Buddhas (some with painted attendant figures) all probably date from mid 478/479 rather than 480, given the importance of their positions, as well as other factors discussed below. It is interesting to note that the very same mix of fine gray whiteseeded plaster, applied without a break and then painted, covers both the five huge Buddhas and the numerous little intrusions in the “unused” panel on the shrine antechamber’s left wall; indeed, it continues over the shrine doorway and its still-rough (flawed) margins, and appears to be identical in type and application with that covering the main Buddha image. This is in itself hardly surprising, since the same fine mix is used in many areas throughout the caves (e.g. the Avalokitesvara Litany). By the same token, the six typically late (480) standing Buddhas in the shrine itself—only the three on the right ever having been finished and painted—and the jumble of unfinished images on the only partially excavated front shrine wall, equally show how time ran out even while they were underway. Students of iconography will be intrigued by a unique example, where the “unclean” left rather than the expected right hand is lowered by the standing Buddha at the far left, clearly because the inept sculptor had allowed the central figure too much space.95 However, this latter Buddha’s hand, far from offering grace, is discreetly turned away. Another planning mistake is seen in the main image’s proper right attendant, where the lowered arm was partly chiseled away (like a bit of the Buddha’s calf ) and then had to be “repaired” with mud-plaster. This problem was probably caused by a flaw, but, since there are chisel marks in the area, the sculptor may have opened it up more for better adhesion; it would seem that the sculptor misjudged the “withered” arm’s position in blocking out the whole group; and that he therefore had to repair it as best he could with a fill of mud, which would not be seen, once the repaired surface was plastered and painted.
95 I assume that a single sculpture was commissioned to do these three images, but it is conceivable that—noting the confusion in composition—that another sculptor carved the figure at the right.
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A more complex repair was made upon the flying celestials just above, where a flaw or a break during carving destroyed the arms of two adjacent figures, which were then repaired with one (nowmissing) inset which served them both. Still another intriguing repair involves the nose of the right front standing Buddha in the shrine antechamber which broke off while being carved. It was replaced with mud-plaster and then painted over; had the image not been typically “defaced”, presumably by Muslim enthusiasts in some later century, the secret repair would still lie unrevealed today. Another intriguing “repair” involves the inset threshold of cell R5, where the geological flaw so evident in that area caused problems not discovered until the doorway had already been cut down too far, given the unnaturally high final level established for the cell floor. Other “repairs” can be seen in two of the cell doorways toward the rear of the left aisle, where twp replacements (their neat cutting quite characteristic of late work) were set into areas which must have been flawed and were therefore cut away.
Cave 7 Cave 7 was one of the many inaugural excavations started at the site during its Vakataka renaissance, by a patron who—at least at that early moment—must have been blessed with wealth and power. Its intended, even if never realized, spacious hall, for all of its later complexities, had been planned at the very beginning of the site’s Vakataka development, when viharas were still conceived as simple residences for the monks. However, the cave had a troubled history, in its transition from an aborted dormitory to an equally aborted shrine. The patron’s early intentions are already announced by the cave’s unique double-portico façade. This arrangement, perhaps because it denied the primacy of an axial focus, so important once shrines were planned for the caves, is unique among the Vakataka caves, its singularity further revealed by its early decoration with a complex array of candrasalas (arch-motifs) containing simple but strong floral and animal forms. Even though these ponderous motifs were probably not carved until the second phase of work on this troubled cave (see below), they still can be seen as among the very first sculptures revealed at the site.
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Cave 7’s early fronting pillars (much reconstructed) would have been mere roughed-out octagonal types when first revealed in about 462. However when, like the façade motifs, they were finally defined in 467, it is clear that the planners were striving to overcome the limitations of the old (Hinayana) octagonal format with their fluted upper portions, which are impressive even though “imprisoned” within the original boundaries of the primitive shaft. Just behind, the more conventional pillars have the plain octagonal shafts and the ribbed capitals seen in most of the earliest caves. Significantly (because it breaks the “rule of symmetry” so honored at the site) we can see a “transition” here from the earliest five-ribbed bracket form, found here on the right pilaster and right pillar to the four-ribbed bracket form at the cave’s left. The earlier ones at the right (paralleling the pillars of Cave 11’s early porch) had probably just been completed as work stopped on the first phase of work in the cave (i.e. in 465) when the capitals at the left had perhaps only been blocked out, but finished only a year or two later in the slightly more developed Cave 4, 16, 17 mode. When Cave 7 was first begun, it was of course conceived merely as a monastic residence, without any thought of a shrine, the same being true of all of the other viharas begun prior to about 466. It is quite inconceivable that the present carvings on the façade would have been created for a mere dormitory, even one with such an impressive (but impractical and anomalous) double entrance. At the time it was roughed out, the intention surely was to leave it plain. Such a decorative schema, with its significant motifs, was surely only conceived in the second phase of work on the cave, starting in about 467, when a shrine was finally planned. And since the Buddha’s shrine would properly be on the axis of the cave, the two porticoes would now become secondary features; this is evident from the disposition of the façade motifs added when work on the troubled cave was taken up again. The most important facade motif—a stupa, under an umbrella and protected by a naga—was now placed at the exact center of the porch, while the central motifs on the large adjacent porticoes are the less important (but of course still significant) supporting yaksas. All of these features are carved in a somewhat ponderous style which suggests inexperience both on the part of the sculptor and of his encouraging but still not very sophisticated superiors. One might
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even (precariously) surmise that their sculptor had come down to get a job at the promising site from the eastern Vakataka realms, where the figures carved earlier in the century were typically invested with a heavy authority which one often feels reflected at the site, and indeed is still resident in what has been called the “western Indian style” manifest at Knavery, Jogesvari, Elephanta, and elsewhere.96 In fact, these facade decorations of Cave 7, finished in 468, just before the Recession, may possibly be the earliest figural sculptures at the site; for most of the earliest excavations were at first only generally blocked out, the definition of their sculptural forms being reserved until work in any given area was well underway.97 It is significant that a stupa rather than a Buddha image figures as the central motif, for at this still relatively early date (467) it is likely that the shrines themselves were being conceived for stupas, not Buddhas. Indeed, at this point the crucial Buddha images would not at yet have appeared fronting the stupas in the caitya halls 19 and 26, although as the stupas were being roughed out the nascent images were probably already anticipated, and roughed-out extensions at the stupa fronts reserved for them. This new compulsion for Buddha imagery, surely stimulated by—even engendered by—the authority of the caitya halls, now almost immediately swept the site. The shrine stupas which surely had been planned for many caves now swiftly yielded their pride of place to the Buddha image. Indeed, had the façade of Cave 7 been decorated a mere year or two later, a Buddha image rather than a stupa might well have occupied the central position; for soon Buddha imagery, never to be seen anywhere at the site prior to 468 or even 469, would start upon its exponential course of development.98 The fact that Cave 7 had a peculiarly troubled history is already announced by the fact that the five medallions at the center of its five forward ceiling areas, conceived in 467 or perhaps 468, were 96 See various publications by Jamkhedkar (esp. Jamkhedkar 1992) and useful articles by various scholars in The Vakataka Heritage (ed: Bakker 2004). For Harle’s opinion (Volume I, Chapter 1, p. 18) that the often ponderous Ajanta Buddha images are “generally uninspired and rather lumpy” (!), see Harle 1974, 24. 97 This was particularly characteristic of the Asmaka excavations at the site’s western extremity. 98 For the dating of the focal Buddha in Cave 26 and the related Cave 19, see in particular Volume II, Cave 26 discussions in Chapters 2, 3.
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never carved, even though projecting matrix had been reserved for two of them under the paired porticoes.99 The other three were probably all laid out, prior to carving, with preliminary red designs, even though the pattern survives only for the one at the right.100 It is certainly the case that no one would have “decorated” the cave in this way, had the conception of this, like all other viharas at this time, not suddenly changed from dormitory to shrine. Although less crucial than the facade motifs, these medallions would surely have been properly carved in this second phase of work too, had time not run out with the coming of the Recession. As it is, they all remained incomplete, and eventually, over a decade later, when the whole cave was being hurriedly “finished” just prior to the Period of Disruption, they were summarily covered over with a plastered ceiling. This, however, never got painted, for lack of time; where it has fallen away, the evidence of the earlier and more ambitious intentions are clearly revealed. Cave 7’s intended interior hall, as originally conceived would have been astylar, shrineless, and without porch end cells. Its simple interior, if completed, could have housed thirty monks, two in each of the five cells on its left, right, and rear sides.101 However, it was never started. This is because work was suddenly interrupted (probably in 465) even before the extensive porch had been fully revealed. It appears that at this point there was no plan whatsoever for continuing work on the abandoned cave, still conceived as a mere dormitory; possibly the patron had died, or had fallen out of favor, or had become insolvent.
99 We can assume that the ceiling was only roughed out in the first stage of work on the cave, and that the projecting medallions were defined when the ceiling was cut back to the intended final level in the second stage. 100 The evidence for the two leftward ones is gone, but can be confidently reconstructed from what remains at the right, since they were obviously symmetrically disposed. It is somewhat surprising that the projecting medallions were in the “subsidiary” positions, although it may have been harder to carve the recessed ones, and possibly they were seen as the more important; in any case we do not know what the plans were for the more important central position, since the evidence is gone. One can imagine that it would have been the largest of the five. 101 It is conceivable that this (hypothetical) hall, which would probably have been slightly smaller than those of Caves 21 and 23, contained only twelve cells (four on each side). I originally conjectured that the hall would have been planned with six cells on a side, but I do not believe I published that plan, which in any case was surely incorrect.
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This is surely why the planners of the adjacent Cave 8, probably starting in 466, and now planning to house the Buddha, rather than just the monks in it, were able to extend their own excavation so far under the left side of the (temporarily) abandoned Cave 7, even somewhat under the space presently occupied by the porch end complex later placed in that area. This was no particular problem at the time, since Cave 7, in its earliest phase, was innocent of porch end cells. However, in their eagerness, the excavators who were now enlarging Cave 8, making a more appropriate residence for the Buddha now that shrines had become “necessary”, cut so close to Cave 7’s now-abandoned cistern that the thin separating wall ruptured, if not in the course of their carving, then at some later date. Needless to say, such an un-neighborly action would never have passed muster under normal circumstances, for “property rights and rules” at the site were very strict; that is, it must have been understood at the time (even if circumstances altered the situation) that Cave 7 had been abandoned. It was only after this “incursion” by Cave 8 that Cave 7’s situation changed, and that either the original patron, or some successor, took up work on Cave 7 once again—probably in 467. Unless the previous patron had a change of fortune, it may be that some new donor, enthused by the meritorious prospect of now housing an image within this already-started excavation, decided to take over responsibility for continuing the work. However this may be, the original conception was now greatly reduced, the once-ambitious cave now being turned into little more than a porch with a central shrine area and a fair number of expediently placed residence cells. It would have been at this point, because of the enhanced status of the cave, that the façade carvings were now added, and the decorative medallions were laid out, even though they never got finished. Surely driven to find a way to make up for the loss of residence space occasioned by the decision to truncate the cave by omitting the main hall with its many cells, the planner astutely decided to add commodious pillared wings to the still-uncut left and right ends of the porch. This was a new and bold solution—one which, despite the apparent clumsiness of this first effort, appears to have been responsible for first introducing the soon-popular concept of pillared porch end complexes to the site; from this time on we can see the form develop toward the decisively planned and ornamented complexes
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of Ajanta’s last few years. The primitive octagonal shafts of the fronting pillars of the two complexes surely reflects their early date (467), although we can be quite sure, that if time had allowed, they would have been supplied with appropriate decoration later on. However, now, as if to pay for the interruption which took place just before, the cell complex at the left had to be placed at an abnormally high level, because of the extension of Cave 8’s interior into the area just beneath, which had taken place in 466, when Cave 7 was “dead”. This incursion by Cave 8 accounts for the expedient placement of the left cell in the cave’s rear wall too, which the planners cut at this same time, but feared putting at the lower level, just as they must have hesitated to cut away the mass of matrix nearby, into which they planned to cut the necessary steps (never properly defined) to ascend into the complex. Indeed, quite remarkably (if proof is needed that the left complex had never been planned in the original phase of work on the cave), the excavators now angled the porch ceiling upward, starting from the middle and proceeding to the left end, which is at least 9” higher than it was originally. Such an insistent angling upward of the left part of the ceiling was clearly related to the necessary heightening of the left pillared complex, and the latter’s ceiling, the whole being adjusted in its positioning because of the extension of Cave 8’s right side below. It may be that the mass of remaining matrix at the left end of the porch was never cut away because of the same concern about a possible breakthrough into Cave 8, although it is unlikely that the was any imminent danger, Cave 8’s extension not being dangerously tangent at this point. Nonetheless, the still inexperienced and cautious excavators opted to put the cell at the extreme left of the porch’s rear wall at a “safe” high level when it was exposed just before the Recession, in 468. At this point in time, the necessary access steps, leading to the pillared complex, and (rather expediently) to the adjacent cell, would also have been cut, the mass of matrix having been reserved, certainly out of a similar concern for a possible breakthrough.102 we can perceive how little the porch had actu102 The present steps are reconstructed, but may mask authentic ones. Quite possibly so much of the matrix had been cut away in earlier exposing the left end of the porch that the steps had to rise up from the left, since access from in front of the complex would have been too steep.
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ally been penetrated in the first phase of work on the excavation, for the mass of matrix from which they surely intended to make the necessary steps into the complex was still remaining as that time, as it does today. At the porch right this was of course not a problem, although the planners raised that pillared complex up “sympathetically”, for esthetic balance, but not so much that it was not easily accessible.103 They also added candrasilas (by now somewhat out-of-date) in front of the doorways of the three cells in the right complex, so that the latter could also mirror those on the left in their level. This “refinement” is hardly noticeable, and may well have been ordered by some planner located away from the site, just as today certain suggestions for work at the site are made by superior officers operating from behind a distant desk, rather than in the cave itself. The excavators could not cut monolithic steps in front of this right complex, because that wall had apparently (and typically) been trimmed to a flat plane when the porch area was being exposed, presumably as early as 464. Even in 465 the excavators had not carved a porch end cell at this point. This is not surprising, because the tendency in most early excavations was to block major areas completely out before cutting cells or starting on decorative forms. Furthermore, it is clear, not only because of the evidence of the matrix left at the left end, but because the pillar capitals at the right (see above) were earlier than those at the left, that the cutting of the right side of the porch proceeded somewhat earlier than did that at the left. We can tell that about half of the cells in these new “apartments” at the porch ends, together with all three of the cells at the lower level in the porch’s rear wall had already been roughly defined in 467. Their thin walls suggest their early date, but the important point is that they lack the projecting (B-mode) pivot-holders that suddenly came into style throughout the site in 468, just before the Recession. At the same time, the fact that the rest of the cells in the pillared complexes do indeed show the B-mode projecting fittings proves that all of these cells in the left and right complexes had been essentially defined by the time work ended with the Recession at the
103 See Cave 20’s and Cave 17’s porches for similar example of “unnecessary” heightening of corresponding features.
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end of 468, even though it is hardly surprisingly (since the cave was still under excavation) that doors had not been fitted in them at this time. It is evident that none of these cells were actually fitted out until the next phase of work had begun on this long-suffering cave shortly after the Asmaka takeover of the site in 475. This is certain because all those in the pillared complexes were eventually converted after 475 to the very practical recessed D-mode.104 That this was hastily accomplished—the chief interest now being to complete the shrine— is suggested by the fact that the unfinished cells on the right rear wall received no attention at all at this time; their clumsy fittings may date from the Period of Disruption, when monks may have been very happy to take over these two airy cells in this pleasant open porch. It is clear that uninvited residents during the Period of Disruption, or (more likely) sadhus who took of residence at some later time, must have made fires for cooking or warming themselves (or keeping tigers away) in the spacious porch, since the once-glorious (now wrecked) ceiling is badly begrimed. A few of the cells (L2, L3, R2), at the same time that their doors were fitted were supplied with new-fangled niches, which were in vogue only in 475 and perhaps in part of 476.105 Larger niches (which I distinguish from the earlier forms by terming them “shelves”, as in the two left cells on the rear wall, as well as the very late court cells, appear not to have been used at the site until 477, judging from evidence throughout the site. Although it is hard to be certain of this in the case of the left rear cells, the two court cells (discussed below) can be securely dated to 477 or early 478. Although the efforts to provide housing for the monks—not apparently realized by the time of the Recession—were important, it is
104 Cell L3’s door fitting is anomalous. It was originally cut in the B mode, in 468, but (like the other cells) it was converted to the D mode in 475 or after. However, it appears that the D mode pivots were not used—perhaps they turned out to be misaligned—and therefore an A+ mode attached projection was applied within the D mode recess, to secure the upper door pivot. The doorway at the left of the antechamber also had some problems. Apparently because of a flaw the door could not be hung in a normal fashion—it appears that two latches were tried and must have failed; at this point the pivot hole was shifted to the opposite side, where it functioned properly. 105 Such niches first appear in 471, but Cave 7 was not being developed at that time, because of the Recession.
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evident that, in 467 and 468, work was very much concentrated on the excavation of the shrine and shrine antechamber. Even so, had the patron been able to predict the future, he would have rushed this work more than he did, for by the beginning of the Recession, this work was still not done. The entrance to Cave 7’s expediently and anomalously placed shrine antechamber, with its severely elaborated pillars, has a clear counterpart in that of Cave 15, both dating to 467 or even 468, and was surely completed prior to the Recession, when the early phase of work on both of these caves was interrupted. This must be true of the shrine doorway also; if one disregards the host of later Buddhas which were added to it, it is evident that it is closely related to that of Cave 15.106 In both one sees very characteristic early-type goddesses, resting their lowered hands upon the upraised tail of their makara vehicles, in a gesture that is standard for the first doorways at the site. Even as late as 471, in the porch doorway of Cave 1 and the shrine doorways of Cave 17 and Cave 20, the goddesses are similarly rendered, although one of the makaras is replaced (in Caves 1 and 17) by a small attendant, while in the more constricted shrine doorway of Cave 20 the goddesses fill the available space alone.107 Again, in both caves, the supporting pilasters are held up, a bit precariously, by straining yaksas; but here the foreparts of lions project clumsily from the base (like the elephants in Cave Lower 6), as if to prepare for the more comfortable presence of such creatures in later doorways. However, even though Cave 7’s shrine antechamber had been essentially finished by the beginning of the Recession, the shrine itself had been no more than roughly penetrated. Consequently, the excavators, giving up any thought of centering the image in a spaciously squared shrine as would be expected at this early date, settled for putting it at the back of a simple scooped-out space, the anomalous shape of which is directly reflected in the warped format of the floor and in the abnormal outward skew of the foreparts of the lions,
106 For the assumption that these added images are not in fact intrusive, see Volume I, Chapter 11: Cave 7. 107 The goddesses are omitted only in the very “primitive” porch doorway of Cave 11, and the anomalous porch doorway of Cave 20. They (and indeed the whole doorway) are rather similarly treated in the exuberant shrine doorway of Cave Lower 6.
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which follow the contour of the expedient excavation rather than crouching as they should beneath the throne.108 At this point the various surrounding Buddhas, large and small, and even the elaborate throne base motifs, had been neither revealed nor conceived. Only the image itself, was the focus of work during the first few months of 469, when this patron, along with those of Cave Lower 6, 11, and 15 were granted a brief dispensation to get their images carved and dedicated. The image here is essentially like those others, but has its proper right hand in abhaya (“do not fear”) mudra, whereas all other shrine images at the site show the dharmacakra (wheel-turning) gesture. The uniqueness of Cave 7’s Buddha image might be explained by recognizing that it is one of the very first at the site, when the dharmacakra convention had not become fixed; or the explanation might be something as simple as a serious break in the course of carving, which required such an iconographic change.109 With its (presumably painted) halo, its robe which covers both shoulders yet shows both nipples, and its characteristically early throne base, with deer worshipping its simple wheel while the lions crouch at the sides, this fine image sat alone in its otherwise barren shrine once the rushed work on it, which could not have been started before the beginning of 469, had to be stopped, as time ran out. Because of the rush to get it done, even so hurriedly, and because the patron obviously had the local king’s permission to do this, it seems certain that the image was hastily dedicated, before the cave fell prey to the austerities of the Recession, starting early in 469. However, the double shrine doors were not hung at this time, since the front wall of the shrine was still in a very rough condition. Needless to say, when work on the cave started up again sometime after the Asmaka takeover of 475, this expediently-completed “womb-like” shrine must have seemed intolerably ill-wrought; and so, sometime after the Asmaka’s took over the rule of the region, when the site began to flourish once again, the decision was made to upgrade it. This is why, except for the image’s body, its base,
108 This is the only shrine chamber at the site with such an intended “abortive” layout, even though the similarly early shrines of Cave 15 and Cave 11 were not fully revealed. A conjectural reconstruction of the stage by stage development of the Cave 7 shrine will be published in a subsequent volume. 109 See Spink 1986 (Flaws in Buddhist Iconology).
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and plane of its halo, every single thing in the shrine dates from roughly a decade later than the original image. Although the six great standing “Buddhas of the Past” now dominate our view of the shrine, there was no intention of including them when in 475 (or more likely 476) plans were made to improve the embarrassing and by then ineffective old arrangement. Most specifically, it was necessary to provide the Buddha with attendant bodhisattvas, a “necessary” feature first established in the shrines of the local king starting about 470, when work on Cave 7 was of course held in abeyance. Obviously he needed a proper throne too; although the elaborate late one visible today may merely replace a simple one which, like the halo painted behind it, occupied the curving wall of the scooped-out space. It seems evident that the first intended transformation of the shrine group involved only the addition of a standing bodhisattva on either side, together with the expected single dwarfs above them, both to be cut out of the thick matrix remaining in the relevant areas. It is likely, and typical, that the sculptors working at either side—or perhaps the same sculptor merely starting on one side before beginning on the other—would begin work from the top down, roughing out the dwarf first and at the same time more roughly reserving matrix for the image below; in any case it seems clear that the space between the dwarf and the bodhisattva below must have been somewhat revealed, making the separation clear. However, by the beginning of 477, in both Cave 4 and Cave Upper 6 as well, a powerful new concept was being introduced— perhaps under the influence of slightly earlier developments at Bagh.110 This involved the carving of the impressive grouping of the “Six Buddhas of the Past”, appropriately attendant upon the seventh Buddha Sakyamuni, who dominates the shrine. Quite understandably, as soon as this compelling new idea had made its way into Cave 7, it trumped the simpler bodhisattva arrangement that had already been conceived, but which happily had only been barely started. At this point, in order to make room for the Six Buddhas, it was necessary to get the bodhisattvas out of the way, even though they were still required by contemporary convention. Happily, this was not difficult, because in the huge and authoritative image in 110 See Volume I, Chapter 14; also Volume I, Chapter 3, where the influence of developments at Bagh is discussed.
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Cave 16, underway at this same time, the bodhisattvas, which could not be placed in the “normal” position, were placed in very acceptable positions behind the throne.111 This of course freed enough space to comfortably compose the Six Buddhas, three on each side. However, those nearest the image, unfortunately, had to be distinctly smaller than the others, because there was no way now to restore the matrix from which one or both of the dwarfs overhead had been blocked out. In fact one of these dwarfs may have already (in 476) been defined too much to allow its conversion to a flying couple—a feature preferred for main images from 477 on; and if one could not be transformed, the other would not be, since symmetry is such a powerful authority in the caves. The Buddha’s original halo, which in the rush of early 469 would have been merely painted on the surface behind the head, was probably somewhat larger and more fully rounded (following early precedents) than its present carved replacement. Any previous throne back motifs—which if added in early 469 would have been painted—were now replaced by elaborately up-to-date inhabited and festooned forms, including vyalas with frolicking dwarfs, and carefully realized structural elements), all typical of such very late throne motifs at the site. The transformation of the old image was then completed—a bit clumsily—by the attempt to reveal “late” structural nubs (which never were present earlier) at the corners of the throne base. These typically cap the leonine throne-legs which are conventional at the site starting in 477, but have no meaningful function here, since the lions beneath the throne, being of the early type found also in Caves Lower 6 and 11, are to be thought of as crouching beneath the throne rather than as literally supporting it. The patron, having rescued the cave from its past, in such an impressive and indeed meritorious way, now appears to have become obsessed with filling up every conceivable space in both the shrine and shrine antechamber with a myriad of seated and standing Buddha images. They are so urgently crowded into every nook and corner that, from one’s first impression, most of them appear to be intrusions; but on careful analysis they all turn out to be part of the patron’s own compulsive program. This may well have started with 111 See Volume I, Chapter 11: Cave 16; also Cave 16 below. Such a placement is found earlier in painting (Cave 19 walls) but never in sculpture; such a “delay” in sculpture is often found at the site, as in the bhadrasana type too.
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the fine and carefully composed “Sravasti Miracles” on the left and right walls of the antechamber, which may possibly have been carved along with the Six Buddhas in 477. The blank panel beneath the left Miracle scene may well have held the patron’s once-painted dedicatory inscription; there seems to be no other reason for its presence. A number of other images (such as those flanking the front of the shrine doorway) may also belong to 477, but most appear to have been done in a carefully controlled rush in the first few months of 478, just before this patron, and all of the other “Vakataka” patrons, had to precipitously leave the site. It may seem very surprising that the patron would sacrifice the integrity of his fine old shrine doorway by cutting Buddha images all over it. However, this speaks to the psychology of early 478, where the focus—as all of Cave 7’s decoration so clearly shows— was almost totally on Buddha imagery. In the same way the patron of Cave 4 “redesigned” what would surely have been a conventionally decorated doorway, with loving couples and the like, into the same kind of Buddha “litany” that one see here, while the shrine doorway of Cave 26LW shows a similar shift. Furthermore, it is interesting to note here in the doorway of Cave 7, that the multiple Buddhas which cut away the old lintel were obviously carved before the beautiful ceiling above was added; this is clear, since the ceiling’s mudplaster, despite much loss, definitely penetrates into the space cut away in making the Buddha images. The development and character of all of this late imagery has been discussed at length in Volume I, Chapter 11, so that material need not be repeated here. We might only note that a dating prior to the Period of Disruption is supported by the fact that there is not one representation of the then-insistent bhadrasana Buddha type, that both the shrine and the shrine antechamber were not only totally filled up with sculptures, but that all of this carving was completed before the whole assortment (including the seven major images) were carefully plastered and painted, and that there is not a single “intrusive” inscription connected with any of them. Furthermore there is great care to develop alternating patterns of mudras, again hardly typical of the Period of Disruption. To further confirm the assumption that the patron was himself responsible for all this work, we can note that, even in the troubled early months of 478, he made a bold even if vain attempt to get the rest of the cave decorated too, the most striking feature being
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the remarkably fine painting of the extensive porch ceiling. With its splendidly roiling sea animals and floral creepers inhabited by frolicking dwarfs, it could be compared favorably to the ceiling painting of Cave 1, had it not been irrevocably damaged by the effects of climate, insects, birds, and most particularly the fires of some later residents, probably sadhus, as suggested above. Despite its beauty, its decoration was expedient; it was started, as would never have been the case in better times, before the walls beneath and many of the elements in the front of the cave (including the five intended medallions) were at all properly smoothed by the excavators. Although the ceiling itself had been early leveled, in these other wall areas it was obviously necessary, in the rush occasioned by Harisena’s death, to apply the plaster on impossibly unfinished surfaces. A few of the more significant areas—the faces of the porch capitals—were hastily painted, but most of the uneven plaster surface remains untouched. The original patron even went so far as to put what must have been a splendid “Birth of the Buddha” mural on the still-not-finished rear wall of the porch at the right; it too is by now almost illegible.112 The only extant intrusion in the cave would seem to be the painting on the rear wall at the left, showing large bhadrasana Buddhas. It too is almost totally ruined, but once had what must have been an “intrusive” inscription, now “oxidized beyond the point of intelligibility”.113 Since the wall had already been plastered in early 478, it provided an easy and ideally visible space for some later donor eager to make merit. It is clear that once there were other intrusive paintings here, since in two spots one finds paired holes for garland hooks, surely revealing that there were painted images below them. Further confirmation of the dating to early 478 of the patron’s extensive plastering of the porch is to seen in the fact that it also covers over, quite uncritically, the unfinished front of the cell complex at court left. This complex, like its many unfinished counterparts throughout the site, was being added to the conception—as the most up-to-date thing—in 477, but had to be abruptly abandoned at the time of Harisena’s death. What appears to be a large doorway is actually the space typically defined by the excavator between the still uncut fronting pillars of the little complex. It might 112 Cohen 1995, #21 suggests that the illegible inscription was either a label or a relevant verse, but not “intrusive”. 113 Cohen 1995, # 22.
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also be noted that the whole complex had to be moved quite far forward because of the prior presence of Cell L1, the effective depth of which was increased by the presence of the niche cut in 475 or possibly 476. Because of this placement, we can see that its façade plane is bisected by the division between the old smoothed wall surface which represents the cave’s original margin, directly beneath the eave, and the rough area beyond. Also, because the complex was started after the left court wall had already been defined, there was no matrix to utilize for steps to enter it. For this reason stone blocks or wooden stairs would have to have been added, as they probably were, since it is clear that the door was hung (D mode) and used for some time (presumably for residence) during the Period of Disruption, even though the façade of the complex had never been finished. This fitting out must have been done by the original patron, probably to add to the total usefulness of his whole conception, as well as to “keep up with the Joneses”. There was a similar complex on the opposite side of the court, but it is now very broken; it too has a very wide niche—what I call a shelf—of the type generally made in 477.114 Cave 7’s pillared porch complexes and all or most of their cells were probably plastered in the Period of Disruption, as was often the case at the site. The presence of a thin layer of red plaster covering a thicker standard underlayer on the ceiling of the right complex’s vestibule, would suggest a similar dating. It is clear that at least some of the cells were used for residence for at least a few years after the site’s collapse, since there is significant wear in some of the pivot holes.
Cave 8 Cave 8, unfortunately used for decades as a generator room, was surely planned as part of the general burst of inaugural activity at the site’s renaissance; but (like Buddhabhadra’s Caves 25 and 27) it must have been begun right away, without the bureaucratic delays that undoubtedly slowed down work on the royal and ministerial 114 The right complex does not show in Burgess’ plan; nor does the niche at the rear of Cell L1, which further displaced the left court cell.
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caves. This circumstance, perhaps unhappily, is responsible for the notably undeveloped character of its earliest phase of work, accomplished between 462 and 465. Indeed, being so severe, and having no (extant) Buddha image, it was long considered a Hinayana excavation. As a reflection of its early date, it started off as a particularly primitive conception, being planned and started as little more than a small and shrineless square astylar hall with three cells on each side. Presumably it also had a simple porch, without end cells, at least at first; but this portion is long since lost.115 Cave 8, however, took a new lease on life in about 466, shortly after work had suddenly stopped on the troubled Cave 7, which lay next door. At this point Cave 8 was considerably expanded, pushing into Cave 7’s apparently abandoned precincts, even to the point of cutting dangerously close to the fragile boundary of Cave 7’s cistern which, either then or at some later time, was ruptured as a result of this proximity. This must have been done between 466 and 468, for the enlarged plan not only involved the drastic repositioning of the side cells, making the vihara much more spacious, but at the same time it extended and reshaped the still unfinished cell at the rear center into a shrine antechamber, beyond which the added shrine lay. The latter was probably planned with no fronting pillars either because the original cell wall was so thin or (more probably) because the lower level of this area was direly afflicted by a thick vein of corrupted rock—the notorious red bole. The antechamber opened into the shrine through a primitive doorway which apparently had a wooden beam (with holes to receive the doors’ pivots) fixed into the rough slots at the upper corners. A similar applied beam was applied both in the shrine doorway of Cave 11, and that of Cave 17. Like the projecting stone beams found in the shrine doorway of Cave Lower 6 and Cave 20, it was a more extensive variant of the B-mode, which was first used in cell doorways in 468, although possibly a year or so earlier for major doorways. Of course, when the cave was first laid out, no one had planned to make an image in it, and so had not been overly concerned about the vein of friable rock running though the lower level of the cave. 115 There are traces of what may well have been a porch cell at the left of the broken face; if it was indeed a cell, it would have been added in the second phase of work.
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But now that an image had to be created, it was evident that it could never be carved directly out of the corrupted rock within the cave’s shrine. Therefore a loose, separately carved, image must have been brought in; it may well have been made of wood. Not surprisingly, it has long since been taken out, its present whereabouts unknown. Cave 8’s enlargement and the addition of its shrine was probably started in 466, stimulated by the sudden interest at the site in adding shrines to all of the originally plain viharas, and also by the fact that the adjacent Cave 7 has been summarily abandoned in the previous year. Indeed, it might even have been the first of the many viharas at the site to be so “upgraded”; at least this is suggested by the still relatively primitive character of even this second-phase work in the cave. The primitive form of most of the door fittings in the cave supports such a dating, even though excessive breakage obscures much evidence. A few have simple holes expediently cut into the surrounds above and below, while at least one other has a notch above, presumably to receive a portion of a wooden frame, a system often found in Hinayana caves at other sites. However, what is of particular significance is that a single cell at the left rear—logically one of the latest to have been exposed in the developing excavation—has a B mode projection. Thus the cutting of this cell, where stone had to be reserved for the monolithic projection, can be confidently dated to 468, and the fact that no door appears to have been fitted into its still-rough pivot hole would confirm one’s expectation that this cave, like most others, was abandoned in that same year (due to the beginning of the Recession), before it could be plastered and painted. Considering the early date of these revisions, and the new and pervasive compulsion to get Buddha images completed in the shrines, it seems likely (but not subject to proof ) that this was done, if not in 468, then (along with the images in Caves Lower 6, 7, 11, and 15) during the first months of 469, at which point, like Caves 7, 11, and 15 the rest of the cave would have been very unfinished. This old-fashioned astylar cave, with its makeshift image, then lay long dormant, apparently until early 478, during those turbulent months when the “Vakataka” patrons (as opposed to the Asmaka patrons) were rushing their caves—most notably the shrine Buddhas, to an expedient conclusion, before fleeing the site by about the middle of that year. Surprisingly, it appears that not only the main portions
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of the cave, but all of the cells too, were then plastered with a distinctive red (ground-brick) mix, apparently in a single vigorous campaign, using the same mix and application techniques. If so, this may be the only cave where the cells were plastered as part of the same “contract” as the rest of the cave, although as pointed out earlier this was perhaps true of the cells in Cave 2’s porch, where the cell vestibules (surely), and the inner cells (perhaps), appear to have been surfaced along with the main part of the porch in 477.116 We can date the plastering quite precisely to a date no earlier than 477, in part because the characteristic red plaster used never appears in contexts dateable earlier than that year. But, even more tellingly, we should note that (surprising as it may seem) not a single residence cell at the site was ever plastered prior to 477, even though many had already been occupied well before that time. In fact, most residence cells were plastered during the Period of Disruption, for reasons that are hard to explain; possibly it was a meritorious way for local devotees (or even some of the monks themselves) to do honor to the residents. The ascription of the plastering of Cave 8’s cells to the Period of Disruption would not make sense, because no donor in that period would go to the trouble to decorate the whole cave, as was apparently done, and to completely forego the addition of merit-making intrusions, which would be more to the point in that period. Nor can we believe that the plastering was done during the fertile and at the same time exacting last year of Harisena’s reign: this is because the totally obsolete and primitive cell doorway fittings were never touched in this late period, when we would expect them to be transformed into D mode types, which could have easily been done. Such considerations quite convincingly suggest that the very thorough plastering of the main hall, along with the cells, was done in some sudden access of fervor, perhaps by the original patron, perhaps by his successor, early in 478. By doing this the donor could greatly improve the long-abandoned cave—he may have transformed the “loose” image too, but it is gone. Thus he could have gained merit with considerable ease, since even the extensive plastering, along with the painting of the central hall, could surely have been done by a modest crew in a week, under the conditions of stress 116 The “late” red plaster in the left court complex of Cave 1 undoubtedly belongs to the Period of Disruption, when so many cells were thus surfaced at the site.
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typical of early 478. Although nearly all of the painting of the hall is gone, the traces that remain show (at least on the ceiling) the kind of interest in architectonic order that suggests a remaining connection with the disciplined authority of the immediate years before. By contrast, ceilings were only of interest in the Period of Disruption if they were directly associated with carved or painted iconic images on the walls below. Apparently at the same time that the cave’s hall was decorated, a series of carefully organized rather large holes were cut at the juncture of the ceiling and walls, coordinated with similar holes in the ceiling itself. As in other caves, these may well have once held wooden holders, which may in turn have held conventional iron hooks for garlands; or conceivable they were for wooden pegs which themselves would hold the garlands, although this would be unprecedented.117 One of the holes can still be seen in the broken rock on the old ceiling outside the present (new) front of the cave; this is clear evidence that the ceiling (and the hall) extended well outward. Therefore the cave, now much reduced in size, did indeed once have an originally square central area, formatted like its Hinayana prototypes. As noted above, the hall, as originally conceived, would have paralleled those of Caves 11, 20 (before the ceiling crack was discovered), 25, and 26 LW, all of which were very simply conceived (originally), with three simple cells at left, rear, and right.
Cave 9 Cave 9, far smaller and more complex than Cave 10, and probably dating at least a century later, in the first century C.E.,118 appears 117 Cave 11 also has a number of carefully disposed holes which seem too large for conventional garland hooks. The suggestion that these holes were for faux wooden “beams” is not convincing, since the beams would be in conflict at their own crossings. On the other hand, garland hooks would be quite appropriate at the crossings of painted beams, in the kind of architectonic design which (if we can judge from its deplorable condition) decorated this hall ceiling. 118 The fact that the left wall of Cave 10 has a donative inscription (Cohen 1995, #42) referring to the gift of the wall, and that this was once totally covered over by the later plaster upon which Hinayana painting appeared, shows rather clearly that the painting phase significantly succeeds the excavation phase. It seems reasonable to suggest that it was during this later phase that Cave 9 was started. This, however, leaves any dating necessarily imprecise, very much in contrast to the situation in the Vakataka caves.
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to have been a basic source for Upendragupta’s Cave 19, although the later cave is, expectedly, far more elaborate and has a more conventionally curved apse. Like Cave 10, Cave 9 once had applied wooden fittings in its now more elaborate arch, but unlike that earlier cave, it is supplied with a rock cut door and windows, and is neatly decorated with typically early quasi-structural forms. The stupa too is of a significantly later, more attenuated, Hinayana type, with a complex harmika above; a pair of sockets in the latter which must once have held wooden umbrellas. The rafters which once “authenticated” both the vault and the vertical wall just beneath had already fallen or (more probably) had been removed by Vakataka times, as we can tell by the way in which the later plastering and painting was applied. The right front pillar has an unread shell-character inscription; its counterpart on the left is merely a recent mirror copy.119 The handsome lotus medallions that still decorate the aisle ceiling, a narrow frieze of men chasing animals just over the left pillars, remains of long jataka sequences on the side walls, and a scene with a number of fine figures on the front wall, give a proper impression of the high quality of the cave’s Hinayana paintings, as well as the differences between the earlier and the later styles and palettes.120 However, most have either disappeared or (as on the front wall and the forward sections of the aisle walls) were covered up by (mostly) intrusive Buddha images or image groups by later donors.121 As in Cave 10, late in the Vakataka renaissance a program of redecoration was initiated. This may have involved the whole vault as well as the whole facade, but only the typically late decoration of the cave’s projecting eave remains. A few standing Buddhas were painted on the most visible faces of a few more forward pillars (L4, L5, R4, R5), while the beautiful scene on the rear wall may also have been started in 477, but then finished, after Harisena’s death in either 478 or 479.122 Except for latter scene, which elusively combines narrative and iconic forms, all apparently once inscribed, all of the above-mentioned painting was part of a carefully conceived “official”
119 120 121 122
Cohen 1995, #28 suggests that it records an ancient visitor’s name. Schlingloff 1999, 22–23. Zin 2003, 20–21. This is discussed at length in Volume II, Part B.
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or “authorized” redecoration program, done during the site’s heyday, rather than mere intrusions belonging to the Period of Disruption. These paintings and the intrusive paintings mentioned below are described in some detail in Volume III. By way of contrast with the above paintings, it is clear that most of the more visible new work inside and outside the cave belongs to the helter-skelter donative activity which took place in this “Vakataka” part of the site between mid-478 and 480. Cohen lists sixteen extant and characteristically formulaic inscriptions associated with the votive paintings on the pillars and walls, all referring to gifts by individual donors—by and large monks, presumably all or most still resident at the now-expiring site.123 One should note especially the large and typically late compositions, of considerable quality and complexity, above the right colonnade. In a number of these ambitious groupings, the attendants include standing Buddhas (along with the standing bodhisattvas), paralleling the late usage now so often found in sculptures at the site. All of these votive groups were painted after the much damaged old plaster had been repaired or replaced, often with the characteristically late red mix we can find elsewhere at the site, never earlier than 477. One colossal enthroned Buddha on the right triforium is seen in an almost unprecedented perspective; its positioning anticipated in a few of Cave 19’s simpler wall paintings, this grand image is as remarkably sophisticated as it is sadly damaged. Other intrusive images, some inscribed, appear on the old octagonal pillars, covering the previously simple Hinayana period coloring. Just as in Cave 10, the most convenient and most visible faces were always chosen first, while many of the less desirable faces were never covered at all during this short burst of intrusive activity in the Period of Disruption. Lest one think that the various smudged images on certain pillars are original, it should be noted that the shafts upon which they appear are cement reconstructions. The relief stupas—some never finished and all asymmetrically disposed—on Cave 9’s facade were surely intrusive donations too, as were the various helter-skelter Buddha images, some of which cut into the unfinished (“non-living” and therefore expendable) stupa
123
Cohen 1995, 412.
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reliefs on the right respond.124 Even the superb colossal Buddhas facing each other from across the facade returns, despite their impressively balanced placement, must belong to this intrusive phase. This assumption is supported by the fact that, like the monk Gunakara’s inscribed image (or images) on Cave 26, they each have a prepared space below their feet surely intended for an inscription. Here, however, the donative records must have been hastily painted rather than carved; if so, due to the breakage of the eave above, they have long since been washed away. These carved intrusions, like the painted intrusions inside the cave, are described in more detail in Volume III.125
Cave 9a–9d The area around a caitya hall must have been a particularly auspicious location for intrusive votive offerings, so it is hardly surprising that some donor or (more likely) donors now took over the small space between Caves 10 and 9 and cut a group of four shrinelets there—Caves 9A–9D. The less accessible upper two, probably started last, were still not finished in 480, when time ran out, but the other two were both plastered and painted, and supplied with at least a dozen garland hooks apiece. These four intrusive shrinelets relate in their late date and purpose, as well as in their developed iconographic forms and compositional devices, to Cave 10A, discussed below. The two lower shrinelets even had similar double doors, hung in the pivot holes (somewhat worn) at either side. The presence of four smaller holes suggests that they were fronted with pairs of little pillars as well, each of which had an attached bracket at the top. Like the doors, these intricate 124 Because Buddha images are superimposed on the (unfinished) stupa at the lower level in this area, S. K. Mittra (see Bibliography) sees this as a welcome evidence of the transition between Hinayana and Mahayana forms. Actually the Buddha images, both intrusive, are imprecisely and expediently placed on the stupa, abandoned by its probably anxious donor before it was finished, in late 478 or 479, the Buddhas probably dating to 480. 125 For a short summary, showing where each intrusion is located, see Spink 1994, 36–37: “Checklist of sculptured intrusions of Ajanta”. Herein all are dated to the period 479–480; I now realize that the disruption occurred in the “Vakataka” caves about mid-478 rather than starting in 479, when the Asmaka caves were first affected.
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added fixtures were presumably made of wood; needless to say, these latter pairs of holes give no evidence of wear, for they were fixed elements. A more detailed discussion of these four intrusive shrinelets is to be found in Volume III. The fact that such very late images, here and elsewhere at the site, are “intrusions” in no way diminishes their quality, except in those cases where they had to be too swiftly rushed to completion. The situation was rather the opposite, for the sculptors who did the work, after years at the site, were now highly experienced, while the new patrons, in these increasingly anxious days, obviously wanted their offerings to be meritorious in every possible sense.
Cave 10 The vast Cave 10, dating to the first century B.C., reminds us, when we consider its connections with similarly impressive monuments at other sites such as Kondane and Bhaja, how influential Buddhism was in western India some three to four hundred years before its fifth century renaissance. Significantly, the inscription cut on the lower right side of its huge caitya arch referring to “the gift of the façade”, that on the left wall of its interior behind pillars L1/L2, referring to “the gift of the wall”, and that painted on a rib of the aisle ceiling behind pillar L1, referring to “the gift of the prasada”, all pertain to separate donors.126 This reminds us that these early caves were typically community efforts, rather than the private benefactions of elite donors, as was the case in Ajanta’s Vakataka phase. The devotional focus of the cave is its ponderous monolithic stupa, which preserves a fragment of later (Vakataka) repainting. This small remaining detail almost certainly shows attendants of a (missing) Buddha image which had been painted on the stupa’s front in the process of “updating” the cave in about 477. The curious cut-out sections from the stupa’s matrix held replacement stone insets (nowmissing), while one of the pillars (R16) to the right of the stupa, hugely affected by this same major flaw, had similarly neat replacements. Another troubling fault in the rock high up on the right wall
126
See Cohen 1995, #40, 41, 42.
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above the pillars at the lower level of the great vault has been repaired with particular care; one section of the repair has fallen out, but a remaining section shows the precision with which such replacements were set in. The work was done in preparation for this area’s (missing) coat of lime-plaster and painting. The planners clearly wanted this sacred cave as perfect as possible. The thirty-nine pillars within the great apsidal hall show the simple and severe octagonal format which the first Vakataka planners drew on as a ready and manageable model in the first of their new caves. Above, the pattern of the massive teak rafters (long since gone) is still visible, while a teak umbrella must have adorned the stupa, with fittings of the same material filling the huge arched façade opening. We probably have to believe that although Buddhism appears to have been still flourishing in Maharashtra during the second century A.D., there may have been a time thereafter that Ajanta had been abandoned by the sangha, thus allowing the depredations of the villagers, who would have had multiple uses for the highly valuable teak beams and rafters. We do know, however, from the report of the Chinese pilgrim Fa Hien, that the site was active, even if on a modest level, around 400 C.E.; however, his comments would help us believe that the site may have had its problems in the period between the second and the fifth century when Buddhism was clearly in decline. Although “the people of this country often see men flying to the monastery here”, he himself did not go there, perhaps because “the roads . . . are dangerous and hard to travel . . . (and) all the inhabitants (of the region) hold heretical views and do not believe in Buddhism”.127 Only a few Hinayana period paintings remain in the cave, all much obscured. A few handsome floral and geometric designs are still visible on the upper levels of many of the right pillars, but in general this early work is largely covered over by later images. The traces of Hinayana paintings on the aisle walls are blackened by grime and sadly damaged by graffiti, though they still show some handsome details. A sequence of paintings showing scenes from the life of the Buddha, associated with a contemporaneous painted record, appears on the left wall while similarly reeled-out representations of the Chaddanta Jataka (the story of the six-tusked elephant) and of
127
Li Yung-hsi (trans.) 1957, 74–5.
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the Sama Jataka (involving the bodhisattva who aided his blind parents) appear along the forward and rear portions of the right wall respectively.128 The Vakataka period paintings, by contrast, are better preserved, Many of them belong to a program, probably undertaken along with the redecoration of the associated Caitya hall Cave 9, and the vihara Cave 12 in 477. The program in Cave 10 was surely aimed at totally refurbishing the old cave, although only selected portions were able to be completed before time ran out. The lotus medallions painted in the vast main vault in connection with this effort have long since been ruined by resident bats and birds—the merest traces of them remain—but most of the Buddha images which were added during Harisena’s reign toward the front of the aisle vaults are in fair condition. One can clearly distinguish the work of a few different hands, all working with a facile efficiency, surely on a contract basis. This whole refurbishment—and there was a lot to do—was obviously being accomplished as speedily as possible, but still with some concern for the effectiveness of the results. To save time and money— a common concern at the site—the Buddha images were replaced by simpler (and cheaper) lotus medallions on the aisle ceilings as work progressed toward the darker rear section of the cave.129 The neatly organized series of bhadrasana Buddhas which got completed on the pillars of the hall’s front left colonnade were part of this same redecoration program, which was suddenly interrupted when Harisena died. It is clear that these carefully programmed pillar paintings were intended to be completed logically from the top down, and that all eight faces would be equally covered. This sacred decoration program would have extended to all of the pillars of the hall, had time not run out with Harisena’s death.130 That crucial moment, clearly revealing and demanding a vast reduction in expectations, did not stop the work of the Vakataka patrons immediately, for the Asmakas’ rejection of Vakataka overlordship did not occur until mid-478. Just as in the shrines throughout the caves on this main (“Vakataka”) portion of the site the patrons were able to rush their main images to completion and dedication, 128
See Schlingloff 1997, 24–26 for detailed descriptions. See similar “economies” in the painted vault and carved triforium of Cave 19. 130 Actually, the rear faces never got accomplished, probably because scaffolding (for the aisle) was in the way; and then time ran out. 129
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so here they turned expediently to decorating the main two faces with rows of conveniently placed images in early 478. The relatively unified series of white-robed Buddhas on the most visible faces of the more forward pillars both to left and right, as well as other images on these most important faces, all were done at this time, as if to continue the more comprehensive program which had been started a year before, in better days. These were in no sense private donations. Their presence is limited, clearly as part of a program (now much reduced) not only to the most evident faces of the pillars, but to the pillars which are most visibly located as one enters the hall. Significantly, none of these stylistically related Buddhas are separately inscribed, since they were clearly part of the cave’s “officially approved” refurbishment, rather than private donations. In fact, there is no inscription referring to this major attempt at a programmed decoration of the cave.131 Either such a record is lost, which would not be surprising, considering the great loss of the façade elements; or, more likely, it was never composed, because the programmed work was still so incomplete when it was rapidly cut off as a result of Harisena’s death. By contrast, a great number of the images on the pillars, being separately inscribed and placed with no particular regard for order, are clearly intrusive. In direct contrast to the carefully organized manner in which the redecoration of the hall (intended to be total) had been going on in 477, and which even extended to a degree in the disposition of the Buddhas painted on the main pillar faces in early 478, the first of the new “unauthorized” donors would now put their votive images at the most accessible and obvious points. This intrusive phase started as early as mid-478, the beginning of the Period of Disruption in this main (“Vakataka”) portion of the site. The more desirable of these locations were the most readily visible facets of the best-lighted pillars, although most of these areas had already been utilized in early 478 as part of the intended refur-
131
Cohen 1995, #44 refers to a donative inscription on the left wall, of one “teacher . . . Saciva”, for which he has “found no specific donation accompanying this record”. He suggests that this, along with other now-missing records noticed by Burgess, “perhaps . . . severally allocated responsibility for the vault’s redecoration during the Vakataka phase”. But the evidence is inconclusive at best; the inscription, longer than most, might refer to the donation of a Buddha image on the nearby pillars, where the record would have to be crowded in if put beneath such an image.
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bishment program. Understandably, the slightly later intrusive offerings had to be placed on the less visible pillar faces or were added above the programmed “processions” (e.g. the white-robed Buddhas) at a less convenient upper level. As one would expect, since time quickly ran out, a relatively small number of these intrusive figures are found on the cave’s dark and relatively inaccessible rear pillars. It is clear that a number of different painters did this work, while different hands are also visible in the numerous donative inscriptions—all painted, all brief, and nearly all referring to specific monks as the donors.132 Cohen counts eighteen that are still extant, and many more have surely been lost.133 Except for one (not unexpected) representation of Avalokitesvara (on Pillar R7), all of the extant images are standing or (seldom) seated Buddhas.134 There have been so many losses, either of whole pillars, or of their painted surfaces, that it is difficult to calculate how many of these randomly placed and different sized images there may once have been, but not counting the “programmed” (non-intrusive) images at the tops of some of the left pillars, there were at least three hundred. The earliest of the many graffiti that afflict this cave appears on the thirteenth pillar on the right. Reading “John Smith, 28th Cavalry, 28th April, 1819”, it records the “discovery” of the site by this cavalry officer when he (with other soldiers) was supposedly tiger hunting in the region. Scratched “heedlessly” across the chest of the standing Buddha image on the axial face (Face B) of the pillar, it may seem to be surprisingly high up today. However, in 1819, the cave was still deeply filled up with a number of feet of debris, which has destroyed the paintings at the lower level and was responsible for the breakage of many of the now-reconstructed pillar bases. Old photographs of the caves show many of the pillar shafts broken away—or, more properly, dislocated—at the lower levels by the persistent action of the debris, with the upper portions of the pillars still dependent (“hanging”) from the beam above. A further witness to the cave’s later history is the series of holes in the aisle floor behind pillar L3. Possibly they were used by sporadic residents in some later century for grinding grains or (much 132
Schopen 1988–89; reprinted 1997 with slight stylistic changes, pp. 238–257. Cohen 1995, 412. 134 Although only one (extant!) painting of a bodhisattva appears on the pillars of Cave 10, there are a greater number on the pillars of Cave 9. 133
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more likely) for sharpening tools; or perhaps, in the Vakataka heyday, a blacksmith plied his trade in the old cave, keeping the excavators’ chisels sharpened and using these areas for honing the tempered iron. Of course, this would imply that the old cave was not then in worship, and this is by no means certain, even though there was no attempt to refurbish it until very late in the Vakataka phase, in about 477. Certainly the popular notion that such holes were used in the Hinayana phase for grinding pigments can be rejected out of hand, since concavities sometimes appear in the floors of the Vakataka caves as well, where they must have been added by later residents; no planner, or patron, would have allowed their newly leveled floors to be so desecrated. Not only was the Cave 10 interior the ground for many intrusive paintings during the Period of Disruption (mid-478–480), but a few intrusive sculptures were cut adjacent to its facade at that time. Two rather elaborate panels remain on the right, both showing the Buddha attended by Buddhas—a particularly late iconographic concept. Students of iconography will be intrigued by the fact that the unexpected abhaya (rather than the usual varada) gesture seen shown by one of the attendant Buddhas in the upper panel can be explained by the evidence of breakage (due to a minor flaw) at the point where the lowered hand would have been. Such expedient adjustments of iconography at the behest of geology are very common at the site, even though Buddhist literature hardly prepares one for such easy transformations.135 A detailed study of both the “programmed” and the intrusive images in the interior of Cave 10 is to be found in Volume III.
Cave 10a Cave 10A, placed in the constricted and previously unused space just to the left of Cave 10, is another private donation of the Period of Disruption (mid-478–480). As one might imagine, its iconographic and compositional forms, centered around the recently introduced and suddenly immensely popular bhadrasana type of image, are of
135
Spink 1986.
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the latest type, as is the shrinelet’s hurried plastering and painting. Among its various notably late features are its flanking Buddhas, its flying couples, nubbed lion throne, running nagas over the throne base, and the particularly elaborate candrasila in front of the image. The bodhisattva Avalokitesvara, a crown held above his head, and flanked by notably late “attendant” bhadrasana Buddhas, is revealed as the popular “Lord of Travelers”: indeed, the need for such protection in these suddenly dangerous days may have stimulated the many “eleventh hour” votive offerings of this particular type, no matter whether the dangers (here one can see fire and snake and shipwreck among others) are interpreted physically or psychologically. Opposite, Avalokitevara’s feminine counterpart, the goddess Tara, is seen along with a number of seated Buddhas, one of which she apparently attends. The figure is remarkable for being one of only two female bodhisattva sculptures at the site; the other, dating to 478, is at the rear of the apse in Cave 26 (panel L8, top right). By contrast with her rarity at Ajanta at this time, in another few decades she will have become a major figure at sites in this region and in the Bombay area. For further discussion of Cave 10A, see Volume III.
Cave 11 Cave 11’s patron must have felt very pleased to be the one to get the rights to the unused space between the ancient Hinayana Caves 12 and 10. After all, he surely did not have to choose this constricted location, for Cave 11 was one of the first excavations undertaken in the Vakataka phase, and at that point, in 462, there were plenty of good locations available all along the scarp. But we must remember that in 462, when he started his excavation, this was the very heart of the site; there was quite literally nothing else there, except for the ancient Hinayana nucleus which, we can infer from Fa Hien’s comments, was still in worship. Even so, as noted elsewhere, the Vakataka patrons made no attempt to redecorate them for perhaps as much as fifteen years. This may have been because they were needed for immediate (or continued) use; but it is also reasonable to suppose that the new patrons were chiefly obsessed with “doing their own thing”—and the sooner the better, because a whole new world was opening up.
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It is evident that Cave 11 was one of the very first caves to have been started. And it goes without saying that it was created in those early years of the Vakataka phase when viharas were conceived as simple dormitories for the monks—the two new caitya halls alone were to be ambitiously decorated excavations. Of course this absolute primacy of the caitya halls was to change, when the “primitive” viharas were startlingly upgraded by the addition of shrines a few years hence. Cave 11, although planned in a conventional way for a standard early vihara, encountered serious problems, making its present plan extremely atypical. Its original conception was almost identical to that of the contemporary Cave 15, or even of Cave Lower 6 before drastic additions had to be made to that cave. Just as Caitya Caves 19 and 26 depend in many ways upon their Hinayana prototypes Caves 9 and 10, all of these earliest Vakataka viharas quite literally derive from the arrangement of the old Hinayana vihara, Cave 12. That is, they are (or were planned) as astylar, with simple cells opening from the left, right, and rear walls. Although Cave 12’s porch has long since broken away, we know from other Hinayana precedents at various sites, that their simply colonnaded porches, with no residence cells originally cut at the porch ends, conformed to the traditional pattern. Cave 11’s very early inaugural date is confirmed by the fact that the ribbed capitals of its porch pillars have no less than 6.5 volutes, a type found nowhere else at the site except in the very early right side of the porch of Cave 7. Within a matter of (probably) months, in the left side of the porch of Cave 7, and on the porch colonnade of Cave 4, the number of volutes is reduced to 5.5, with 4.5 soon to follow in Caves 16 and 17. After the Hiatus the pillar capitals of Caves 5 and Upper 6, although reamed out much earlier, have only 3. 5 volutes, and the same process of diminishment is also found in the very late capitals of Caves 22, 23, and 25. But after the Hiatus, starting in 475, rounded undersurfaces for the capitals came to be preferred, probably because they then could be decorated with painted supporting yaksas and the like. Cave 11 was planned as this type of simple and functional hall. However, serious problems started almost immediately. Through what generously could be classified as the inexperience of these first excavators, or less generously as their stupidity, they started excavating their cave directly into the curving cliff face, assuming (not without
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some justification) that there was plenty of space available. Obviously if a whole series of caves are cut directly into the curved arc of the scarp, even if their fronts are placed closely together, one would expect that the available space would widen at the rear. This is in fact generally true—and expected—throughout the roughly semicircular expanse of the site. However, what no one, in 462, seems to have noticed (and if all of the publications on Ajanta can be our guide, never noticed later) is that the huge Hinayana caitya hall Cave 10 is quite sharply angled to the left, as it is cut in the cliff face. The right end of the façade is set back at least six feet deeper than the left, causing an ominous angling of the whole cave from front to rear. This has nothing to do (as was the case in Caitya Halls 19 and 26) with adjusting the orientation of the cave to something like the equinox, or the solstices, or the east or the south; the deepening of the façade set-back on the right appears to be an expedient precaution to avoid the façade being affected by a harsh vertical flaw which can be seen in the eave area. Possibly the excavators had checked the flaw’s angle of descent and realized that the present set-back was necessary to keep the façade surface unaffected by the flaw. Whatever the reason for Cave 10’s angling, it was obviously not noticed, or its implications not fully realized by the new excavators of Cave 11. This might have been partly because one of the most characteristic early excavating procedures, which was almost certainly used in defining the interior space, would have at first masked the problem. For such early viharas (see Cave 25) it was a common (though perhaps not a universal procedure) to block out the whole interior before cutting the cells—and it is of course the positioning of the cells which caused the problem. On the other hand, in the interests of truth, it does appear that the problem was recognized early. This would explain why the right wall of the cave appears to have been originally defined—presumably to allow more space adjacent to Cave 10—somewhat closer to the cave center than the left wall. One can see how the right frame of the right window has been “shortened”, presumably because of its original conjunction with the (original) right wall.136 The evidence is complicated now by the fact 136 The windows may have been widened at the back sometime before 468 (because their painting is of that date), and fitted with pivots, to allow inner shutters, for better security.
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that, when it became clear that cells could never be cut in that right wall, it was cut back—as if to make some use of this useless area— into the present bench; this was better than nothing, but it still must have infuriated the patron to have to accept a really unneeded bench instead of the three right cells which he had assumed would be cut in this area. Given the fact that the whole hall was probably reamed out before any cells were penetrated, we must of course date their penetration slightly later. However, the fact that they were originally planned with candrasilas (see Cell L3) suggests (as expected) an early date, and the fact that they were all originally cut in the essentially functionless A mode confirms that they had all been either started or (quite possibly finished, since the need was great) before 468. In fact, the hall’s cells (and this would be true of those in the porch too) must have been essentially reamed out much earlier than that, since from 468 on, concerns had dramatically shifted to turning this simple dormitory into a shrine. It is of course very clear that by the time that the left cell (also A mode) at the right porch end was cut in its present anomalous position, the problem of Cave 10’s angling was clearly realized, and that any farther cells on the right (which would of course have to open normally) could never be cut. In fact, perhaps at the distressed patron’s behest, this may be the reason that the “missing cells” were relocated at the porch ends. Indeed, the “required” (and at the same time expedient) introduction of cells in this area may well be the ultimate source of the new and powerful convention, seen throughout the site, whereby the originally plain space at the porch ends was suddenly required by convention to be sensibly utilized for cells in these areas. This is because, seeing the practical benefits of utilizing the porch ends effectively, instead of really “wasting” that space, planners throughout the site immediately began to follow course. Of course this would imply that these porch cells in Cave 11 were underway by 465, but this is quite reasonable in terms of the early development of the cave. In fact, it is quite possible that these porch cells—making up for the losses of the cells at the right—were started and completed as early as any of the others, in particular the expectedly somewhat later three (original) cells at the cave rear. (The extreme left cell at the rear was added somewhat later, as discussed below.)
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The suggestion that the four porch cells were all underway by 465—and thus could well be the “source” for the rapidly established convention of porch end cells throughout the site—is supported by the very manner in which the interior hall was reamed out. Its excavation appears to have been underway particularly early, for the simple reason that it splays out from front to rear in such a relatively uncontrolled way. Most of the earlier (as opposed to the later) caves at the site show this lack of control on the part of the excavators, as work proceeds toward the rear, the problem being caused by the constant slight removal of a bit too much of the wall’s matrix, so that the loss accumulates very gradually but very noticeably.137 Even a constant check on the width between the left and right wall with a fixed length of string would have provided the required discipline; but these early excavators had still not developed many such very simple technological controls. Thus, when we look at the plan of Cave 11, seeing how, even in such a small cave, it splays so noticeably outward on either side, we can assume that it was under excavation very early. One of the most surprising, and atypical, things about this very early vihara is the presence of the four assertive pillars at the center of the hall. The only comparable early example is that of Cave Lower 6, but there their presence is easily explained by the realistic concerns of the planners about needed support (or support obviously perceived as needed) for the slightly later story which was begun while there was still time to add these supporting features. However, this was obviously not the case with Cave 11. One might well assume—particularly since they are aligned with the shrine— that they were added to “honor” or emphasize that sacred area; however it can be proved that they were well underway at least a few years before the concept of a shrine has developed in the cave. The solution to this apparent dilemma is much simpler than that, and is very apparent when one looks—as we often do not—at the geological context of the cave. To take advantage of this apparently desirable space between the Hinayana Caves 1 and 12, Cave 11 had 137 By the same token, ceilings in early caves generally angle slightly upward from front to rear. The most dramatic instance is that of the early work in Cave 4, where the ceiling rose almost five feet from the front of the hall to the back of the shrine! (See Cave 4 discussion).
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to be placed very high up, so that the cells on the left side of its hall would be placed high enough to avoid a breakthrough into the cells on the right side of the ancient Cave 12. This was of course obvious to the planners, and was carefully managed. However, the real problem that they had to deal with was a very bad horizontal flaw which (at least as manifest on the front of the area in which the cave was placed) was less than two feet above the projected ceiling of the hall. Especially since such flaws can vary (without any exterior evidence) in their level, it was all too obvious that support for the ceiling was essential. For this reason, the excavators planned the four supports, in the simplest possible fashion. They were conceived as mere octagonal shafts, their simple shape devoid of any capital whatsoever, reflecting Hinayana prototypes and in accord with early conventions throughout the site. That is, they were purely functional supports, with no attempt at decoration, nor even of the addition of carved beams beneath them; that would come a few years later, once this simple “dormitory” had become converted into a shrine for the Buddha. It is evident that this decision was made very early, which is hardly surprising, considering the potential of the unsupported ceiling for collapse. In fact, this “mini-peristyle” was surely started, to assure support, as soon as its front pillars could be reached in the course of excavation—even before the problem of Cave 10’s angling caused such revisions in the plan. This is suggested by the fact that it was aligned equidistantly between the cave’s left wall and the position— the expected position—of the right wall, at a time when that area was still so deeply imbedded in matrix that it could be repositioned (brought some eighteen inches into the aisle area) in the hopes that this extra thickness would make it possible to put the three cells, in the normal way, in this area. One can certainly understand why the planners would at least try to solve the problem in this way, even though (in part because of the clumsy angling outward of this wall) it turned out to be impossible, and they had to be satisfied with the embarrassment of putting a bench in this area in place of cell entrances. It is also clear, because Cave 11’s pillars are rather carefully centered in the cave, that the cave was to be a nine-cell (three on a side) excavation, not a twelve-cell one; this of course was in effect demanded by its crowded positioning. Thus it was very similar in
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the plan of its hall to Cave 25 or (originally) Cave 8 and Cave 26LW.138 In any case, it is clear that the Cave 10 angling problem was discovered—surely to the horror of the planners—very early, well before doorways for the cells once intended for the right wall were uselessly penetrated. The likelihood, considering the small size of the cave—in fact, it is smaller than once had been planned—that the equivalent left wall cells were underway by as early as 464 (or perhaps 465) would support the assumption that the mistake was realized early. Similarly, if, as I have suggested, the new porch end cells were being cut in 475 (starting an insistent trend at the site to make use of the previously “wasted” porch end areas) this would further confirm the conclusion that the angling problem had already been discovered by that time. This is not only because the new porch end cells are of course “replacements” for the “lost” right end cells, but because the left cell at the right end is actually squeezed into this “corrupted” area; this one cell, like the related cell to the front right had more space than was available in the increasingly constricted area beyond. If one can only derogate the planners for the mess caused by their obliviousness to the distinct (one you see it!) angling of Cave 10— they were depending upon assumptions rather than observations— one must admire them for the rather daring and ingenious (if a bit chaotic!) manner in which they took over the simple old porch in expiation of the earlier errors. The problem was of course at the left end, where the originally plain-ended porch met close to, but in no conflict with, the adjacent Hinayana Cave 12. However, a cell cut at the left end of Cave 11’s porch would change this situation disastrously, because it would of course break directly into the more forward portion of Cave 12’s hall. Thus the planners carefully cut back and at the same time raised the floor (with steps carved from the matrix) at the left end of Cave 11’s porch, raising it from the new floor level some six or eight inches. They could then put a cell at this new (revised) porch end, as well as an additional cell to the left. They made rather similar adjustments at the right end of the 138 Although sometimes reconstructed as a six-cell cave, like Cave 26RW below it, Cave 25 was surely planned to have three cells on each side (right, rear, and left), as its dimensions recommend.
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porch, raising the floor level of the new cells above the level of the demi-vault of Cave 10’s ambulatory, and orienting both of them laterally, since a “normally” placed one (like PL) would almost certainly break into Cave 10’s main vault. As for the three cells along the left wall, inside Cave 11, they were not a particular problem, for they did not extend over as far as Cave 12’s main hall, while the cells along Cave 12’s right side had a relatively low ceiling level. As we would expect, all of these cells were originally cut in the “functionless” A mode—in effect, no more than a “mere hole in the wall”—and they all have the plain doorway openings and the very thin walls characteristic of cells carved during the first decade or so of excavation at the site. Their excavation dating from as early as 464 to as late as 467, they were all excavated too early to have the useful upper monolithic projections which, (with the B mode) came into unchallenged use starting in 468. (The B mode of course continues throughout 469, but only in the developing royal caves, which alone were underway at that time. Instead, all of the four porch cells, and all of the five original interior cells (the left rear cell to be discussed) have been converted to the A+ mode: that is, they all had to be provided with pegged-on projections—presumably wooden— at the top, into which the upper door pivot could be fitted. Typically, two teak pegs, small but strong, held the applied projection in place.139 This upper device was combined with a hole in the floor directly below; often (particularly in Cave 11) there was an inset wooden receptacle (with a hole at its center) to smooth the door’s turning. Nearby, on the sill, there was typically a square hole (one or more inches square) into which a wooden plug operated as a doorstop, to be closed from the inside.140 We should also note the simple latches—not as neatly carved as later ones—and the deep peg holes (often with the stump of a teak insert) generally found on the doorway’s reveal. Some of these pegs, with a cord attached, must
139 The area for the upper fitting often had to be cut back, to make the door hang straight. There was also a further cut at the top to allow the door (with its attached pivots) to be lifted up and then dropped into place. In D mode doorways the same results were achieved by having slot or channel at the base, so that the lower pivot could be pushed into place, and then usually “locked” with a stone or piece of wood forced tightly into the groove. 140 In at least one instance fragments of the plug remain in the hole.
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have been used for securing the door from the outside; but others appear to “lock” a projecting teak latch-holder in place.141 This usage seems very clear in Cave 11’s right rear cell. There, a piece of an ancient broken chisel (?) has been used as a wedge driven in alongside the teak peg, which presumably was too loose. The narrower part of this strong iron wedge now can be seen sticking into the hole chiseled out for the latch-holder; the latter is now gone, but originally, it is clear, the iron wedge would have securely locked it in place. Although the farther (projecting) end of this portion of a broken chisel is cleanly beveled, it is clear that it was forcefully hammered into the peg hole when it was inserted, since the end visible in the doorway is much contorted by the pounding apparently required to drive it into place. It is probably significant that all of these cells were fitted out (with A+ mode fittings) in 468, the first year that the B mode was in use and that the A+ mode would have been able to approximate it by “copying” its projection. Although conversions from the A mode to the A+ mode were occasionally made in 469, this would have been done only in the royal caves, not in a cave like Cave 11 where total concentration, in 469, was on getting the image done and dedicated. Of course, it is hardly surprising, from the patron’s as well as the sangha’s point of view, that there should be a concerted effort to get the cells ready for residence just when the shrine was being brought to completion. At the same time it should be noted that there was really no practical way to fit out the doorways until 468, when the B mode (followed by its shaky counterpart, the A+ mode) was developed. It is possible that monks moved into the door-less cells somewhat earlier, but there is no evidence for this either pro or con. What we can say is that in 468 there was a concerted effort to get the work done, and that it was surely done quickly and efficiently, which means by contract—the manner in which most work must have been done at Ajanta. This is confirmed, or at least suggested, by the uniformity of the cuttings and fittings necessary to make the A+ mode openings. Only one cell does not fit the standard pattern. The unintended splaying out of the cave toward the rear left enough space to squeeze 141 A single example of a portion of such a teak latch holder, fitted into a deep slot cut in the stone at the rear of the doorway, is seen in cell PRa of Cave 2; unfortunately, it has been (unnecessarily) covered over with a new cell door.
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in a “bonus” cell, now that the patron was so involved in making up for the original problems encountered on the cave right. This cell appears to have been started by 467, since it still has an “early” thin wall and a featureless A mode doorway. However, perhaps because it was started later than any of the others, it was not ready in 468 for conversion to the A+ mode; in fact it was not completed until the minor reworking of elements of the cave which took place after the Recession and Hiatus, starting sometime after 475; at that point it was, understandably, provided with an up-to-date (even if somewhat constricted) D mode fitting.142 We have so far discussed elements of Cave 11 which all have to do with its early intended function as a mere “dormitory”, appropriately simple and severe; its only “special” feature was its group of four pillars; however they were made to hold up the ceiling not for the delectation of the residents. However, by 468, or perhaps during 467, the idea of adding shrines to such smaller caves at the site changed, for this was when Cave 11’s shrine, so anomalously conceived, was started. The idea of adding shrines to at least some of the Vakataka caves—possibly those controlled by the elite(?)—had already had an impact on the site by 466, but the impact appears to have been somewhat delayed on many of the lesser caves (such as Lower 6, 7, 11, and 15), perhaps become some authorization from the site’s strong establishment was necessary. We know that the shrines in all of these four caves were underway by 468, since they were already well underway, and developing in normal course, prior to the beginning of the Recession, when they all had to be completed in a great rush. This was true of Cave 11 also, but unlike the other three, it would seem that this one may have already been undertaken in 467. This is clear from the fact that a considerable amount of time was “wasted”, before the Buddha image was even started, in cutting out an ultimately abandoned stupa—a matter discussed below. But at the same time, it is likely that the three later cells at the rear of the cave were still not quite fully excavated when the idea of “converting” the central one—happily on the cave’s axis—to this new and significant usage. Although we know that the front walls of the cells on either side must have been already trimmed down enough to receive their A+ 142 The pivot hole was placed on the “wrong” side of the doorway, because of space considerations where the doorway meets to adjacent wall.
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door fittings by 468, as discussed above, the remaining thickness of the front wall of the center cell surely never was prepared for such fittings; it appears to have been left somewhat thicker, almost certainly in anticipation of holding the larger and heavier shrine door. At the same time, the rear wall of the cell had not yet been fully trimmed down at this time. It was clearly reserved in anticipation of the changes about to be made. Assuming that the cells on either side were in the same nearly—but not totally—excavated state, they were probably finished before 467 was out. Their doors would have been hung in 468, work surely stimulated by the knowledge of the major transformation of the cave probably just underway. In any case, the total character of Cave 11 changed—or changed as much as possible—when the patron, following what was now a demanding convention, decided to add a shrine. Admittedly, the shrine he started was most unusual, probably because it was the first conceived for (or at least the first developed for) any of the viharas at the site. First of all, in contrast to the situation in Caves Lower 6, 7, and 15, there was no place to put it; or one might better say, the central cell at the rear, appropriately placed on the cave’s axis, had to be “sacrificed” to make room for this crucial new feature. More surprising still, his plan was to make a stupa, not an image. Or, perhaps we should say, this was not surprising, because for centuries stupas, not images, had been the center of devotion in caitya halls throughout India. Even at a contemporary and related (Vakataka) site such as Bagh the first viharas appear to have had stupas not images as their central motif. Indeed, I have suggested (without great insistence) that when the idea of the vihara shrine first impacted upon Ajanta, everyone was thinking in terms of stupas. This suggestion is supported by the fact that the centralized plan of all of the first shrines at Ajanta implied the presence of a stupa and the ritual of pradaksina, rather than of an image and the ritual of abhigamana. However, the concept of incorporating shrines into Ajanta’s viharas coincided with an equally dramatic development which was taking place in Ajanta’s caitya halls. When these great halls (Caves 19 and 26) were conceived, clearly reflecting the Hinayana Caves 9 and 10, stupas had been the focus of caitya halls for hundreds of years. But, sometime during the course of the development of Caves 19 and 26, the idea of fronting the stupa with an image—really changing the focus of devotion—suddenly developed. Possibly the idea— like so many others that affected the site—came via the trade routes
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and the hosts of travelers upon it, who knew of such powerful combinations of image and stupa from the multitudinous sacred sites in both the northwest and the southeast. Whatever the source, and it was almost certainly external, it transformed the site, and indeed every subsequent later site thereafter. We have no absolute way of knowing when the concept of the image fronting—in fact emerging (demandingly) from—the stupa first came to effect the patrons of Cave 19 and 26. However, the impact was surely almost simultaneous, because of the revolutionary character and the devotional attractiveness of such a change. It is not the kind of thing—rather like orientation to the solstice—that one patron would leave as the private precinct of another. Similarly, the shrines in viharas, once conceived, could not be omitted by any proper patron. It seems reasonable to conclude that, just as Ajanta’s viharas at first followed the old-fashioned path, until the new idea hit the site, Ajanta’s caityas did too. We can say precisely when shrines, with their images, were first started in the viharas, but how can we determine when the change to imagery first took place in the caitya halls? The best clue, suggesting that it took at least a few years to develop, may in fact be in Cave 11. Why, when the first shrine in any vihara at the site was started in Cave 11, did the patron choose a stupa for its focus, rather than an image?143 Would this not reflect the precedent of the caitya halls, which he would naturally be following? And why, after starting the stupa and getting it partially roughed out, did he suddenly abandon it in favor of the Buddha image which he hastily, but insistently, finished? Is it not reasonable to assume that this was the very point at which the transformation was being considered and was about to take place in the two crucially important caitya halls? In fact, we have clear evidence that the transformation was already anticipated, even if not yet “materialized” in the manner in which the stupa in Cave 26 had already been designed with a projecting front for an image when work, due to the Recession, ended upon it at the end of 468. So, even if it had not been revealed, it is evident that the image concept had already replaced that of the stupa alone by 468.144 143 The shrine of Cave Lower 6 (q.v.) might also have been planned for a stupa, and a start was perhaps made, at about the same time as was the case in Cave 11. 144 The significance of the Buddha’s “residence” in the viharas has been explored
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Of course we have no way of knowing how much before 468 the image concept (and the consequent fronting of the stupa) arose, but it is unlikely that the new format of the Cave 26 stupa (at first merely roughed out) was defined and revealed until its exact location within the hall had been established; and this must have taken longer than would normally be expected. This is because the stupa, during the process of the reaming out of the whole interior space of the hall, had been shifted significantly forward, as well as to the right, in order to more closely approximate a solstitial alignment.145 All such decisions and adjustments would have taken up time, and since the excavation of the exterior of the cave did not start until 462, given the vastness of this whole undertaking, both outside and in, it is unlikely that the fronted stupa—of course at this point only in process—would have been defined until 468, when any further work on it (including the addition of the Buddha image) was interrupted by the Recession.146 Since everybody involved, including the curious patrons, would have known about, and been excited about, the startling iconographic shift which was in process, it is hardly surprising that by 468, the patrons of all of the viharas at the site were also planning to have images in their shrines. The fact that Cave 11’s shrine, already penetrated in 467, started with the cutting of a stupa, might actually suggest that in Cave 26 itself, the shift took place between 467 and 468. We might suppose that Cave 11, in effect, followed suit, although under such pressure by the time of the Recession, that only the image was finished. (Although the precise dating of the Bagh caves is difficult, it is reasonable to assume that the shift from the stupa alone in Caves 2 and 4 to a fusion of the stupa with the Buddha image in Cave 7 and to Buddha images alone in Cave 3 was taking place at that connected site at very much this same time). The Cave 11 Buddha vies with that of Cave Lower 6 as the first to have been started at the site—underway even earlier than even the Buddha images in Caitya halls 19 and 26. Indeed, its very existence by Schopen; see, in particular: Schopen 1990, reprinted (with slight stylistic changes) in 1997. 145 For the solstitial considerations, see Volume VI (forthcoming); also Volume II, Chapter 3. 146 For the evidence that Cave 26’s stupa was originally planned for a standing image, as in the slightly later Cave 19, rather than an image of its present type, see below, also Volume II, Chapters 2 and 3.
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must be seen as a response to the emergence of the Cave 19 and 26 images, which surely had been already conceived by the time that the first Buddha images in the viharas were started. Seated in the conventionally early padmasana pose, with the hands (one broken) in the expected dharmacakra mudra, the Cave 11 Buddha fronts the abandoned stupa. One might reasonably assume that it was started first, and that, because of the Recession, the stupa never got completed. However, this is almost certainly not how it happened. It is more likely that in order to assure control, the excavators started at the rear of the appropriated cell, cutting deep “channels” on either side, and continuing back to the point where (leaving plenty of excess matrix) they could define the proper rear of the stupa as well as its curvature. A somewhat similar process might have suggested, or might explain, the frontal projection on Cave 26’s stupa. It was characteristic, in the course of excavation, to work from stage to stage. One stage, we know, from the manner in which the monolithic devotees at the left were revealed, ended (logically) at the front margin of the stillprojected stupa. If a similar channeling took place at left and right, to define the rear boundary of the stupa, this would have left matrix at the front of the image which, instead of being cut into the normal curved front of the stupa, could have been conveniently used for the projecting front.147 In other words the excavators of Cave 11 made a reverse-Ushaped cutting to position the roughed-out stupa at the start, after which they would of course have defined the rest of the stupa’s circular drum and dome. But, in point of fact, they now abandoned work on the stupa, for here, as throughout the site, it was giving up its traditional priority. It is clear that as soon as the Buddha image made its insistent impact, the planners gave up any thought of continuing work on the stupa. This seems evident because the back of the image’s throne and the halo utilize the matrix that would have been needed were the stupa finished. In fact, it appears that the halo was made “abnormally” large specifically to hide the unfinished
147 In Cave 29, it is very clear that a major stage of work stopped at the point where the stupa (which surely, by 469, was conceived with a fronting image) would be placed.
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stupa dome, obviating any further cutting needed to keep its rough excess matrix from being seen. Meanwhile the walls around the stupa (what were originally intended to define an ambulatory) were totally abandoned too, as of no further interest.148 What might be seen as confirming this suggested course of excavation, whereby the Buddha image had to be carved within the constraints of the matrix left by the “channels” on either side, is the anomalous position of the outer raised legs of the flying dwarfs above the image; especially in the case of the one on the right, but to some degree that on the left too. Instead of stretching out in the normal flying position, they appear to be constrained by the edges of the channeled area. It is relevant to note that a somewhat similar positioning of the flying dwarfs can be seen, and probably for the same reason, in Caves 15 and Cave 1, in both of which the conventionally early central block was being defined (even if never fully cut out) by a similar channeling. The same apparent constraint is felt in the tight and narrow treatment of the throne base motifs; as if the space allowed them had previously been defined by the channeling process. Interestingly, the contemporaneous Buddha image in Cave Lower 6, which may have been originally roughed out, at least in part, as a stupa, shows the same throne sides constrictions. It is only at the base that the Cave 11 image manages to spread out, and this amplitude can certainly be ascribed to the excess of stone earlier left at the floor level, plus the spreading out of the unfinished lower part of the abandoned stupa at the rear. Since the Cave 11 Buddha image was almost certainly the first to have been conceived at the site, before strong conventions had developed, one can understand the idiosyncratic character of its throne base arrangement, and even the expediency with which it was achieved. It is the only image at the site, earlier than 475, to incorporate a kneeling devotee (or indeed any devotees at all) at the base, and it is particularly unusual that the figure is a single one instead of the conventional pairs or groups found under late carved Buddha images. Although I have argued that in most cases at the site, even where one finds single figures under intrusive paintings or
148 For the lack of interest in pradaksina at the site, see Volume I, Chapter 11, 268–271 (Cave 16: Circumambulation Reconsidered).
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sculptures, the kneeling figures must be seen as generic devotees rather than donors, that may not be the case here.149 The fact that the figure kneels alone, and that such an obvious adjustment to the base composition has been made in order to include it, might well argue that the patron has put himself into the picture in this particular case. In order to affect this, note how the sculptor has reduced the size of the left deer, and at the same time has twisted his head backwards, away from the wheel which he should be attending.150 Otherwise, the arrangement is conventionally early, with the lions crouching under (as it were) the throne, as in Caves Lower 6, and 7, rather than being treated, in the post-475 manner, as its supports. Probably a few weeks earlier, the crucial Buddha image had already been painted, in some areas directly on the stone. But it appears that the patron or the master planner was displeased with what he was having to pay for, and rightly so. There had been some serious mistakes made when this image—after all the first at the site!— was carved, for it appears that the sculptor who roughed it out had mistakenly cut away stone needed for the proper definition of the area under the arms, the waist, and even the soles of the upturned feet. When the image was first painted in early 469, only minimal “restorations” had been made in mudplaster before the paint was applied. In fact, the patron and the planners were probably under great pressure, as the limited time allowed to finish their shrine (like those of Caves L6, 7, and 15) was running out. But at some point later on the image was further “improved”, for it is clear that a much thicker layer of plaster was now applied to some of these previously finished areas, giving them a more auspicious definition. Particularly in the area of the proper left armpit one can see traces—red and green—of the original painted surface built up, surprisingly, with a few inches of thick mud plaster. Traces of such plastering can also be seen at the proper right, while as part of this process, the main part of the image, or most of it, was then repainted.
149 For discussion of donors vs. devotees, see Volume II, Chapter 6, etc. For a perhaps different situation, see Brancaccio 2000; and my comments under Aurangabad in Volume I, Chapter 14. 150 A similar treatment of one of the deer’s heads, again reflecting space considerations, can be seen in Cave 26 Panel L2.
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Clear traces of the finely detailed original design remain on the throne base, having survived because they appear to have been painted directly on the stone; the later plastering, which probably covered the whole image, obviously had poor adhesion, particularly in the area that would or could be touched. The refurbishing of the image is especially evident in the painting of the halo; the earlier decoration perhaps did not satisfy later conventions; so it was redone too, a thin layer of plaster first having been applied over the old design—which in fact was done more carefully than the new. Although after the Recession the abandoned stupa and its “ambulatory” were never touched again, nor were any paintings or sculptures added during the site’s “second heyday” from 475 until the time of Harisena’ death. So the question is, when was the image refurbished? We can logically assume that monks continually lived in the cave from the time that the cell doors (which show usage) were hung (converted to the A+ mode) in 468, and even the “extra” cell at the left rear was fitted out (in the D mode) after 475. However, it is hard to be certain about when the image was refurbished. Quite possibly this was done when the site began flourishing again in 475, at the behest of the patron, who wanted the image improved. Or conceivably it was done during that final flourish of anxious activity just after Harisena’s death, and before the patron had to leave the site by mid-478. It is less likely that it was done during the Period of Disruption (mid-478–480), when donors were far more interested in “doing their own thing”. Although such “intruders” would never donate their own images in a cave which had not already been dedicated, there are no instances at the site where they improved upon or reworked such established images in any way. In 468, with the shrine underway, the decision was made to paint the cave in a way appropriate to the “requirements” of its new and sacred resident. We can assume that the beautiful work done—but sadly never finished—was planned not for the monks but for the Buddha, and of course to a significant degree for the Buddha’s eager patrons. This was of course the case throughout the site, as the character of the various caves changed. Unfortunately, however, Cave 11’s planned program of painting was never completed because of the strictures of the Recession. As we might expect, work was proceeding in normal course during 468, the porch being plastered first, from ceiling to floor, and its painting begun at the same time that the plastering of the interior hall
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got underway.151 But, because time suddenly ran out due to the Recession, there is no “original” painting in the inner hall, other than that applied to the Buddha image itself.152 All of the hall paintings, and nearly all of the paintings on the porch wall are intrusions, dating between mid-478 and 480.153 Cave 11’s porch ceiling’s beamed and coffered painted design is still limited in its variety, but the exuberantly florescent zoomorphic forms in the sections on either side of the center clearly communicate a sense of the gathering energies at the site.154 With its consistency of style and palette it appears to have been done under a single contract, probably by a head painter and his sons and cousins. Its organization, consisting of a “checkerboard” of red and green backgrounds for the surface motifs, can hardly be seen today, because of darkening. A variation on the same patterning can be seen better on the painted eave, which has suffered much less from the smoke which affected the porch. It is interesting to note that the central section of the painted porch ceiling lacks the imaginative exuberance of the adjacent areas; probably (typically) it was done first, before a sense of challenge for the task developed. Unfortunately, the ceiling was sadly begrimed by fires used by some resident sadhu in later centuries, who also left a few Saivite symbols on the wall; and an attempt to broom off the soot has only done further damage. The painted dwarfs that hold the ceiling up are placed, appropriately, beneath the great painted faux-beams, which connect in turn with the actual facade pillars. These dwarf figures were, of course, “in the way” of any murals planned for the walls, which is why, a year or so later, in Cave 17, they were relocated, less architectonically but more conveniently, to the ceiling area itself. The faces of the pillar capitals, again following early fashion, have painted rather than carved designs (often now barely visible) on their faces. 151 As noted above, the roughnesses where the floors were cut down, were probably successfully masked by the relatively thick coating of plaster on the walls. 152 In early 469, when Cave 11’s patron was allowed to get his main image finished and dedicated, no other painting would have been done. In such moments of crisis, normal procedures are usually reversed: the porch would not be started before the interior hall, nor would the porch ceiling (here, particularly elaborate) be given precedence over important mural paintings. 153 For the intrusions, see Volume III, Cave 11. 154 There is even a four-bodied (one headed) deer painted in one of the coffers toward the left end; similar forms are found on the capitals of pillars R2 and R5 in Cave 1.
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Unfortunately the porch painting progressed little farther than the completion of the two superb but now ruinous bodhisattvas; even though only their upper portions are still legible, they stand as among Ajanta’s most splendid paintings, worthy of the Buddha in the shrine, toward which they turn, with a subtle axial emphasis, in adoration. The porch doorway, penetrated early, and probably as a simple opening, must have received its simple profiling at the same time that the lions below were defined by the end of 467. This must have been, on most early doorways, before the addition of flanking pilasters surmounted by splendid goddesses became, in 468, an insistent early convention. It would appear, from their cursory floral and geometric decoration (which relates to certain motifs on the painted porch doorway of Cave 17) that they had still not been painted (like most of the porch) when the Recession so drastically changed the cave’s priorities; the doorway was probably hastily decorated in that year, when the Buddha image (to which the doorway of course leads) was also being painted.155 All of the subsequent painting in the cave clearly belongs to the Period of Disruption, for it consists of a helter-skelter series of new and unrelated votive images, a few separately inscribed, covering the original patron’s already conveniently plastered surfaces. The walls appear to have been shared by an assortment of donors, although a single one must have donated the more unified composition on the hall’s right wall, where (as in the Cave 2 shrine antechamber) a great number of small seated Buddhas are ranged around a central focal group. The central figures here consist of a standing Buddha, flanked by two standing attendants holding musical instruments. Three carefully cut little (1/2”) square holes below, one still containing the stub of a teak peg, may have been for garlands, although normally the garlands would be placed above the images. Possibly they were for incense, the fragrance of which would rise in an appropriate manner. The many Buddhas on the left side of the composition have been seriously damaged by conservation efforts; the better preserved images at the right, all very fragmentary, show the speed and skill with which they were rather routinely painted.
155 The doorway has a rather thick coating of yellow/orange powder or plaster underneath its floral design; perhaps this had some ritual purpose, but in any case is unusual, and not yet explained.
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Some of the pre-Recession plastered surfaces, particularly at the left rear, were apparently “stabilized” (or at least covered) with pieces of cloth before this intrusive work was done. Traces of the cloth are very hard to see because of surface damage, although a patch on the left wall used to be clearly visible where the cloth (over which a number of half-vanished images were painted) fell or was pulled away from the surface leaving thread marks all around its edges.156 Most of the major intrusions on the right rear wall are done upon a large area of cloth (or cloths) still intact. Here we can still make out two splendid bhadrasana compositions (with donative inscriptions, one no longer extant.157 The fact that they are so heavily obscured by smoke deposits clearly proves that they were actively used during the Period of Disruption. In fact, their cloth foundation is so hard to see that when cleaned some decades ago, the modest and ill-paid worker assigned to this important task never found out (nor was he advised) that he was working on fabric until the nearly invisible images were almost totally destroyed by his efforts. The only evidence now remains in early photographs, taken to prove the presence of the cloth background.158 At the far right on this rear wall a complex “palace structure” must once have housed a now-ruined painted Buddha. It is surprising that although the walls of the cave—particularly at the rear— are so begrimed, the ceiling remains relatively clean, as it was when abandoned at the end of 468. This must be because the smoke did not adhere well to plaster, or to the thin slip which may have been applied to it. Many further intrusions, both carved and painted, appear both in the interior and in the porch, a colossal flaming Buddha, and an inscribed Litany scene being of particular interest, although very ruinous. All of Cave 11’s intrusions have been discussed in Volume III. Like most of the other caves at the site, Cave 11 must have been abandoned shortly after 480, by which time any active patronage, either original or intrusive, had ended. Monks surely lived at the site for a few years—wear in the pivot holes of cells in certain very late caves would seem to confirm this—but after that any organized form 156 Unfortunately, these revealing edges have now been filleted, due to a misunderstanding about the revealing evidence which they provided. 157 Cohen 1995, #64, #65. 158 Spink 1968.
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of activity essentially ceased. Nonetheless, there are a few cells at the site where, it is clear, later residents occupied a few of the old cells. One of these is Cave 11’s Cell (PL2)—at the far left end of the porch—where the presence of a roughly painted Saivite trident on the front wall makes it fairly evident that he was a sadhu. We do not know when he may have taken up residence here, but it was certainly after the A+ mode door had fallen, so it may have been years or centuries after the site’s demise. What proves that he moved in so late is that the plaster with which much of his cell was lined is smeared over one of the broken teak pegs that once helped to secure the cell’s A+ mode fitting. (The other was once covered too, but the plaster over it has fallen.) Thus the door was of course no longer in place at that time. He (or his devotees) also fashioned a small receptacle out of the plaster on one of the walls—probably for an oil lamp, a device never found when Ajanta was active. It might be noted that all of the other porch cells are plastered too. This would suggest that perhaps other sadhus took up abode also in this airy porch with its pleasant view, all cooperating in the begriming of the porch ceiling with their fires for cooking, heat, or worship.159
Cave 12 The ancient Cave 12, in its own heyday, probably housed many of the monks associated with the great caitya hall, Cave 10, to which it was conveniently close.160 Later on, it may well have continued to provide such service, for the testimony of the Chinese pilgrim Fa Hien, who was traveling in this region in about 410 A.D., shows that the site was still alive, even though the region was filled with people who held “wrong beliefs”.161 However, in the Vakataka period, 159 There are the barest traces of plaster in a few of the hall’s cells (e.g. right rear); it would have been applied in the Period of Disruption. The mix is totally different from the plaster in the porch cells. 160 Cave 12’s porch is gone, but clearly followed the simple cell-less format conventional for such ancient viharas. The (broken) frontal elements of the later Cave 11 occupy space which would have been needed, had the earlier cave had a porch cell at the right; and if it did not have one at the right it is most unlikely that it had one at the left, where the face of the cliff, now fallen away was probably not sufficient to hold a cell in any case. 161 See discussion of Fa Hien in Part IB above; also Li Yung-hsi (trans.) 1957, 74–5.
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it served a new purpose too, for it provided a simple and functional arrangement which served as a ready model for the inexperienced Vakataka architects when they started work on their own vihara forms some five hundred years later. Thus, the very first Vakataka viharas, originally shrineless, typically astylar, and without cells at the porch ends, closely follow these Hinayana prototypes. The later Vakataka viharas understandably omit the interior rail motifs found here (as well as in Cave 15A), probably because such motifs were by now centuries out of date, and perhaps too because they would get in the way of the painted murals. In Cave 12 these are treated quite independently on the three sides of the hall, as if different excavators were each going their own way. Along with other more subtle variations, the sculptors at the right sometimes included carved lattice-motifs under the arches, whereas those working at the rear and at the left always painted them in, as traces of the patterns show. We might expect well expect that the right wall’s merlon motifs and the horizontal lines beneath them were probably reflected in paint at the left and rear, but if so, no clear traces remain today. A minor point of interest is the way the arch over the third doorway on the right wall has been repaired; its lower right end must have broken while being cut, and so a replacement (now lost) was simply plugged in at that point. After being plastered and painted, the repair would probably have been invisible. Another, more dramatic but equally expedient revision is to be seen in the curious setback at the cave’s front right; but this cutting back was done because of an impossibly recalcitrant quartz-filled flaw in that area, making it impossible to continue cutting the wall as the plan “required”. However, even with this setback, the wall here is well over a foot closer to the cave’s central door (only the threshold remains) than is the other wall. Such asymmetry is surprising, since the total character of the cave strongly suggests that it draws confidently upon a solidly established tradition. Perhaps the cave’s asymmetry, like the distinct differences in the treatment of the arch and rail motifs, reflects a more complex patronage than was ever the case in the site’s Vakataka caves. Just as we know of at least three different patrons who sponsored the great Cave 10, there may have a number of patrons piously vying with each other here as well, as there clearly were at so many other very early Buddhist sites; and this could possibly account for the anomalous character of the imbalanced plan.
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Admittedly, the only record we have is an inscribed Brahmi record of a gift by the merchant Ghana{-}madad{.}a.162 Placed to the left of the doorway of the right rear cell, it seems to record the donation of the cell.163 However, others may have been painted and thus lost with the fall of the plaster. It is clear that Cave 12 had not been quite fully finished in the way that had been intended when it was started; and this too might well tell of differing patrons with differing motivations. There is an area in the left rear corner that is not smoothed down in the expected early way, while a number of the large wall niches were never excavated. We can tell that the latter were an intended part of the original conception, because (as is very clear on plan) the stone beds in the cells have been shortened to “make room” for the niches everywhere except at the hall’s left front and rear corners; in these latter areas the beds could be longer, which not only made them more capacious, but saved time and effort as well. However, even though not fully finished, the walls were covered with the lime plaster so often used in the caves of this period. The very expense of such plaster (as opposed to mud plaster, may be a major reason that the walls of the Hinayana caves at the site were so smoothly finished. The arch and rail motifs were similarly lime-plastered in the early phase, and the intrados painted with conventional lattice designs unless, as at the front right, these same designs were already carved under the arches. Some of these painted designs evidently remained somewhat intact right up until the fifth century, when all of the walls were resurfaced with a typically “late” red-brick plaster. Although this Vakataka plaster has rather poor adherence and has largely fallen away, it generally leaves a helpful red stain, and therefore one can see how it once covered the remaining traces of the limeplaster and the painted design which protected it under the arches. Its stain on the stone surface traces the boundaries of whatever lattice-motifs remained at that time. That is, the areas which are not stained were still retaining their lime-plaster in the fifth century, protected by whatever painted design remained when the red plaster was applied. Now that
162
Cohen 1995, #66. On the other hand, Burgess’ translation reads: “The meritorious gift of a dwelling with cells (apavaraka) and hall (upacraya) by the merchant Ghanamadada.” 163
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these motifs have largely fallen off too, the unstained bare stone remain to tell the story of the cave’s refurbishment. The ceiling tells a related story. Being left quite toothed rather than smooth, it was covered entirely with a fairly thick layer of brown mud-plaster in the early (Hinayana) period.164 Most of this plaster was still intact when, probably in 477, some Vakataka patron or patrons decided to refurbish it with the good red plaster that had just come into use at that time. The main areas where the old brown plaster had fallen were around two fairly extensive cracks in the ceiling, which (apparently through some minimal water seepage) had obviously weakened the plaster surfacing over the course of time. We can see how these areas were patched in with the (now also fallen) red plaster because of the stain that it has left; and since there are few such red stains on the ceiling it seems apparent that the older surface had elsewhere remained intact, as a good portion of it still is today, some two thousand years since it was applied. Although the Department of Archaeology has affixed pieces of glass at points along the larger crack to monitor any possible expansion, which would cause the glasses to break, such concern is rather unwarranted, since it is evident that the crack was already there when the cave was made two thousand years ago and has probably not moved an iota since. Had this not been the case—had the area cracked after the first (brown) plastering was done—the damage to the later red plastering would have surely been more extensive than it is, because the trauma would have destroyed the old plaster all along the line of breakage; that is, the way the brown plaster fell is consistent with water seepage or temperature changes or the like along the flaw line rather than with a major geological event. Another interesting area of later (red) plastering is in the small area just around the ingenious monolithic “hanger” carved at the center of the ceiling. It seems likely that some kind of cord, or more likely a chain, was put through this, to hold a lamp or an incense burner or a receptacle for flowers. Clearly it had been used before 477—probably intermittently from the time the cave was made right up through Vakataka times—because the old brown plaster around it shows breakage. Admittedly, the breakage was very slight, con-
164 Apparently the Hinayana excavators had already learned some roughness was necessary on the ceiling to provide adherence for the mud-plaster.
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sidering that it might even have been used over the course of some centuries; but this is understandable if indeed a chain with a receptacle—well away from the ceiling surface—was involved. Such areas as this were patched with plaster in the Vakataka period because at that time the whole ceiling was repainted. However, as far as the repainting of the ceiling is concerned, all that can be made out today is a kind of hodgepodge of floral and geometric forms, presumably covering over (on any brown plaster that remained) a previous design from earlier times. We can of course assume that the walls, having been plastered twice, were painted twice as well; but except for the subtle evidence of lattice designs mentioned above, no trace of such painting remains today, largely because all of the final layer of plaster has fallen away. Cave 12’s twelve cells provided beds of stone for twenty-four monks. Like the cave’s front wall, which apparently had either one or two windows on either side of the central doorway, all of the cave’s cells are much broken and much restored, although fortunately the damage is mostly below the line of the arch and rail motifs on the wall outside. Inside the cells, the walls of which are carefully smoothed in a characteristic Hinayana way, one can still see various holes for hooks and clothes-poles; these are surely Hinayana features too, as is suggested by their polished cutting, and also by the fact we never find them paired as if to hold shelves—the latter being a feature specifically associated with Mahayana caves. There is even a “niche” (for storage?) cut into the lower portion of the stone bed in Cell L1, which is one of the few preserved—most of the other beds in this very damaged cave are cement reconstructions. Perhaps they too would have had useful niches if they had survived. As we would expect, given the similar forms in Caves 13 and 15A, Cave 12’s cell doorways were supplied with projecting monolithic fittings, and with latch-slots on the opposite jambs, although many of the latter are either lost or cemented in. The projections were probably to be found at the bottom of the doorways as well as the top, but the lower ones (some still to be seen in Cave 13) have long since disappeared; those areas are now all cemented in. However, the upper projections alone supply significant information, even if its interpretation is difficult. Approximately half of them show no wear at all in the receiving holes, so it seems quite impossible that the kind of pivoting doorways which we know from the Vakataka
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period would have been hung in them; this is the more evident when we realize that monks may well have been living in these cells for hundreds of years prior to the Vakataka period. Thus it seems reasonable to suggest that the door poles placed in the projections were of a fixed type. That is, the original Hinayana doors—which surely were once fitted in the cells, as the presence of their extant latches would alone confirm—did not pivot in the holes, as in Vakataka types, but swung loose upon the poles. Such an interpretation of the original usage of these Hinayana projections—that they acted as braces rather than as hinges—might explain a very curious fact: although the earliest Vakataka undertakings drew upon the site’s Hinayana viharas at the site as their direct prototypes, as far as their overall plan was concerned, they did not copy these doorway projections until over a half-decade later. Then suddenly, in 468, the projection-type of door fitting (the B mode, and then the C mode) became the rage. Could it be that the Vakataka architects (using their clumsy A mode fittings) could not see the virtue of these projecting doorway fittings until someone realized that they could be used in a way more sophisticated than that originally intended? That is, they could use the projections as pivot holders, rather than merely as blocks into which a door support was fixed? If so, this could explain why about half the projections’ holes in Cave 12 appear to have been enlarged and then (as signs of wear attest) used for pivoting doors—presumably during the Vakataka period. By the same token, it would appear that in the Vakataka period the lower projections were sometimes cut away and replaced by a more adjustable socketed wooden block, because the previously established relationship between the top and bottom holes would not necessarily work properly for the new pivoting door-type. These sockets—assuming that they existed—are all obscured by cement in Cave 12, but can be seen in Caves 13 and 15A, and bear a connection with such devices found in many Vakataka caves; this at least suggests that, when found in such early contexts, they are a later, added, feature. It is even possible that in refitting these doors in the three old viharas, perhaps influenced by recent fitting-systems in structural buildings which were not known to their Hinayana forebears, the Vakataka planners developed this new pivoting technique, and that it was because of this that in 468 the new projecting type of fitting suddenly started to be put to this new use throughout the site.
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What supports the suggestion that the majority of the Hinayana cells (in Caves 12, 13, and 15A) were refitted in this way relatively early is the fact that the rear of the doorway was never recessed in this process of refitting, which was almost invariably the case when projection-type doorways in the Vakataka caves were refitted—really to conform to the D mode—after the Hiatus. So if these Hinayana doorways had been refitted after the Hiatus, we would expect the same method of conversion to have been used. In any case, we might well expect to have these old residence cells refitted early rather than late, to give some proper accommodations for the monks, since the Vakataka excavations themselves would not have been ready for occupancy for a number of years. On the other hand, it is surprising that some of Cave 12’s cells were apparently never refitted at all, especially if the other conversions occurred relatively early. It may well be that it just got put off; or that the monks who (probably) lived in those cells did not care enough to insist on the change; or that some Vakataka patron gave only a portion of the funds needed. It seems likely that this ancient vihara, already conveniently available for occupancy, was put to use as a residence as soon as the Vakatakas inaugurated activity at the site. As we have seen there is some reason to think that about half of the cells had been newly fitted out relatively early, the others perhaps having been used without doors, or with still-primitive fitting arrangements. However, it would appear that the much-needed re-decoration of the hall—the old painted wall surfaces being in a sorry state—was not done until much later, apparently just before Harisena’s death, when the site was vigorously flourishing. This conclusion emerges from the fact that the cells in Cave 12, and indeed in Cave 13 and 15A also, were plastered. Judging from the evidence provided by other plastered cells elsewhere at the site, this could not have happened before 477; and whereas the practice continued right into the Period of Disruption, the fact that Cave 12’s main hall was also refurbished at this same time makes it more likely that it was done during the site’s heyday, rather than during its decline. What confirms the conclusion that this plastering was indeed very late is the fact that in all three of the Hinayana viharas it was done with the striking red plaster which, as we have pointed out earlier, was never used at the site prior to 477. Fortunately for “detective” purposes, as pointed out above, this plaster generally
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leaves a distinct red stain when it becomes detached from the surfaces to which it was applied; this stain often could be confused for a “wash”, but remnants of the actual plaster can generally be found in the vesicles of the rock, and in the complex decoration of various arches. What this would mean is that although monks almost certainly occupied the cells during the site’s fifth century renaissance, no one took the trouble to refurbish the cave for them—except perhaps to hang new doors on some of the cells. This was done at a very late date indeed—probably the very year of Harisena’s death. This seeming lack of interest may well reflect the priority given by the site’s elitist patrons to “doing their own thing”—probably a more assured way of acquiring merit in any case. We must recognize too the demands imposed by the site’s burgeoning developments. With all of the pressures that the patrons and the craftsmen were under, it must have seemed particularly important to get new and essential things done; after all, the old caves, though outmoded, were perfectly habitable as they were. Continuing this line of speculation we might suggest that by 477—three years after the vigorous post-Hiatus renewal of activity under the Asmakas, when Harisena was at the peak of his power—one of the many enthusiastic devotees drawn to the site took up this pious task, hardly anticipating that the site’s heyday was so soon to end. It is very relevant to note that the adjacent Caitya Cave 10 as well as the Caitya Cave 9, having been equally “unimproved” for a long decade and a half, were also finally being redecorated at this same exuberant but fragile moment in the site’s history; for the fact that the refurbishment of Caves 9 and 10 was cut off in mid-course very strongly suggests that the ongoing program there too, like consistent developments throughout nearly every other cave at the site, was suddenly disrupted at the time of Harisena’s death.
Cave 12a Cave 12A—hardly a cave at all—is merely what remains of a very unfinished intrusive bhadrasana Buddha, centered above the now much fallen facade of the Hinayana Cave 12, and extending back some six feet from the line defining the front wall of the latter cave. Like 10A, and the two upper shrinelets in the group between Caves
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9 and 10, this small excavation was of course made in the Period of Disruption. Its revealing state of incompletion makes its evident that it was underway late in 480, when work at the site suddenly ended; not surprisingly, the expected attending figures and throne details were never even begun.
Cave 13 Cave 13, like Cave 15A and Cave 12, is a small Hinayana vihara that provided accommodations for the monks who presumably would have conducted the rituals in the nearby Hinayana Caitya Halls, Caves 9 and 10. In contrast to the carefully controlled positioning of the Vakataka phase, these Hinayana caves are placed much more at random, for space was no problem at this early date. Cave 13’s front—surely a simple porch—has fallen away, as has its characteristically thin front wall and original doorway. Cave 13’s typically astylar hall appears to have been conceived and laid out conventionally, with two cells on each side (left, right, and rear). However, an “extra” cell, probably needed or wanted for extra residence space, was squeezed in at the right rear, clearly while the original excavation was underway, since (like the other cells) it is provided with a monolithic candrasila. The seven cells contain two monolithic beds each, expediently placed; those in the right rear cell have carved pillows, like some of the beds in Cave 15A, while there are often holes for pegs or poles in the walls above. The old pivot holes in the projecting door fittings— upon which the B and C modes of the Vakataka period eventually came to be modeled—have been reset and recut in a number of instances, as have the latch-holes. This makes it quite evident that the cells were refitted with doors in the early period, apparently because the earlier holes were incorrectly aligned, probably by still inexperienced excavators. Some of the longer latch-holes and especially the small holes for the latch pins might possibly be Vakataka period fixtures, cut in order to utilize the old cells once again. In a few cells ( just as in Cave 15A) there are deep sockets (for wooden insets) in the floor instead of expected monolithic projections at the doorways bases. It seems possible that these were Vakataka additions—designed like those in Cave 11’s shrine—to replace the now-broken or poorly
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functioning Hinayana projections. Be that as it may, Cave 13, like the four other Hinayana caves, was obviously refurbished in the Vakataka period; and the remaining traces of the notably “late” red plaster in the cells suggests that here, as in both of the other Hinayana viharas, this was not done until 477 or later.
Cave 14 Caves 14 and 28 (the latter can be seen just beyond the Cave 26 complex) are the only major Vakataka caves which were started after the Asmakas took over the control of the region, in about 475. Cave 14’s location up over the Hinayana Cave 13 reflects its tardy inauguration, since such higher areas were the only ones still available at this late date. Its tunneled staircase opens from a sheltered cistern area, which was originally cut for the nearby Cave 15, and now (in 477) apparently enlarged, with a second reservoir placed at the back; indeed, an old water channel, now somewhat repaired, still carries the water from Cave 14’ down along edge of the stairs to the cistern area below. The barely started Cave 14 was immediately abandoned when Harisena died. However, its very size shows that its patron’s expectations were very high when he began work on it a year or so before that dire event. As in the equally late Cave 3, Cave 14’s porch pillars omit the conventional capitals, although they bear some connection with earlier forms found at the site, such as Cave 26’s pillars L1 and R1. The central two pillars, now incorrectly restored, once had bands of close-set vertical flutes in their two recessed areas.165 Interestingly, they show a distinct connection with forms found at Bagh—notably the pilasters of the naga shrine at the left of Cave 4’s court. Cave 14’s unfinished doorway instructively reveals how such carving work was jointly accomplished by two different artists, a common procedure which, as in Caves 16 and 17 too, made for speed more surely than for symmetry. A distinctly late conception, it combines the “T-shaped” and trabeated format with a distinctive “meander” molding pattern which appears only in very late contexts at
165
See Ajanta fiche 28:36.
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the site (Cave 2 and Cave 26LW). Similarly, its goddesses, each with three varied companions, express their very late date by being the most lavishly attended of any at the site. As we might expect, loving couples were to have adorned the lintel; but only a single group, at the left, has been roughed out. It is interesting to note that the completed “structural” lintel at the left was colored directly on the stone; this was probably done by the sculptor as a last “finishing” touch, perhaps in advance of his work being inspected and approved by his overseer. The large square windows, with their unfinished multiple moldings, are typically late forms too, almost certainly intended to be decorated very much like those others being carved in 477—for example, those of Caves 5 and 24. The aisle doorways are no more than blocked out. The pillared porch cells complexes, now a conventional feature, were just being started at the porch ends when time ran out; not surprisingly their pillars (those at the left not even defined) have not been decorated. One might note that their uncharacteristic angling in Burgess’s plan is a draughtsman’s—not the excavators’— error; although very incomplete, they were actually being cut in proper alignment when work on the cave abruptly stopped. The error is curious, since Burgess’s plans are generally models of accuracy. The peristyle in the hall, although barely begun, was clearly being provided with pillars of the same general variety; only those of the front row have been roughed out; as we would expect at this late date, the space between the central pillars was distinctly widened.
Cave 15 Cave 15 was begun very early (c. 463) in the Vakataka phase, as its central location, enviably near the Prime Minister’s cave, alone would suggest. Its small pillared porch originally had plain porch ends, while its “primitive” astylar hall, confirming its early inauguration, closely follows the precedent of the Hinayana Cave 12. Like all Vakataka viharas started before 466, when originally conceived it would have further followed Hinayana precedents by having no shrine. It seems clear that the decision to add the shrine was made before the excavators had reached the rear area of the cave, for cells were never started there. However, even after the shrine was started, there was still room for two of the once-intended four rear cells; but
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they were never added. It seems likely that it was decided to reserve these areas for the impressive attendant bodhisattvas which so often flank the approach to the shrine elsewhere at the site. It is even possible that when, following the trend of fashion, it was decided to put the two (previously unanticipated) cells in the porch, this satisfied the patron’s needs or his budget, so that the two rear wall cells were left uncut. Cave 15’s porch pillars are quite complex, but were certainly not fully defined until a few years after they were first roughed out. This would of course follow common practice, detailed work being put off until the general reaming out of much of the cave was accomplished. And then—even though the excavators did not think in these terms—the final design of the pillars could take advantage of the developments throughout the site of the last few years. An old photo of one of the broken pillar shafts—long since thrown into the ravine— shows sections of 8, 16, and 32 flutes, linking it with forms in Caves 19 and 20. Indeed, with their square base moldings and complex shafts, they are related closely to their simplified versions in the shrine antechambers of both Cave 15 itself and Cave 7, which can be dated confidently to 468, judging from the rush with which the Buddha images in those two caves were carved early in 469. It is quite possible that, as in Cave 20, some emphasis was put on the decoration of the cave front, to make up for the simplicity of the interior, and to impress rival patrons. Although Cave 15’s general simplicity reflects the early definition of most of its motifs, its history is a complex one; and this complexity is to some degree summarized in the curiously revealing character of its porch doorway. It was decorated shortly before the Recession in a way conventional for that period, distinctly paralleling the design of the doorway in Cave 7, at least in the latter’s original form. This simple format involved little more than the definition of its flanking pilasters, each of which supports a river-cum-tree goddess whose lowered outer hand rests (conventionally for the earliest of such goddesses) upon the upraised tail of her makara-vehicle. Below, yaksas support a purnaghata (overflowing vessel) which, in Cave 7 and in the doorways of Lower 6, creating a characteristically early sense of slight instability. can be read as the pilaster base. Besides the decorated pilaster capital there is no other carved decoration, although painting was surely intended. All of these forms
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are typically early, being found to one degree or another on all doorways carved in 467 and 468, as has been noted earlier herein. What is curious about Cave 15’s doorway—and has often made it resist proper interpretation—is that the lintel was carved some ten years later, and is at odds with the lower portion of the doorway in significant ways. Indeed, it rests most inappropriately upon the heads of the goddesses, and to better make the connection, the top portions of their sheltering trees have been expediently cut away to make room for the new entablature, with its typically late vaulted structure.166 As part of this same update of the doorway, guardian yaksas were cut, again appropriately, into the old pilaster surfaces. The pigeons at the lintel’s center, a common feature on temple doorways of the fifth and sixth centuries, are somewhat whitened from having their impressions taken some decades ago. The porch windows, typically early vertically shaped types also (and only) found in Cave 20, have a curious and seemingly impractical design, with a recess to hold the frame only in the top half. However, only the right window was supplied with the peg holes (three on either side) to secure the frame. Although the frame must have been applied here, for the broken stumps of the teak pegs can still be seen in some of the holes, the other window has no peg holes whatsoever, and so could not have been fitted out. This gives some insight into the troubled history of the little cave, which even after fifteen years was never properly completed. Presumably this failure to get the windows fitted out took place at the traumatic moment (477) when Harisena died and all well-laid plans started falling apart. It is unlikely that shutters on the right window were applied just before the start of the Recession, since that would mean that no one troubled to put the other window up—a simple task— throughout the whole subsequent decade. It is hardly surprising that here, just as in so many other caves, Cave 15’s porch cells were not part of the original plan. They must have been added in 465 or 466, sometime after the cells of the hall were already underway. The unplanned-for later addition of the porch cells accounts for their lack of the expected candrasilas, a very early feature seen in front of all the cell doorways in the interior;
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A telling degree of concavity appears on the lintel, caused by its recutting.
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the candrasilas are missing in the porch because the floor must have been already finished as planned when the new cells were added in 465 or 466. Such a dating is confirmed by the fact that their typically early thin-walled doorways originally had A mode fittings; they were converted in the late 470s to the more practical D mode. Because Cave 15 was such an early and such a relatively uncomplicated excavation, and because work seemed to go on quite efficiently at first, it is not surprising to find that all of the eight cells of the interior had already been excavated before 468. We know this because they originally (like the porch cells) supplied with primitive A mode doorways, which are cut in typically early thin front walls and lack discernable fitting arrangements. Here, as in many other early caves, the planners solved the problem by converting the impractical doorways to something resembling the new projecting B mode arrangement, by the addition of pegged-on wooden projections at the rear to hold the door-pivots. We categorize this type as A+ mode, being an up-dating of the A mode to approximate the far more practical monolithic B mode. It seems evident that all of Cave 15’s cell doorways were to be made usable in this way, but before the task could be completed, the Recession occurred; and so by the time that work was brought to a halt by an order from on high, only two of the interior cells (L1 and L3) were fitted out in this way. As we might expect, Cave 15’s other cells (six in the hall and two in the porch) were converted to the efficient post-475 D mode (with the inner recess containing the pivot holes) once work started up again sometime after the Asmaka takeover of the site in 475. It is significant that the main porch doorway was also fitted out in the A+ mode, a treatment also provided to the porch doorway of Cave 20 at about this same time—presumably 468 when, at least for cell doorways the B mode itself came into fashion. One of the peg holes needed to hold the applied projection is hidden on each side by the new wooden door frame, but one cannot doubt that the feature was of the typical A+ mode type. Just as in the case of the B mode, upon which it is based, the door, once set in place, would swing open and back against the wall (as opposed to the recessed D mode where the pivots, being set well within the doorway, could not do this, even though a better closure was effected. It is interesting to note that a hole on either side of the doorway, placed about five inches from the point to which each door panel would
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open, was obviously made to hold a (teak) peg, to keep the two door panels secured once it was opened. A surprising feature is seen at the back of this porch doorway which, judging from the character of its early pilasters, was underway in 468. It has a projecting beam carefully carved above, almost certainly intended to contain a deep hole at either end for the upper door pivot. This “beam-type” variant of the B mode was put into use for the shrine doorway of Cave Lower 6 (468) and also for the shrine doorway of Cave 20 (470). Variants, where a wooden beam was cleated at the top of the doorway’s rear face, are to be seen in both Cave 11 (468) and Cave 17 (470 or 471). The back of Cave 11’s porch doorway approximates the standard B mode, and was surely underway by 467, perhaps influenced by the strongly shaped projections in Caitya Cave 26, which may well be the model for them all. But the curious thing about the Cave 15 “beam” is that it was never used—it has no pivot holes, even though it was surely made for that seemingly sensible purpose. The fact that it was disregarded when the double door panels were hung must be ascribed to some idiosyncrasy on the part of the planner. It may have been easier to adjust the A+ type wooden projection, and this may have been important; a similar explanation may account for the use of the E mode for a number of the late cells in Cave 16 (q.v.). The assumption that this was some idiosyncrasy of the planner is supported by the fact that the somewhat later (468–469) shrine doorway was designed in the A mode, which in fact had already gone quite insistently out of fashion by 468. The connection with the contemporary phase of work in Cave 7, mentioned before, is reflected too in the careful shaping of the early (c. 467) shrine antechamber pillars; and it is clear that in both of these caves the shrines were similarly unfinished when work broke off in the midst of the difficulties visited upon the site by the Recession. In Cave 15 the asymmetry of the shrine (the wall being too little cut back at the left) still clearly reveals this, since in the “second” rush of 478 there was no particular concern to finally correct the problem, when there was so much other more crucial work to do, and so little time. An even more serious evidence of haste involves the overall plan of the shrine, which (reflecting the arrangement of earlier stupa shrines) was surely planned with a central block for the image, the
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most uncorrupted example of this shrine type being that of Cave Lower 6. Since the Cave 15 image would not have been started until the “eleventh hour”, in early 469, things had to be done in a rush. Thus expediency, as so often at the site, took over, and the cutting back along the two sides was interrupted before the area behind the image had been opened up. Indeed, the image itself was so hastily carved that its base was neither fully revealed nor properly defined. We would probably be right in concluding that, even in such an incomplete state, it was hastily painted and rushed into dedication. That, after all, was the whole point of the rush, and of the “dispensation” that had been given to this patron, along with those of Cave Lower 6, 7, and 11, to finish their shrine images. However, unless one could find traces of the “early 469” painting under the later layer, there is no absolute proof that the dedication took place; and even if no earlier paint was found that would prove little, since it could have been washed off or otherwise removed when the final layer was added. The Cave 15 image, like Cave 7’s, was originally planned, according to the mode of that day, with no attendants, a typically large halo, and flying dwarfs at either side. The throne base and throne base were not defined at all at that point, due to lack of time, as is clear from the fact that the lions and the complex (now ruinous) wheel on the base, and the attended vyalas at the sides above, are all very late features. The leonine throne legs, the (clumsily crowdedin) invariably “late” nubs on the corners of the throne base, and the scalloped throne cloth equally show that the image was in the process of being revised at a very late date, as part of the new effort by the cave’s original patron (or perhaps a new patron) at finally getting the cave properly completed. The only surprising omission involves the by-now expected bodhisattvas, whose proper placement was made difficult by the early cutting-back of the central image block, done at a time when the convention of adding bodhisattvas had not yet developed. It seems likely that once the flanking areas were better trimmed, paintings of such attendants, or possibly loose images, would have been added, as per late convention. The very rough way in which the image was finished (or unfinished!) in this second phase of work suggests that Harisena’s death caught the Cave 15 patron by surprise. Fortunately, before this terrible event occurred, he had cut the “improved” and up to date lintel on the porch doorway design and had fitted out the eight remaining A
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mode cells with very practical new D mode fittings. Furthermore, since he, like everyone working in 477, had no sense of the oncoming disaster, he was busy carefully preparing the cave for the vigorous worship which he hoped would take place in it over the coming years. This is clear from the fact that he put twenty garland hooks (four still in place) at carefully spaced points along the top of the walls. Then, when the hooks were in place, he ordered the ceiling and the walls of the hall neatly plastered. However, this must have been the point at which Harisena died, for the relatively spacious hall, unencumbered by pillars, was never painted. Even more telling, the image (and the shrine itself ), which he was planning to properly refurbish, now had to be rushed to completion in the few months during which the “Vakataka” patrons managed to remain at the site. The fact that the completion of the cave could no longer go on in normal course convincingly explains the expedient character of the late work on the image, to say nothing of the fact that the shrine doorway neither got properly carved decoration, nor did it get recessed and fitted out with pivot holes so that doors could be hung. The same necessary and drastic reduction of efforts also explains why, besides the image itself, only the ceilings—not the walls—of the shrine and shrine antechamber were painted, both in a most hasty fashion, without taking the time and trouble to add the expected garland hooks in the ceilings. In fact, it is clear that just when the crisis came with Harisena’s death, three of the four expected hooks had already been set into the walls of the antechamber; the fourth was not inserted because the smoothing of that particular wall area (at the left) was still going on. Of course, the patron was successful in his getting the image refurbished (even if roughly) and dedicated; but times had suddenly changed, and almost immediately he departed, never to return. Not surprisingly, the unsoiled condition of the painted ceilings in the shrine and shrine antechamber, shows that the cave was little, if at all, used for worship. However, the fact that the cave was nonetheless “alive” explains the involvement of a few “intruders” in the next few years. The images on the left rear wall of the hall, both once painted, are typical intrusions of 479 or 480; they, and the plastered wall areas above them, must once have been painted, but no trace remains. This is in part due to the fact that the cave was once deeply filled with debris; indeed, some of the latch-holes in the cells’ doorways
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are still filled with the mud which built up in the cave over the centuries. There were probably once intrusive paintings on the main porch wall; at least that porch’s plastering was done with a characteristically late red mix.
Cave 15a Cave 15A, just to the right of the Elephant Gate, was recently unearthed from beneath the covering debris. When found, its doorway had been intentionally closed up, possibly in ancient times; perhaps Varahadeva did not want it disturbing the access to his adjacent Elephant Gate. In any case, the loss of residence space would not have been a major one, for it was the tiniest of the Hinayana (early Buddhist) viharas, with a mere three residence cells opening off its miniscule central hall. An old rail and arch pattern adorns the walls, continuing above the doors; the few carefully drilled holes in the walls may have held pegs for flowers or for hanging garments, or various amenities. Originally there was a shell-character inscription on its front wall, but no copy or estampage was ever made, so the evidence is lost; the whole area is now totally reconstructed. Like the cells in all of the other Hinayana viharas—and differing from those of the Vakataka phase—these each contained two beds cut from the living rock. Some are now much reconstructed, but at least one in each of Cave 15A’s cells was of a special type with a rock cut pillow; perhaps these fancier beds would be assigned to the more prestigious monks. At least one bed has a cut-out “storage” shelf beneath; quite possibly some of the others did too, although damage and restoration obscures the evidence. In any case, each cell was supplied with a narrow but convenient rock cut bench along its rear wall. Despite some damage, we can see that all of the cave’s cells had projecting pivot-holders at the top of the doorways, such as are found in all of Hinayana viharas at the site. Directly beneath, at the doorway base, a large hole must have held a block of wood; like that still in place in the shrine of Cave 11, it would have had a hole for the reception of the lower end of the door pivot, making easy adjustment possible and assuring smooth turning. Especially considering the similarity of these fittings to those in Cave 11, it seems likely
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that all of these doorways were refitted in the Vakataka period (the holes for the wood inserts in the floor then being cut), and that the wear in the pivot holes might be from that time rather than earlier. It is just possible that in the Hinayana phase poles, holding swinging doors, were fitted into the projections but did not themselves turn. However, whether the wear in the holes is late or early (or both), it seems clear that the cave was re-utilized in the Vakataka phase, since some of the cell walls show traces of the red plaster used so often throughout the site from 477 on. However, since the site’s cells (as opposed to other areas of the caves) were not plastered prior to 477, it seems likely that this cave was not actually refurbished until just prior to Harisena’s death, the monks living in the cells without proper doors or other amenities until that time. This might account for the relatively small amount of wear in the pivot holes. The “pole-holes” in the cell walls probably date from the time when the cave was made, for they are generally smaller and neater than those of the Vakataka phase. The single small squarish latch-hole is probably from the early phase too; all others have either broken away or are cemented in.
Cave 16 The impressive Cave 16, occupying the prime position at the very center of the site, and undertaken close to the very start of Ajanta’s renaissance, was the grand donation of the Vakataka prime minister Varahadeva. Presenting it at its expedient completion some seventeen years later “with devotion to the community of monks”, and “for the sake of his mother and father” Varahadeva expressed the hope that it would “continue to be inhabited . . . as long as the sun [shines] with rays crimson as if [fresh] red arsenic.” (Cave 16 inscription, passim) His dedicatory inscription further expresses the wish that just as Ajanta’s “. . . ridge is [carved] with many caves [presently] inhabited by superior men”, so “the entire world . . . by hewing away the many transgressions” might “enter that peaceful and noble state free of sorrow and disease.” As befitted a donor of the importance of the Prime Minister, he not only located his cave at the very center of the arcing ravine, but enhanced the access to his cave by the pairing of two great
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stone elephants announcing what later was described by the seventh century Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang as the entrance to the site itself.167 And even though Xuanzang did not visit the site—for it had been long abandoned, he reported that these great elephants sometimes still “rumbled and roared”. Continuing past the guardian elephants, the devotee would then directly confront a nagaraja, seated in a pose of ease, and demanding by his presence the pious attention of all who visited the cave. At that point, one would have to turn left and proceed up a tunneled stairway toward the cave’s narrow courtyard, confronted at the end of his climb by the minister’s laudatory donative record. Such tunneling was necessitated in both Cave 16 and Cave 17 by the steep incline of the cliff in this area, which disallowed long staircases leading up from the river. Confronting you directly as you come up the tunneled stairs to the cave’s narrow courtyard, the dedicatory inscription proudly proclaims its donor’s virtues: “Beloved by the king and the subjects, he . . . governed the country righteously, shining brightly with the rays of his fame, religious merit and virtue.” Furthermore, we read, “. . . regarding the sacred law as his only companion, (he was) extremely devoted to the Buddha, the teacher of the world.” (Cave 16 inscription, passim) The prime minister’s Buddhist connection was surely instrumental for the inauguration of the site, although it is interesting to note that in his contemporary inscription in the Ghatotkacha vihara, a few miles away, his genealogy proudly describes his high-born Hindu heritage.168 That one could worship both the Buddha and the Hindu gods may well account for Varahadeva’s participation here, just as it can explain why the emperor Harisena himself could sponsor the remarkable Cave 1, even though most scholars agree that he was certainly a Hindu, like earlier Vakataka kings.169 It seems likely that Varahadeva’s dedicatory record was originally to be placed in the low recessed panel visible between the right window and the aisle doorway, a modest location similar to that of his 167
For Xuanzang see Volume VI, forthcoming; also bibliography. It is interesting to note that although the prime minister was descended from “a great race of eminent Brahmanas” (Ghatotkacha Inscription, verse 3), one of his ancestors “. . . gave his love (equally) to wives of the two (castes), born in Brahmana and Kshatriya families. (Ghatotkacha Inscription, verse 5). 169 The Visrutacarita, with its Saivite focus, would seem to support this assumption. See Volume I, Chapter 4. 168
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related inscription in the Ghatotkacha vihara, and to that of Buddhabhadra’s inscription in Cave 26. However, if this was indeed the case, this location was abandoned, being covered over when the porch was plastered and painted in 468/469. Perhaps by then the decision had already been made to use the higher visibility location (and enlarged panel) at the top of the stairs, following Cave 17’s lead in opting for such an arresting placement. The fact that Varahadeva would have had his dedicatory record composed and inscribed before his monument was done can be explained by the need to plan such an important undertaking well in advance, so that it would be in place well in advance of the anticipated dedication; and in the meantime it could serve a prideful purpose. Indeed, every major donative record written for the site’s major patrons was put into place before the cave (4, 16, 17, 20, 26) to which it refers was done; and this is equally true of Varahadeva’s own record in the porch of the Ghatotkacha vihara. Even though Varahadeva’s cave was not dedicated until 478, when the image was finished, the inscription must have been carefully composed and put in place before that, since it refers to Harisena, who died in 477, as the ruling monarch. However, it is unlikely that it was composed much, if at all, before 477, since it is evident that Harisena would not have dominated all of the many territories listed in this record until the very end of his reign; in particular the eastern territories could not have come into his control until gained from the so-called Main Branch ruler Prithivisena II, who must have been controlling them up until about 475170 Furthermore, since, as we shall see, Varahadeva apparently did not reinstitute work on his cave after the Hiatus until as late as 477, one can assume that his inscription was not applied before that time. Dominating the ravine from its carefully selected central location, the influential Cave 16 imposed its authority upon early architectural developments throughout the site almost from the start. Cave 16’s severely grand (but much reconstructed) porch colonnade and interior peristyle, in their considerable height, may well reflect the treatment of space in palace structures of the period, where high ceilings would have a significant cooling function. However, in a 170 See discussion in Volume I, Chapter 4 also Volume II, Chapter 1; for a very detailed but very different analysis of the relationship between the ‘western” and the “eastern” branches of the Vakataka dynasty, see Shastri, 1997, esp. pp. 55–69.
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cave, where the cooling effect is due to the very mass of the mountain, the interior of which stays at a rather constant temperature year round, great height was in fact counterproductive. Once this was realized (which is to say, once this over-dependence on palatial conventions was broken) the planners and patrons quite understandably opted for lower and lower ceilings, thus effecting very considerable savings in time and money too. The broken cell at the left of the court is used today to dispense water from the nearby cistern, to which it is connected by a (presently non-functional) “tunnel” apparently intended for the drawing of the water up into this chamber. The chamber which contains it may have been under excavation when work on the cave was interrupted by the Recession, for its double doors were never hung; we know this because its single remaining B-mode projection never was supplied with a pivot hole. The broken right court cell, of uncertain function, may have been excavated for “balance” at this same time, although of course with some practical intent. It may even have been used for storage, for storage facilities were at a premium throughout the site.171 Cave 16, like all large viharas, has the standard arrangement of a main and two aisle doorways, along with two windows. The latter, with their large vertical format, are transitional between the smaller types found in most earlier contexts, with their seemingly impractical shuttering arrangements, and the large square types found in all later contexts. The square types, after the Hiatus, will have conveniently recessed inner shutters, allowing a decorative border on the exterior. Cave 16’s, on the other hand, like those of Cave 17 and the slightly more developed (square) windows of Cave 1, had outer shutters attached to wooden frames; the latter were set into the recessed borders and held by wooden pegs, the holes for which can still be seen, sometimes with teak fragments still in them.172 Surely planned by the court architects as soon as the decision to reactivate the old site had been taken, Cave 16, being the earliest of the major viharas, probably introduced the concept (soon a con171 The units in Cave ‘s right court and Cave 2’s left court may also, like that at Cave 16’s right court, have had a storage function, as was also the case in a number of cave interiors (6L, 11, 17). 172 Such remains of wooden fixtures throughout the site appear to be teak, apparently utilized because of its strength and endurance. However, little scientific analysis has been applied to this matter.
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vention) of the interior peristyle to the site. It of course required such pillars, for it is quite inconceivable that a cave so large (some 64 feet square), in a mountain so full of flaws, would not have been provided with internal supports. It also added its authority as early as 466 to the new concept of the shrine (which was introduced at the site in that year), even though when first planned it had been conceived as a mere dormitory, like all other early viharas. Because of the authority of its donor and its planners, it might be tempting to believe that the concept of the shrine was first developed in Cave 16, for this “standard” feature of Vakataka viharas had in fact not even been thought of until at least three or four years after the site’s inauguration. However, as suggested earlier, it is more likely that Cave 16’s planners were influenced in this regard by the innovations of the even more prestigious Cave 1, even though the latter may still have been only known through the plans being developed at court. Under Cave 1’s significant influence Cave 16’s interior plan may have been adjusted accordingly, in about 466, by the widening the intercolumniation of the central pillars of the then-still-roughed-out front and rear rows, to say nothing of anticipating the addition of a devotional focus at the rear. With these new elements—the shrine and the peristyle—which became standard at the site as soon as they were introduced, and which allowed for continued elaboration, the Vakataka vihara broke free from its simple early sources, like the typically astylar and shrineless Hinayana Cave 12, upon which the Vakataka architects had at first depended. It is hardly surprising that Cave 16, started so early (462) and with the authority of the Prime Minister behind it, became the model for all major subsequent caves at the site; this was manifest even by the time that Cave 17 was begun hardly a year or so later. But, typically, Cave 17 and other subsequent viharas immediately begin to elaborate and improve upon their source; for Cave 16’s impressive austerity was soon to be seen as all too old-fashioned, given the speed and the force of the site’s blossoming. Cave 16’s porch pillars reflect Hinayana prototypes in their simple octagonal shaft designs, but are elaborated with the ribbed capitals which are a feature of most of the early Vakataka caves. As is also the case in Cave 17, these capitals now have only four full ribs (= 4.5), a reduction, and in terms of the progress of the motif at
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the site, an advance over the more complex 5.5 ribbed types found throughout Cave 4, and at the left in the porch of Cave 7. The fact that they have only a single row of fret-motifs on their faces hints at their expected priority to Caves 17 and 18, where double rows of such motifs are found. The simple porch pilasters, with their vertically-striated sections have no exact counterparts in other porches at the site, for they were soon superceded by medallion-decorated forms. A neat little repair (its inserted block now missing) can be seen on the right pilaster, while an equally neat but different type of repair can be seen on the second porch pillar from the left, where the end of one of the capital’s ribs broke off in the course of carving. The windows and aisle doorways are notable plain, the vertical format of the windows signaling their relatively early date. However, the porch doorway has the standard early goddesses, beautifully rendered in very high relief with their trees above and their fluvial mounts below. As in all equally early forms, they use their pilasters as pedestals. Typically, they have one hand lowered on the upraised tail of a makara, a convention so firmly established that we can confidently date the cutting of this doorway to 468 by virtue of this feature, associating it with almost contemporary forms in the related doorways of Lower 6, 7, and 15. But it should also be noted that none of these doorways were decorated at the same time that the porch was exposed. This was probably because at that early date the cave was conceived as a monastery only and such fancy doorways would be inappropriate. So there was some delay after their necessary initial penetration, their elaborate carving not being started until 467 or 468. It is also interesting to note that here, just as in Cave 17, the two frames of the door, although closely related, appear to be the work of two different sculptors. However, the carving of the doorway had no sooner been finished than the Recession started at the order of the local king—a sumptuary edict that, quite remarkably, even affected the powerful Prime Minister, although somewhat less harshly than other patrons at the site, as we shall see. It is clear that this time of difficulties—starting in 469—had already begun when the porch doorway was painted, for the simple colors (mostly a light red) are applied in a most cursory manner. One need only compare it to the roughly contemporaneous but sumptuous painted design of Cave 17 to realize that (curious as it may seem) strictures were being imposed on the productions of the Prime Minister
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which did not apply to the work of Upendragupta, the regional king. The cursory treatment of the Cave 16 doorway extends, unhappily, to the all-too-hurried medallion design at the center of the ceiling, which connects with the doorway, and was obviously part of this same rather abortive painting program, a large part of which would have been done when the scaffolding, earlier used by the sculptors was still in place.173 This also explains why the central section of the painted ceiling was not painted first, as would be normal procedure, because the large scaffolding needed for carving the doorway was in the way. It was because of this that the painting of the eave and of the pillars (mostly missing now) and of lateral portions of the ceiling, all appear to have been done while the doorway’s scaffold was blocking the central section; and the result of this is that this earlier painting is of a much higher quality: that is, it was done in 468, before the strictures of the Recession affected the painting of the porch doorway and the central medallion, which roughly covers some of the earlier ceiling painting, proving that its application was subsequent to the better painting which it to some degree covers. What this means is that the Recession—perhaps surprisingly— effected the Prime Minister too, even though his emperor was totally immune to it, and the local king managed not to be seriously affected until the Asmaka threat increased more and more during the Recession years from 469 through 471. We shall see the fascinating (and saddening) effects of the Recession upon the Prime Minister inside the hall as well. One further evidence in the porch is to be seen in the doorway opening into the left aisle of the cave, where the plastering of the wall and the subsequent painting of the adjacent (and very beautiful) scene of the Buddha’s Descent from Indra’s Heaven was continued onto the reveal of the doorway before the doorway’s rear recess (for fixing the door) had been properly cut. Such a breaking of an expected (and sensible) procedure is a clear sign of an unconventional rush, which again can only be explained by the impact of the Recession. This means that the plastering and painting of this splendid Descent scene, unlike the ceiling above it, was done at the 173 Perhaps the painting of the doorway was so simple and so rushed because Varahadeva had turned his serious attention to the complex decoration of the front aisle ceiling, and had put his best workmen on that.
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beginning of the Recession, in 469, before its architectural context was fully prepared. It might be noted that beauty of the conception and realization of the Descent scene proves that even in the troubled period of the Recession the quality of work could sometimes be very high—a conclusion supported by much of the mural painting which we will see inside the cave and which must also be dated to 469. Before continuing, it is of great interest to note that this beautiful Descent Scene is missing a major portion. It is clear that the surprisingly tall left aisle doorway was in fact heightened (perhaps for better light) before this scene was painted, and that when the plans (or template?) for the scene was sent down from the capital a number of figures, whole or in part, had no surface to contain them. That is, the doorway had been cut upward without the knowledge of the planners in the capital, who must have been working from the original plans for the porch; so now the composition which was sent down to the site would now not “fit”. For instance, one can see the remains of the Buddha’s halo just a few inches above the top of the extended doorway, while the Buddha’s body is totally missing because the filled area is now gone. To rectify the error, the cut-back area was now expediently filled in again—one can see the slots (one obscured by new cementing) to hold an inserted slab of stone which in turn would hold a plaster fill, over which the proper composition (including the “missing” body of the Buddha) would be painted. What we can learn from this is that the painters in the capital, working out their design according to the plan of the wall as it was first developed, were not apprised of the raising of the doorway—there was a failure of communication. Similar situations occurred on the right aisle doorway of this same cave, and in two significant instances (one the Wheel of Life) in the adjacent cave 17. We might also note that when the Cave 16 porch was exposed, it must have been before 465, before porch cells came into vogue (in 465 or 466), because the two porch cells have no candrasilas. This seems like a minor point, but it proves that the porch floor had been (not surprisingly) exposed before or by 465; if it had been exposed later, the candrasilas would have been reserved. Needless to say, the doorways of the relatively early cells were cut in the primitive A mode, which was used up until 468, when the improved B mode took its place, as was in fact the case in one of the interior cells (L4) cut in 468, just before the Recession interrupted all
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developments on the cave. All such features aid us in working out a specific chronology for the development of such a cave. Given the early dating of the basic exposure of the porch in about 465, it is likely that the front aisle of Cave 16 was also under excavation just before the concept of the shrine impacted upon the site in 466. That is, when the interior of Cave 16 was first penetrated, it was almost certainly being planned as a spacious monastic residence, its ceiling supported by twenty pillars and its left, right, and rear walls having six cells on each side—an impressive but very simple conception, very different from what the Prime Minister conceived as soon as the idea of adding Buddha shrines to viharas hit the site. It would appear to be the case that even, while the pillars of the front row were first being roughed out, the revolutionary concept of the Buddha shrine made its impact upon the site. At this point an axial focus was desired (really required, if it could be managed), so the two central pillars of the front row (and later of the rear row too) were “squeezed” slightly laterally, to widen the space between them, the requirements not being very great. As the axial pillars both they and the rear center pillars were, conventionally, given a slight emphasis, with square bases.174 The “squeezing” could be done because the blocked out pillars were still quite rough, with matrix to spare, as was normally the case in the roughing-out stage of excavations. This must have been a technique often utilized to (now appropriately) widen the central intercolumniation, which is carefully done in all caves where it could be achieved, either by this type of adjustment or, in somewhat later contexts, by simply widening the space when excavation was going on.175 The powerful patron had planned a fine peristyle, the plan being for all twenty pillars to have the then-traditional octagonal shafts with carefully wrought ribbed capitals with the four volutes conventional 174 The rear aisle pillars would still have been in an extremely rough state, and perhaps not even revealed, when in about 466 the decision was made to provide the cave, for the sake of the Buddha, with an axial focus. So here, in contrast to the situation in the front aisle. 175 It is possible that the whole front colonnade was blocked out as a single plane before the positions of the six pillars were established; in which case the adjustment of the central intercolumniation would be easy. The façade colonnade of Cave 23 (and the roughed out front aisle of Aurangabad Cave 1) was almost certainly done in this practical way, which probably was often used, even though the evidence is missing because the colonnades were cut.
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at this time; however, as we shall see, his plans, after a fine start, were suddenly aborted. This was after all the Prime Minister’s cave, and he had great plans for it, now that it was going to be an important shrine rather than a mere dormitory. In fact his plans for it seem at first impression so time-consuming that they may seem unrealistic; or at least they turned out to be, given the unstable political situation created by the tensions between the local king and the rival Asmakas. What the Prime Minister ordered done, probably starting in 467, was to make a complex (quasi-structural) beamed ceiling in the front aisle— a major task made the greater by his decision to carve beautiful “bracket” figures, including supporting yaksas, loving couples, and turbulently fighting and playing dwarfs. These delightful creatures would obviously never have been invited into the cave if it were a mere monastic dormitory; they were created in the Prime Minister’s burst of pious exuberance created by the knowledge that he was honoring the Buddha—and of course impressing his associates—in this way. In fact the central beams of the elaborately carved ceiling support this undeniable point, since they (much more than the central pillars of the front aisle) have a decisively widened intercolumniation.176 The elaborate front aisle ceiling had, in its coffers, beautifully painted depictions of geese and floral forms, though very few remain; they are typically early in their limited variety, and indeed were probably painted in the less troubled 468, since ceilings at the site were generally finished before the walls. The slight extensions of the front aisle ends, probably originally set back to provide space for the end-beams of Cave 16’s retardatory “structural” front aisle ceiling seem to be quite functionless; after being blindly copied in Varahadeva’s other cave, the Ghatotkacha vihara, and the early Cave 4, they properly disappear from view. Varahadeva’s exuberant efforts were surely not going to end with this architectural transformation of the front aisle ceiling alone— throughout the site the dark front aisle is always accorded the lowest priority, and this was certainly the case here too. What the 176 If the supporting yaksas which form the rear capital extensions of pillars L1 and R1 were not already created as part of the beamed ceiling’s design might be considered one piece of evidence that the complex beamed ceiling was going to be continued into the more important ceiling areas—the dark and (in relation to the shrine) distant front aisle, despite the attention lavished upon it, being of the lowest priority possible.
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minister almost surely intended to do was to treat all of the cave’s ceilings—all of the aisles and the central ceiling too—in the same way. This seems like a massive project, worthy of a patron of Varahadeva’s status; but with competent excavators it was by no means impossible. Cutting all of the beams and cross beams was demanding, but it actually meant a certain saving of time that otherwise would have to be spent raising the whole ceiling up to a higher flat level. There is reason to believe, as we shall see, that these special beamed ceilings were indeed started (and then aborted) in the left and right aisles. As to making the same elaborate ceiling in the center of the cave, there is no certain proof that this whole area was going to be similarly treated, since the Recession came on too fast; but the fact that crouching dwarfs were carved (un-typically) on the rear (!) faces of pillars L1 and R1 would suggest that the highly elaborate type of ceiling was going to be continued rearward, had not the Recession interrupted this grand scheme. In any case, it seems likely that the whole of the cave would have been treated in this grand way—appropriate to a donation of the Prime Minister—if the Recession had not started just as he was embarking on this major project, which had apparently proceeded to the degree that after finishing (in fact not quite finishing) the front aisle, he started a similarly complex ceiling in the left and right aisles.177 However, with the beginning of the Recession, starting in early 469, the Prime Minister, instead of exuberantly going on with these grandiose plans, rather shockingly had to order the workmen to cut away the quasi-structural ceilings which he had started toward the front portion of the side aisles; one can see the surprising and hasty roughness left by this process at the upper level where the beams would have been. At the same time he never got the central area, or the ceiling of the rear aisle, treated in this way (as he probably had planned).178 Therefore, they are quite “normal” (or at lest plain) in appearance. However, the cutbacks which the Prime Minister had to endure went much farther than this. At the beginning of the Recession he 177
Various elements, such as the bordering “beams” never were smoothed. What the minister seems to have been planning was a replication of the structural interior of a temple or palace—in the same way that early caitya halls aim to replicate their structural counterparts. 178
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had to cut the bracket-capitals off of all of the pillars of the left and right aisles, obviously to save time. We can see that the left and right aisle colonnades, with their capitals, had already been roughed out, probably in 467 or 468, during the happy days prior to the Recession. And then, we can also see that this surprising surgery did indeed take place, because when the roughed-out capitals were so expediently cut off in 469, the very tops of the tapered shafts were expanded slightly to make a more comfortable transition to the beam above. This shift of angle at the top is very subtle, but the adjustments are nonetheless clear and consistent. Indeed, one of the pillars of the right aisle (R4) still shows a recalcitrant projection where the capital was, as the hasty work continued, not fully removed. As for the pillars of the rear row, the situation is quite different. Being deep in the cave, it is clear that they had only been most generally roughed out, if defined at all, when the left and right colonnades were transformed; and therefore they could be tapered consistently from the floor to the beam above, because, being toward the rear, they had been less fully (if at all) exposed when the other pillar capitals were being cut away. But this was not the end of the pain that the Prime Minister had to endure. Having roughly trimmed away the quasi-structural elements which had already been carved (or more probably roughed out) in the left and right aisles, he now was determined to begin the decoration of the cave. As was standard procedure, he started this process toward the front, while the excavators were still opening up the rear aisle and the shrine area. Therefore, he now, in 469, still with some confidence that he could finish his excavation, ordered the painting to begin, starting conventionally with the expansive central ceiling of the hall, which he accomplished with a simple but effective pattern of a kind of decorative “lotus mandala” with a large central medallion bordered by its smaller counterparts. The planners then turned to the left and right aisle ceilings, after which they would order the painting of the walls below. The right aisle ceiling was decorated in an early manner with a simple and beautiful pattern of lotuses and birds. However, when it came to the left aisle, it is clear that Varahadeva was already seriously worried about having time enough to get the whole cave decorated, and so he merely left its plaster covered with a standard lime wash. The painters were ordered to concentrate on decorating the adjacent wall instead—a total reversal of normal and expected procedures, which
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proclaims the difficulties that he was both encountering and expecting. Emphasizing his sense of rush and his concerns about getting the work done, he ordered the plastering and painting done before the rough upper portions (where the once-intended beamed structure had been removed) were even properly smoothed. In both the left and right aisles he broke convention, leaving a surprising roughness at the top of the walls; this was of course expedient but it was certainly improper. That he had fully plastered the aisle walls, as was conventional, suggests that he intended to get them both fully painted, even if this in fact turned out to be not the case. The paintings of this phase on the left wall, continuing only as far as the (intrusive) seated Buddhas farther toward the rear, depict the forced ordination of the Buddha’s half-brother Nanda. Sadly, many years ago there was a greedily obliging custodian at the site who would trowel off sections of the more desirable paintings for visitors, at their request, and for a consideration.179 Understandably, since all of the murals are on a mere mud-plaster base, most of these souvenirs disintegrated on the trip back to Aurangabad. The one surviving fragment, finally ended up in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, after being sold at auction by Sotheby’s in London for lbs/1000 in 1910. It had been brought to England by a Captain Williams of Hampstead, after having been removed, along with many other pieces, from the “Conversion of Nanda” scene on Cave 16’s left wall.180 The paintings on the right wall showed thirty-one scenes (many now ruinous) from the Buddha’s life, starting with his decision to descend to earth and ending with his ministry. Nearly the whole front aisle is taken up with jataka tales, mostly from the Jatakamala. At the left end of the front wall, in the Hasti Jataka, the bodhisattva, as an elephant, sacrifices himself for hungry travelers. On the adjacent wall at the end of the front aisle, in the Mahaummagga Jataka, a divine child dispenses wisdom and justice. On the right end-wall of the front aisle, to the left of the cell doorway, one can still see a beautifully drawn and powerfully conceived seated yaksa, quite at his ease within the cave. Perhaps, with a suggestive intent, he is 179 All of these accounts about who removed such areas of painting are somewhat contradictory; but the fact remains that all were lost, except for the small piece in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, discussed in Begley (see Bibliography). 180 Information from Dey 1925 (reprint 1986), 51–52; also Begley.
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dumping a cascade of large coins out of a bag-full of large coins. Unfortunately the designs on the coin-faces are too sketchy to be read, but they must have been currency—presumably Vakataka—of the day. Although Vakataka coinage is little known today, there must have been plenty around in Harisena’s day.181 Indeed, this is hardly a unique representation; there are dozens of sculptured yaksas, often flanking Buddhas, who are shown pouring coins out in a similar fashion. A further witness to the rush that his workers were in, is to be seen in the fact that the beautiful painting of the story of Nanda was never completed—a clear evidence that time was running out. The same situation is to be seen in the treatment of the story of the Buddha on the right wall, which also breaks off, although somewhat farther down. All of this painting, on both the left and right aisle walls was done in the anxious context of early 469, responding to the strictures of the Recession. The same sense of haste is to be seen in the decoration of the now curiously attenuated and capital-less pillars of the peristyle; but they have nothing of the quality of the Nanda and Buddha scenes on the walls, providing only the most cursory covering of the eight-sided pillars with basic floral and geometric designs of no distinction whatsoever. Their chief distinction is the speed with which they were done. As if to confirm this drastic cutback in the peristyle, which accounts for its surprisingly inept appearance, the two rear pilasters were now also cut in a totally plain way; by contrast, those at the front, which were part and parcel of the elaborate front aisle design, have vertical flutings and complex capitals. If this shows the seriousness of the situation—for the rear pilasters could surely have been finished “properly” in a few days—the treatment of the center pillars of the rear row only confirms it. Although, as befits their positioning in front of the shrine, they are distinguished from the surrounding pillars by their form, they are bereft of the simple sculptural ornamentation found on those in front; and even their squared shaping took no extra time, since all of the pillars must have first been blocked out in this way before being given their octagonal format. Varahadeva obviously was determined to get to the shrine, which was after all the heart of his excavation, the most essential—part of 181 Shastri, 1992 (A. M. Shastri, “Vakataka Coins”, in The Age of the Vakatakas, ed. Shastri, 1992, 285–294).
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what he was doing. What is remarkable is that, as the Vakataka Prime Minister, he could not do as he wished; for, after all, throughout the Recession, the local king, and the emperor Harisena, continued work on their caves, even if all the other patrons had to stop any further developments; only the patrons of Cave Lower 6, 7, 11, and 15 were given a brief dispensation, and then only in order to get their images quickly done and dedicated. The Prime Minister was obviously given much more time than they, being able to continue work on the whole cave, as if he really was going to be able to bring it to completion, just as the local king and the emperor were intending to do. However, although he proceeded with a certain confidence, something unexpected and unfortunate must have happened. Perhaps he had a falling out with the local king, just as he was about the complete the shrine area, or perhaps he had serious funding problems, even though that would be surprising when he boasts in his dedicatory inscription (applied in 477) that “he governed the country righteously” (Cave 16 inscription, verse 20) Whatever the reason for the restrictions put on the Prime Minister, or which he imposed upon himself, the fact remains that things did not go as they must have been originally planned. Meanwhile, it would seem, time was running out, and the shrine, the very heart of the cave, was not even started. We can be quite sure from the fact that the aisle walls and the rear pilasters were so unfinished at the time of the Recession, and from the progress of work on the aisle cells (see below), that most of the cutting out of the rear aisle must still have remained to be done by the more harried workers of 469. They must have been at this task while other workers were finishing up the trimming of the peristyle and the aisle walls. We can assume that they were just beginning to penetrate the shrine antechamber and the adjacent (later converted) cells at the point when the painters, having finished (or abandoned) work on the ceilings, could start work on the aisle wall murals. And of course it was at this point that Varahadeva must have resigned himself to leaving his cave unfinished, at least for the present. What he left unfinished, that is, what he had planned for, as far as the shrine area is concerned, can best be visualized today by looking at the completed shrine/shrine antechamber arrangement in the adjacent Cave 17. Indeed, the Cave 17 planners surely derived the plan for their shrine—and in fact for their whole cave—from the Prime Minister’s slightly earlier and very authoritative conception.
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This was surely the case even though the Prime Minister’s formative conception was never realized—or was in fact only realized in Cave 17, where Upendragupta, the local king, was able to continue vigorously with his cave, whereas Varahadeva either had to, or decided to, interrupt work on his own grand conception. But when Varahadeva took up work again, as we shall see, he created something in this area which incorporated the remnants of the past into what he was creating for the future. Most of these remnants are now obscured from view, but the old shrine antechamber pillars— now fronting the new shrine instead—are clearly the old forms converted to a new use. Surely dating to 469, they link with their past by their close connection in design with the doorway pilasters in the porch—forms just completed by the opening of the Recession. We shall see how they were expediently utilized in a previously unintended way when the cave was finally put into worship nearly a decade later. It was not the Risika/Asmaka war, which started after 471, which cut off his goal of getting the shrine done; it seems clear that all of Varahadeva’s efforts took place in 469, well before that conflict put a stop to everything. It seems clear that all of the drastic cutbacks that the prime minister ordered were aimed at finally getting to the shrine and getting it done; but in fact he only got as far as the two simple shrine antechamber pillars, which he decorated in the normal fashion. At this point his excavators started penetrating the antechamber itself. But they did not get very far before all work on his great cave was called off. The reason for this is mysterious, because the Recession was not over—he probably had as much as two years to continue further work but did not do so, just as he did not continue the simple and speedy task of finishing the painting of the left and right walls—a mere matter of weeks. Furthermore, he did not even try to decorate the rear wall at this time, even though it had already been essentially exposed at this time along with the rest of the interior. If it is hard to understand why the prestigious Prime Minister failed to get his shrine—to say nothing of his cave—completed in due course during the period of the Recession, it is equally surprising that in Ajanta’s “second renaissance”, after the Hiatus, when the Asmakas were firmly in charge and essentially everybody was starting work on their caves again, after a long delay, he failed to be among those now-eager and hopeful patrons. Cave 16, in effect, lay
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dormant until 477—a date which, as it turned out, was really too late to accomplish all that he intended—namely the creation not only of a startlingly new type of shrine image, but also the creation of a unique and impressive shrine chamber in which it would be housed. It is clear that in 469, when all further work was suddenly abandoned on his cave, Varahadeva’s plan had been to make a “normal” shrine fronted by a “normal” antechamber of the very type being planned at this same time in the adjacent local king’s Cave 17.182 Had Varahadeva started work again in 475 this is probably what he would have done. However, by the time he finally got busy again, it was 477, and a dramatic new type of image had just come into prominence, quite possibly at his behest. This was the bhadrasana type or Buddha, with the feet authoritatively planted on the ground. A totally new and powerful conception at the site, it appears as the focal image in Caitya Cave 26, at just this same time, and during the next few years becomes the image of choice throughout the site. It would be hard to say whether the Cave 26 image or the Cave 16 image had priority; but the bhadrasana type’s use in these two highly prestigious settings was surely one reason that it rapidly became the image of choice throughout the site, and became widely used in related and later excavations elsewhere as well. Making this new image in Cave 16 was something of a tour de force, for it had to be created out of the mass of matrix left by the excavators in 469 when they abandoned work in this area. What the new sculptors did was to carefully adjust the image to the shape of the mass of matrix which had been left; and since the remaining matrix was somewhat lopsided, it was necessary to move the image a bit to the right, adjusting the throne base somewhat to the left, for balance, where there was more material at the lower level Because too much matrix had been cut away at either side in 469, it was necessary to move the now-conventional bodhisattvas to new and unaccustomed positions behind the throne back. Even with all these adjustments, when the powerful new image was squeezed into the confines of the matrix, there were a few places where the cutting of 469 had penetrated into the bounds of this new image. A deep gouge
182 As pointed out above, the cave 17 shrine arrangement was probably based on that of Cave 16, even though the latter was never finished as originally laid out.
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in the proper right leg—almost like a deep wound—had to be expediently filled with mudplaster; but once it was painted over no one would know it was there. The same was true of the proper left shoulder, where the matrix was insufficient, because of the size and positioning of the new image; but here again the “wound” could be healed in the same way. One final serious “wound” was on the top of the proper left foot, where a mudplaster fill would not stay in place very long, because of potential worshippers touching that area. So in that case a block of stone (now of course missing) must have been cut and fitted in place. Varahadeva obviously was intent on creating a very special shrine, and his planners found a very impressive and creative solution. He had the great image set in a pillared pavilion which opened not only from the front but also (probably more for light than for access) from an opening at either side. These openings were, in fact, the roughed-out doorways of two cells which had already been penetrated in 469, as part of the normal layout of the original cave conception.183 Although in the course of their penetration they had cut slight (and revealing) concavities into the sides of the new shrine chamber, this was so slight an effect that it caused no problems, as the space behind them was opened up to the rear. As for the two earlier-defined shrine antechamber pillars, they were converted, by attached wooden frames, into expedient jambs to hold double doors which could close off the new image. The doors are of course now missing, but arcs have been cut on the floor to avoid their scraping and thus to facilitate their opening and closing. As for the open areas on either side of the converted old antechamber pillars, they must have been packed with mud or other materials for closure. Thus in a quite unorthodox but remarkably creative way, Varahadeva’s image was installed in what would have been a truly palatial setting, had time not run out. The problem was that the anxious early years of 478, by the middle of which all “Vakataka” patrons had fled the site, came on all too soon. Although, finally in 478, Varahadeva got his fine image finished and painted and dedicated, there was no time to properly finish and decorate the pillars or the walls of his sacred pavilion.
183 For a detailed discussion, and conceptual renderings of the changes in the plan of the shrine area in Cave 16, see Spink 1975.
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It is clear that Varahadeva was barely able to complete his image before time ran out in 478, because although the front of the image itself is painted, the shrine area as a whole remains rough and undecorated. Obviously having to choose what he wanted to get done— for in the chaos brought about by Harisena’s death not only was the future ominous, but workers may already have been leaving the site in droves—he concentrated on the decorating the cave’s important rear wall, even though it was still in the slightly unfinished state in which it had been abandoned in 469. Here, instead of the expected bodhisattvas—who, after all, have been given positions behind the throne back—vigorous processions approach the shrine entrance from either side, while elaborately composed groups of bhadrasana Buddhas occupy the spaces beyond; that on the left represents the Great Miracle at Sravasti, while that on the right shows the Great Assembly at Kapilavastu.184 This unanticipated, and presumably “official” shift in iconography may reflect the perceived authority of the bhadrasana type of image. However, whatever the reason for this significant iconographic shift from a focus on bodhisattvas to a focus on Buddhas, the work was expediently done, for even though the rear aisle ceiling was plastered, neither it nor the farther ends of the rear wall were painted, as they of course would have been in more normal times. Notably late touches like the blue on some of the upper eyelids, as well as the manner in which standing Buddhas attend the seated Buddha images, make it evident that these rear wall paintings are quite removed in type as well as time from the still unfinished narrative cycles on the left and right walls.185 Work on the originally programmed decoration of the aisle walls had of course been abandoned a decade before, and now would never be completed. The narrative representations of a decade before had now, in these troubled times, yielded to purely iconic formulations. Even the fact that the rear aisle ceiling was plastered but then never painted—it normally would have been painted before the wall—confirms the fact that this expedient final phase of Varahadeva’s work was done with an unwonted haste. 184
Schlingloff, 1999; 35, 36. Similarly blue upper eyelids are found in paintings in the porch of Cave 2 (e.g. Indra’s descent: 477), and even on the throneback makara(s) in Cave 2’s shrine (early 478). 185
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Varahadeva, fortunately, inscribed his dedicatory inscription in 477, before the time of troubles started. This is a highly important document because, by listing (for all to see) the various territories that Harisena dominated at this time, it credits him with the control of the whole of central India from the western to the eastern sea.186 This would have been in 477. However, by the time the great image was being rushed to a hasty completion in the following year, Harisena was dead, and the happy world was falling apart. Varahadeva obviously got his great image dedicated just in time! If we can credit the validity of the Visrutacarita’s convincingly specific account, the old prime minister now was forced to flee from the very region that he had “governed righteously” during Harisena’s lifetime. But his responsibilities were still not ended, for at this point, in or just after 478, Dandin’s account tells us that Varahadeva took Harisena’s fourteen year old granddaughter and her younger brother to the city of Mahismati for a tenuous safety. Even though the whole empire was falling apart, Harisena’s second son and viceroy was still exercising control over the Anupa region and would presumably be the children’s protector. However, the true protection turns out to have come from the heroic Visruta, who turns out to be none other than Maharaja Subandhu of Mahismati, savior (or one might better say: usurper) of the failing Vakataka line.187 Varahadeva’s tribulations in early 478, as he sought to finish his great cave, make it abundantly clear that the Asmakas now wanted nothing to do either with their Vakataka overlords or with the elitist establishment that had been controlling the site for the last fifteen years. In fact, the Asmakas’ rejection of Vakataka overlordship signaled the total end of the connection of the old “Vakataka” patrons with the site. All, Varahadeva included, were “out of there” and had to be out of there by mid-478. So it is no wonder that Varahadeva’s splendid new shrine—really a pavilion—never got properly finished. By mid-478, the Asmakas wanted nothing to do with their old rival patrons, and all too soon they wanted, or were forced to want, nothing to do with the site either. Having declared their independence from their overlords in mid 478, as Buddhabhadra’s Cave 26 inscrip186 Bakker 1997 prefers “stood above” to “controlled” or “dominated”, but the assumption of Harisena’s political primacy is the same. See Volume II, Chapter 1, and Volume I, pp. 142 ff., for discussion. 187 For the documentation in the Visrutacarita, see Volume I, Chapter 4.
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tion makes clear, they now had to turn their attention and their funds to the more pressing requirements of war. By the beginning of 479 they had released their administrative hold on the site; and as an expected result, in these ominous times, things immediately fell into disarray. From mid-478 to the beginning of 479, the Asmakas had been able to keep working on what they had started, but after that their patronage of the site was totally a thing of the past. In the absence of the Asmaka controls, “uninvited” donors took over and the Period of Disruption (which had started late in 478 with the frenzied “Vakataka” undertakings) was now in full swing, with dozens, even hundreds—indeed, even thousands—of intrusive images proliferating, like some viral growth, all over the surfaces of the dying site. The series of inscribed seated Buddha images painted at this time on Cave 16’s already conveniently plastered left wall—once of course intended for further narrative scenes—is typical of such “intrusions”. Indeed, a number of them are of special interest, for they were the pious gift of none other than the monk Dharmadatta, who had helped Buddhabhadra make Cave 26.188 Surely a friend of the Asmakas, it is both ironic and instructive to find him putting his own images on a wall which the prime minister Varahadeva, who once had clear authority over him—would have finished decorating himself had the Asmakas not plunged the site into chaos. As it was, the darkness came down so fast that the eager lastminute “intrusive” activity could hardly have lasted past 480. Thus, although there are a few other scattered intrusive Buddhas in the cave, there are many available spaces that never did get filled before time ran out. CAVE 16’s CELLS: Considerations Despite the fact that the cave’s left and right walls were already being painted in Varahadeva’s hasty program during 469, and painted borders even put around the more forward cell doorways, the more rearward cells in those walls must still have been quite incomplete at this time. The fact that the relatively “high-priority” more central cells intended to flank the original shrine antechamber were so little penetrated that they later could be incorporated into the new
188
For a discussion of Dharmadatta’s intrusions, see Volume III, Cave 16.
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shrine-chamber clearly suggests how unfinished all of the “lesser” cells at the rear of the cave must have been when Varahadeva’s own patronage was suddenly interrupted in 469. Thus these rear cells, barely penetrated by 469, must have been fully revealed only after the Hiatus. It is possible that work had progressed so far in the earlier phase that B mode projections (like L4’s remaining example) may have been cut in some of them, only to be later cut away. But this is unlikely. There is no evidence that any such unused old projections were ever removed from the many cells which were finally finished after the Hiatus.189 Instead, the old projections either were merely retained, as if it was more economical to leave them alone than to excise them, or else they were utilized as strengtheners for the later D mode fittings which replaced them. In the latter situations, they often were somewhat cut back, to clear the way for the later recesses; but they were not removed. When work on the cave was later taken up again after the Hiatus, but probably not until 477, a number of the unfinished cells, (notably those toward the rear of the right wall and all of the more fully finished (A mode) cells toward the front of the cave, were provided with up-to-date D mode fittings, with newly cut rear recesses into which the pivoted doors could fit. Significantly, they were not supplied with niches, which had gone out of fashion by 477; if Varahadeva’s involvement had begun again on the cave as early as 475, when there was a great need for cells throughout the site, surely the cells would have then been fitted out for use, with their swinging doors and their convenient niches doors would have been hung, and niches cut, at that time. But work on the half-completed cave was not to be taken up quite so soon. The fact that Cell L4, almost fully defined by 468 (as its abandoned B mode projection shows) never got fitted with a door at all—perhaps the workers were waiting for orders about how to treat this anomalous doorway—and that four of the latest (rearward) cells to have been excavated obviously did not get supplied with their
189 This is of course not the case in Cave 16’s shrine, where the two “incorporated” cells, penetrated in 468 or possibly early 469, would have been planned as B mode types, and work on one or both may have proceeded far enough for the monolithic projections to be roughed out. However, quite understandably, they would have been removed as unnecessary excrescences when, later on, the new and grand conception of the shrine started to be realized.
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doors until time had almost run out (i.e. in early 478), equally suggests that the post-Hiatus door fittings, like Varahadeva’s late continuation of work in general in the cave, did not even begin to be added to the cells until 477—surprising as this may seem. As one might expect, the character of Cave 16’s cells confirms and augments the evidence provided by its other features, concerning the cave’s development. Since all had been begun by 468, it is hardly surprising that the cave’s hall has no pillared complexes, which never appear in such a context until after the Hiatus. The fact that all the cells in the cave were penetrated by 469 (and most somewhat before) also explains their relatively thin walls and the fact that the doorways have no outer recesses—even though those toward the front of the cave have painted borders added along with the narrative paintings in those areas in 469, the very year that recessed borders became conventional.190 The first of Cave 16’a cells to have been begun, probably in 467, must have been cells L2 and R2; this is strongly suggested by the presence of candrasilas in these cells only, for these early features went out of fashion at about the very time that these cells were being cut. The layout of these second cells, vis-a-vis L1 and R1, even more evident in Cave 17 (see plans), also strongly suggests their priority. The conventional adjustment of each cell’s position to allow a view out between the pillars must be considered, but even so it appears that the second cells took pride of place.191 It may seem surprising that, throughout the site, the second cells were more often than not started before the first. This might be because the porch light coming through the aisle doorways reaches the side walls better at this point; but it is far more likely to be because of the greater activity taking place in the front aisle. This would of course be particularly true in Cave 16, where the complicated excavation of the elaborate front aisle ceiling would have required much scaffolding and would have obviously recommended the postponement of work on secondary features such as the cells at the ends of the busy aisle.
190 Recessed borders were first developed, expediently, in Cave Lower 6, to “hide” the transition from the excessive plastering. From that time on, they become conventional. Cave 16’s examples may be replicating them in paint. 191 Such adjustments of positioning are discussed throughout the study; e.g. Volume I, Chapter 3, pages 87–88.
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One can get a useful idea of how far work had progressed on the Cave 16’s cells by the time of the Recession by noting that the stillrough Cell L4 is supplied with a blocked-out (never drilled) projecting pivot-holder. This so-called B mode fitting was not developed at the site until 468, and then remained in use for merely a single year more; so the evidence of its presence and the fact that it is unfinished clearly supports the conclusion that work on the cave was interrupted in 468. The more forward cells (perhaps on the right as well as the left), as well as those in the porch, had almost certainly been defined with the more primitive (pre-468) A mode fittings, which could quite readily be converted (as indeed they were) into the standard post-Hiatus D mode types by means of recessing the back of the doorways and cutting the upper and lower pivot holes within the recess. This solved the problem of what to do with these “useless” A mode doorways, which had no provisions for fittings whatsoever. It is indeed fortunate that they all could be fitted out after 475, by a simple conversion to the sensible D mode. The rear cells (excluding the two which were incorporated into the new shrine) have the expected late inner recesses, but they are very sloppily carved, while the actual fitting out of the doors was done in an idiosyncratic and expedient way by means of plugging in wooden pivot holders into horizontal holes cut into (and sometimes actually through!) the top of the doorway. This may have been a speedy and flexible system; but from the point of view of better days it was a sadly expedient one. It seems evident that these clumsy fittings (like a similar one in Cave 20 which, however, was apparently not fitted out until 479) are hurried creations of the same anxious years—early in 478—when the great shrine itself was being rushed so clumsily to a tolerably acceptable completion; so that as he says in his inscription Varahadeva could turn it over, even if at the eleventh hour, “with devotion to the community of monks” (Cave 16 inscription, verse 30).192 It is a curious fact that when the monks were finally able (at least officially) to move into the cave, it is unlikely that any of the cells 192 Actually, the inscription was applied in 477, somewhat in advance of the time when all of the cells were ready for occupancy. Since the inscription would have been composed in the capital, probably taking some time, it is not surprising that it was written in advance. However, the fact that it speaks of the emperor Harisena as controlling both western and eastern central India, it surely reflects the very late years of his reign.
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were plastered. In fact, this is true of cells throughout the site, prior to 478, and in particular 479 and 480. There was surely no dearth of workmen to work at this (not very time-consuming) task, but this does not answer the question as to who was paying them, now that the “establishment” patrons were all gone. To some degree they may have given free service, as a meritorious offering, but they and their families still had to eat. It also is a curious fact that many groups of cells in various caves were obviously surfaced not at random, but according to a consistent (contractual?) program, as if certain controls were operating. The matter certainly deserves detailed consideration.193 Cave 16’s cells appear to have all been plastered either in 478 or more probably in 479/480, as part of a single efficient “campaign”, where the more forward cells are fully plastered, the two darkest cells at the rear plastered not at all, and the other four rear cells surfaced on the walls only.194 The particularly course but consistent mix used throughout these cells is composed of mud and seeds and chaff and even hair combined with large pebbles, chunks of charcoal, lime and even broken pieces of pottery. Its late date and the attitude of the donors toward the cave is witnessed by the fact that it is sometimes quite carelessly smeared over the surrounds of doorways plastered and painted in the first phase of work on the cave a decade before. Sometimes (R2,3,4) the inner recess of the doorway has been surfaced with a fine red mix (thought to be ground brick), which is never used at the site until 477 and later. This only confirms the late date of this plastering; indeed, no cells were ever plastered at the site prior to 477, and generally such work was done even later, almost entirely in the Period of Disruption (strange as this may seem!).
Cave 17 Cave 17 is indeed a cave “fit for a king”, and was surely intended to be just that. An integral part of Upendragupta’s expansive Cave 17–18–19–20–29 complex, it occupies a significant central location 193 This is planned in a section on shrines and cells in a future volume. Preliminary considerations will be found in Spink 1975. 194 It seems clear that some “authority” (presumably the monks themselves) were making such decisions about the different modes of plastering.
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adjacent to the Prime Minister Varahadeva’s Cave 16, with which it shares one of its two vast cisterns. Like Cave 16, its somewhat constricted approach was facilitated by a dramatic tunnel from the river below; and we can well believe that it too (like Upendragupta’s associated caitya hall) once had powerfully protective nagas or yaksas located as welcoming figures guarding its steep approach. Cave 17 preserves, in a still relatively simple form, the first authoritatively worked out “modern” vihara plan at the site, upon which all later viharas, conscientiously avoiding the earlier influence of Hinayana forms, typically depend.195 The arrangement is sensible and functional, with a colonnaded porch, a “supporting” peristyle dramatizing the interior hall, and a pillared shrine antechamber leading to a shrine at once central and yet protected from the hustle and bustle of the cave itself by being located deep at the rear. Cells are cut at the porch ends and at all available spots on the side and rear walls of the interior, their positioning carefully adjusted so that the view from the cell doorways was not obstructed by the pillars.196 Doorways and windows, now enlarged for better illumination and ventilation, open onto the interior from the porch. This plan was flexible enough to allow, as it was developed in later caves, the addition of pillared cell complexes—already making their appearance in porches at the site by 467.197 Of course the shaping and ornamentation of pillars and doorways and windows could also be elaborated according the taste and the time and the funds available to any particular patron, as the catalog of forms evolved at the site. However, no matter how well established Cave 17’s present layout is, it did in fact undergo significant changes in the course of its excavation, which must have been started in 463, after the plans had been worked out and approved in the capital. It is evident, as we shall see, that the cells at the porch ends were neither conceived nor added until at least 466, for when first excavated the porches
195 In fact, the scheme was probably developed for the slightly earlier (and very prestigious) Cave 16 first; but Cave 16 suffered such early changes—the abandonment of its intended shrine, and the many cutbacks in the interior that Cave 17, almost identical in its original plan, must have provided a clearer model for later viharas. 196 As I have pointed out elsewhere, this nicety may have looked well on the drawing board, but hardly affected the life of the residents. 197 Cave 17 itself did not have such porch complexes. The extensive cisterns at both end disallowed them.
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were still following Hinayana precedents, which disallowed (or at least omitted) the positioning of cells at the left and right ends. What is less evident is that the shrine and shrine antechamber themselves were probably not part of the original conception. We can make such an assertion because the very earliest viharas at the site, invariably, were conceived without shrines, following the standard Hinayana model seen in Cave 12; and although (starting in 466) they all began to lay plans for shrines to be added later on, the evidence shows that such shrines were invariably afterthoughts in any cave started during the first three or four years of activity at the site. It of course follows from this that shrines were not intended even in Cave 17 and the related Cave 16 until a few years after the caves themselves were underway; if the concept had been current in 462/463, when these prestigious caves were started, they would have been planned very differently, as would all of the other early viharas at the site. Even relatively advanced conceptions like Caves 2, U6, and possibly 21, all clearly started after caves 16 and 17, appear to have been started with no thought of a shrine, since the intercolumniation between the front (and rear) center pillars of the interior, in all of these caves, shows no widening at all, at least in Caves 2 and U6, despite the importance of thus emphasizing the shrine’s axis.198 And this seems to have been true, at first, of Cave 17 (and 16) as well, for the slight widening that they show could easily have been achieved by adjusting the pillars’ positions slightly outward when trimming away the excess matrix in the last stage of their excavation, by which time such widening of the path to the shrine was an expected feature. As to which patron (or planners) at the site first broke from the older convention by including a shrine in his conception, the credit may well go to Mathura, the megalomaniacal patron of Cave 4. He planned the grandest vihara of all at the site, and seems likely that by the time his workers were laying out the pillars of the front row— probably in 466—a shrine was already conceived. This is because the spacing of the central pair would appear to be far too assertive 198 It is likely that the intercolumniation at the front of Cave 21 was expediently “stretched” when the roughed-out pillars were finally shaped in their final form. No “cheating” was required for the central pillars of the rear aisle, for they would not have been reached in the course of cutting until the shrine was already planned.
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to be explained as the result of an adjustment made when the pillars were finally and fully trimmed down. We can then easily believe that the central pillars of the just slightly earlier Caves 17 and 16 were soon being adjusted accordingly, for this new conception, as its dramatic acceptance throughout the site in the next few years proves, was a compelling one. Another possibility, which would explain this dramatically sudden change in the vihara conception throughout the site by invoking the power of authority, might be that the idea—hardly to be taken lightly—that was first conceived on the highest levels in the capital, when the Emperor Harisena’s own vihara, the highly innovative Cave 1, was planned. Although Cave 1 was probably not begun until 466, it is reasonable to assume that its plan, which develops the required arrangement with a particular authority, was being worked out, and would have been known about—there were no secrets at the site— somewhat before that time. Understandably, all other donors would have been eager to emulate such an important and revolutionary innovation. If so, Cave 17 (like Harisena’s minister’s Cave 16) would seem to have been one of the first to expediently “stretch” or widen the “normal” spacing of the central pillars of the front row in order to establish the desired shrine, probably by 466 or 467. This may have been accomplished here (as in Caves 16 and 4) by “cheating” (or “squeezing”) if (as was surely the case) the central pillars had extra matrix that could be cut away on their axial faces. However another possibility is that the whole front aisle colonnade was first defined as a plane, allowing the pillars to be somewhat later positioned as desired and then cut. This was the apparently standard procedure used in the final positioning of the porch colonnade in Cave 23, while the very unfinished Aurangabad Cave 1 shows how the front aisle colonnade was going to be cut only after the front aisle was more or less fully exposed.199 If the same excavation procedure was used in Cave 17, then the cutting and the spacing of the pillars would have been somewhat delayed and the desired adjustments easier to accomplish. Of course the shrines in these large caves were by no means revealed and defined until some time after it was decided to include them, for the excavation of the interiors of the central halls was a 199 The façade of Nasik Cave 1, barely revealed, appears to have been treated in the same way.
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time-consuming process. Although Cave 17, by about 466, shows the widening of the central intercolumniation at the front, which reveals that a shrine was already being planned, its shrine chamber was probably not even penetrated before 470 (and then hurriedly), and all of the other large caves lag still farther behind. It is in the less ambitious and often older caves that shrines first are reached, for it took much less time to reach the shrine area in those excavations (Lower 6, 7, 11, 15) once the patrons had decided to transform their excavations into a residence for the Buddha, rather than a mere dormitory for the monks. Even so, it is curious that the Buddha images in these four lesser caves were not started until 468 or early 469, at least two years after the idea of including images had impacted upon the site; this was slow progress indeed, especially in the development of an exciting new idea. Is it possible that only the more major patrons at first developed the idea of having shrines, and that the lesser patrons only followed suit after the conception had been “approved” and strongly established by the patrons of the more prestigious caves such as Caves 1, 4, 16, and 17? We must remember that the site developed under a very strong and elitist authority; so it is conceivable that one needed permission and/or approval to make such significant changes. Caves Lower 6, 7, 11, and 15, being small caves, were all sufficiently underway to add shrines to their caves quite rapidly, even if often very expediently, and sometimes without being able to conclude the work due to the coming of the Recession. Thus Caves Lower 6, 7, 11, 15, 20, 26RW and 26LW all have shrines areas (although not yet with images) which were either penetrated or completed in 467 and/or 468, much in advance of the more “major” caves.200 But it is significant to note that these shrines, reflecting a sudden and powerful new conception at the site, were neither conceived nor under excavation earlier than this time. This confirms our assertion that the idea had no currency at all at the site until about 466. That is, Cave 16, 17,and 4, when they were first undertaken, were surely conceived of as mere monastic residences, not as places to house the Buddha at all. The only viharas, other than (I have suggested) Cave 1, 200 The Asmaka Caves 26LW and 26RW had already defined their shrines by 468, but work was interrupted by the Recession before the images could be revealed. In fact the same is true of the image in the main cave 26.
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in which image chambers were planned from the start, are the relatively late but major Caves 23, 24, 14 and 28, and the minor caves 3, 22, and 23A; and in not a single one of these was the plannedfor image ever even started. To give credit where credit is due, it must be admitted that the persuasive layout of Cave 17 may first have been conceived by (or perhaps planned in concert with) the architects who planned the closely related Cave 16 for the Prime Minister, for Cave 16 was surely inaugurated first, even if hardly more than a year or so before. Nearly every element developed in Cave 16 in its first phase (462–468) is borrowed and then improved upon in Cave 17. Cave 16’s porch pillars and more particularly its attenuated peristyle pillars are transformed, by Cave 17’s less burdened architects, into authoritatively elegant forms, with splendidly complex decorations.201 By the same token, Cave 17’s planners equally appropriate and then vastly improve the design and impact of the Cave 16 porch doorway. And then, ironically, just as the work on the troubled Cave 16 abruptly breaks off, at the very point at which its shrine area has been no more than barely penetrated, the architects of Cave 17 go confidently onward to reveal the very shrine/shrine antechamber arrangement that almost surely had been earlier planned out by the Prime Minister’s architects. This happened because work on Cave 16, like work on nearly every other cave at the site, broke off at the time of the Recession, whereas work on the privileged caves of the local king continued. Then later on, after the Hiatus, Cave 16’s never-realized shrine was transformed into a completely new type of image chamber which (had it not been aborted by the expectations of war) would have been the most dramatic and splendid at the site. The irony is, that had it been completed without so many problems and so much delay, it would have been a far less remarkable creation. It is very instructive to consider again the situation that I have just described, and to realize that the remarkable transformation of design from the pillars or the porch doorway of Cave 16 to that of Cave 17 took place in hardly more than a year or two; for this is a course of development that is typical of changes in the tight sequence of the caves at the site. It describes something of Ajanta’s energy— 201 See Cave 16, where many of the pillars were cut away to save time, and then were painted in a most cursory fashion.
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the force of the powerful patrons, the enthusiasm of the watching and waiting monks, the struggles of the workmen, and the impact of donations from travelers and devotees. And of course it also reflects Ajanta’s peculiar position as a site that had no contemporary rock cut sources to draw on, and yet rapidly became a melting pot, which both gathered and gave of its abundance as its fame and its attraction grew. In his Cave 17 inscription (at the left of the court), King Upendragupta proudly admits to “having expended abundant wealth” on this beautiful vihara, as well as to having “adorned the earth with stupas and viharas”, and “by the power of the expenditure of wealth” having brought much satisfaction to a host of supplicants. Indeed, perhaps he was too pious, or too profligate, for he sponsored no less than five known (and possibly more “unknown”) excavations at the site, when he should have been garnering his forces and his funds for the surely already-expected Asmaka assault. Be that as it may, Cave 17, with its splendid carvings and paintings reflects his high taste and his pious energy as surely as its final days record his fate. The porch pillars already announce the regal authority of Cave 17, although when one examines them closely—for instance by looking along the crooked inner margin of the beam above them—it becomes startlingly—even shockingly—clear how inexperienced as well as still undisciplined these first laborers were. As is almost to be predicted in caves underway during the first half-decade at the site, there are pervasive concavities, convexities, and assorted curvatures everywhere. Similarly, when we look at the overall plan of the cave, comparing it to the precise productions of a few years hence, we see that everything is awry, for the architects and the excavators were not yet properly in control of their production. The problems, to the uninitiated, could be indeed daunting, for the slightest error in cutting a wall or ceiling could have a cumulative effect, as the cutting proceeded; and righting such an error could not be done, as in a structural building, by starting over, or repositioning certain elements. Every error, unless it could later be plastered over, or drastically cut away, showed. This is why Cave 17’s plan and that of so many early caves splays out toward the rear, reflecting the fact that the carvers often cut away a bit more of the wall surface than they should have, as work proceeded. And once gone, the chipped-away matrix could not be restored, a “technological fact” which gradually resulted in the side walls angling outward,
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as they proceeded rearward at considerably more than a 90 degree angle from the front wall of the cave. By the same token, early ceilings tend to recede at a slightly increasing angle, as do the floors, whose levels were established by measuring down (with a bamboo pole?) from the earlier-established (and slightly skewed) ceiling plane. Even when “corrections” were made to such early walls and ceilings, they could never “right the wrong” completely, as the wavy wall and ceiling surfaces of Cave 17 amply testify. Thus instead of marveling at the excavator’s ability to create “skillfully executed undulations to suggest a cloth canopy of a shamiana” we should sympathize with their inexperience and their consequent ineptness.202 Cave 17’s pillars (although much reconstructed) dramatically reveal how quickly developments took place at the site, as the craftsmen gained assurance, and as the patrons became more and more committed to, and indeed competitive in, their pious pursuits. Compared to the porch pillars of the immediately preceding Cave 16, those of Cave 17 are not only more handsomely shaped, but have now been provided with complex base moldings, and more boldly designed capitals. The first such capitals carved at the site (Cave 11, Cave 7’s right side) have six full ribs, the next (Cave 4 and Cave 7’s left side) have five, while those of Cave 16 and Cave 17 have four. Cave 17’s capitals also have a double fret border, as did the now much reconstructed pillars of the closely associated Cave 18—actually a cistern for Cave 17.203 Cave 16’s porch pillar capitals, completed some months earlier, have only a single fret border. As for Cave 17’s porch (and interior) pilasters, they renounce the vertically striated surface of those of Cave 16 and some earlier caves, surely because this made it possible to decorate these surfaces with effective paintings—a mode that continued until the later carved-medallion format became the conventional decoration for pilasters. The fact that significant changes were made in Cave 17’s excavation program even while the royal cave was underway is hardly surprising in a monument which surely was recognized as a model for many other patrons at the site, and must have functioned as a 202 As noted above (Cave 4) Behl (1999, 156) marvels at the “skillfully executed undulations” when actually the “undulations” are due to faulty technical controls. 203 The cement reconstruction largely obscures the connection with Cave 17.
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source for the most up-to-date ideas. This must have been particularly true when the shrine concept entered the site, for other patrons, large and small, would always be watching developments in both Upendragupta’s cave as well as the adjacent hall sponsored by the Vakataka prime minister, to say nothing of the emperor’s own Cave 1. These great donors surely set an example for the lesser ones, at this site where who you were was the friendly partner of what you were doing. It is reasonable to assume that major changes such as the addition of shrines to what were originally to be simple residence halls were suggested and allowed by those in high authority. It may have been they, or some royal officials, who made certain that the developing caves so carefully abutted each other so as to conserve space at the developing and rapidly crowded site; and it may have been such retainers at the site who gave very brief permission to the patrons of Caves Lower 6, 7, 11, and 15 to get the first Buddha images hastily carved and dedicated at the very beginning of the Recession. Such authority might explain why, when the shrine conception emerged at the site in 466, these four minor patrons listed above did not get their images done and dedicated until early 469, when if they had got started right away in 466, the shrines could have easily been established, and the merit gained, by 467. This apparent division of Ajanta’s world could also explain why so many other eager donors were totally disallowed from making similar endeavors. It is also quite evident that some such authority must have acted as security during the Hiatus to keep everyone and anyone from adding even a single image during that period of the site’s virtual abandonment, at least as far as any patronage is concerned. The proof of the need for such authority—surely political rather than religious—is all too evident when we see what happened during the Period of Disruption, when all of the old patrons, for one reason or another, had hurriedly left the site. At that point anyone could do anything, and no one could do anything about it. The pattern is very different in large caves like Cave 4, 16, and 17, where the work would have taken much longer. In Cave 17, it is clear that the concept was already established in 466, the very year that work had started, since the intercolumniation between the axial pillars of the front aisle has been widened. It is not surprising that the Cave 17 shrine area was not reached until about 470 considering the size of the cave; as for Cave 16, which was underway
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at the same time, it is evident that the shrine area was not reached until 469, when the fronting antechamber pillars were finally reached and work had to be abandoned because of the Recession. By the same token the excavators of Cave 4, starting at the same time, managed to penetrate deeply into the shrine, but had to stop work because of the Recession in late 468, before starting on the image. In Cave 1, by way of contrast, it is evident that an axial approach to the shrine was intended from the start; this is not surprising since the cave was begun at about the same time (466) that the Buddha concept developed at the site; so the cave is quite unique among the earlier undertakings in being “all of a piece” instead of having to endure adjustments to establish an axial approach and get a shrine incorporated. In fact, it seems quite likely that it was this most important (and imperial!) vihara of all which brought the very concept of the shrine to the site. Whether or not the original conception of Cave 1 was planned with a stupa—soon yielding to a Buddha image, is a matter discussed elsewhere; but it is likely that this was the case.204 The fact that the program for Cave 17 was in the course of development, even while the cave was underway, is again revealed in the evidence that the already finished porch floor was cut down (like that in Cave 11, at about this same time), almost certainly merely (!) to provide a properly up-to-date axial candrasila, thus bringing the porch’s entrance “up to code”. Perhaps the porch’s originally high entrance-plinth was lowered at the same time, while new and elaborate upscale base-moldings, still able to be revealed, were added to the too-primitive early porch pillars. At this same time, the excavators carefully reserved a special plinth in front of the porch end cells, which made it easier to step over their high thresholds; for these cells had not been conceived in time to have been able to have monolithic steps—the matrix having early been cut away. There may have been concern, too, about cutting too deeply here, since the extensions of the cave’s cisterns underlay the front part of the cave; this could explain the abnormally high placement of the floors of the more forward cells of the interior too, especially along the right wall, beneath which the special cistern in
204 See Volume I, Chapter 9, Cave 1; see also discussion of Bagh in Volume I. Chapter 3.
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that area surely extended.205 The fact that much of the new cutting was never quite smoothed would suggest that it was not done until about 468, for just after that point, during the Recession, work-priorities in the cave got very tight. The windows of Cave 17, with their vertical format and outer shutters (now long gone) are typically early in type. Like so many other early windows at the site, they clearly show the holes for teak pegs (the stumps of which still often remain in such windows at the site) by means of which the wooden window frames were attached. The planners were apparently tolerant of the fact that in this early arrangement the shutters, when opened, would obscure and perhaps even slam against the surrounding paintings. Furthermore, they would have to be kept open, if one would be able to see the images painted within the windows’ reveals, some of which were of importance. For instance, painted standing figures of the Buddha and of Avalokitesvara can still be seen in the window to the right of the porch doorway. The “extra” window at the far right is anomalous; in all other caves of this size an aisle doorway is found at this point. The aisle doorway at the left follows the expected pattern, although it underwent curious revisions, discussed below. As for the main porch doorway, its splendidly conceived and carved goddesses and their supporting pilasters proclaim once again a close connection with Cave 16, although small details like the free treatment of the makaras, with their invasively florescent tails, show the more inventive—probably somewhat more developed—concerns of the Cave 17 planners. The porch paintings are in a relatively pristine condition, despite (among other traumas) the losses due to the contact with debris that built up against them over the centuries and (when damp) dissolved both the pigments and the plaster base. As we can judge from the happily surviving figures of musicians and other cloud-born celestials at the upper level, the two colossal bodhisattvas, with their attendants, that flanked the main doorway were supreme conceptions. However, all but the crests of their crowns are now destroyed; it is likely that their faces were intentionally (and tragically) removed in the late nineteenth century, when such details, generally the best to
205 I have not been able to obtain, from early records, the dimensions of this large cistern, but both it and its counterpart at the left extended well under the cave, justifying such concerns.
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be found, were clumsily removed and then given (or sold!) to discriminating visitors.206 The doorway itself is designed like that of Cave 16, but is far more developed in its painted decoration, despite the fact that it was completed hardly a year later. However, the painting of the Cave 16 doorway (as opposed to its sculptured motifs) was notably rushed, so any comparison is hardly telling. The next step in the typically swift course of change in the treatment of the site’s porch doorways must have occurred hardly a year later, in the porch doorway of Cave 1, where most of Cave 17’s painted motifs are translated into sculpture. Note that two distinctly different painters, using quite different palettes and quite different styles, worked on either side of the doorway. The flanking pillars (and so probably the handsome goddesses upon them?) are surely the work of different artists too, very possibly the same two men who later painted either side of the doorway. It seems reasonable (even if not necessary) to assume that the sculptors would have been responsible for the painting of their own carvings, and if so it would be hard to separate that painting from the rest of the decoration. Indeed, it may well be that the same sculptor/painters were responsible for the adjacent bodhisattva scenes too; at least the better-preserved painted leaves of the carved tree above the right goddess continue out, on the adjacent flat wall surface, into the right bodhisattva’s domains, establishing an intimate linkage. The conventional grouping of the Eight Buddhas, somewhat surprisingly sharing the lintel with the eight discreetly dallying couples below, are a particularly instructive series. As is appropriate, each sits beneath the particular bodhi tree under which he gained enlightenment. Thus Sakyamuni, the seventh historical Buddha, is associated with a pipal tree, while Maitreya, the eighth and future Buddha, still wearing his princely garments, has the Asoka tree as his cognizance. It is worth noting that when the doorway was carved, the painted designs must have been planned for simpler floral and geometric forms, drawing upon the same sources as those found on the doorway of the prime minister’s Cave 16. Complicated forms like the Eight Buddhas, to say nothing of the other motifs, represent a suddenly new conception, developed only after the doorway’s for206 There are various views, which may or may not be true, about the loss of such paintings. The most high-minded (although still not verifiable) is that many were “collected” for the museum in Bombay.
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mat had been shaped by the excavators. This is suggested by the way the Buddhas’ haloes conflict with the vestigial “beam” over which they are painted; its “proper” relationship to the painted surface is, by contrast, evident in Cave 16’s porch doorway, from which the doorway’s basic structure (but not its painted decoration) may be directly derived. The “beam”, now not only functionless but esthetically obstructive, is understandably discarded from this time on, as complex figural groups become the motifs of choice, and appropriately unencumbered surfaces are prepared for them. In the painting of the Eight Buddhas at the top of Cave 17’s porch doorway, the difference between the first four haloes, enlivened by exotic blue flames, and the last four, is only one of the many features (throne bases, pillows, etc.) that proclaims them as the work of separate artists; but this does not explain the unthinkably black “pigmentation” of the four Buddhas on the left, or the surprisingly dark color of some of the high-class lovers (also on the left) beneath them.207 Despite the various idiosyncrasies allowed to our two different artists, we can surely assume that all of the eight Buddhas had more or less the same skin tones (called “wheatish” in present day marriage parlance) at the time the work was done. What happened, here as in numerous similar instances at the site, is that the pigment used by the left painter eventually oxidized, not only in the four left Buddhas but to some degree in the fifth figure as well. Probably, in the latter case, the right-hand painter was low on the skin-tone pigment at that point and extended it by asking his fellow worker for a modest loan, perhaps to save himself the trouble of having to go and get some more of his own obviously different (and ultimately unstable) mix. Ajanta is full of such informative features; here for instance, we are subtly shown how different the palettes of different artists could be, perhaps due to their very different regional origin, and/or the way they chose and mixed ingredients from the Ajanta region itself. We learn too of the independence which artists were allowed, even when they were obviously adhering to an overall design-scheme. We learn how, probably in the interest of haste, work was often shared. 207 Some of Ajanta’s guides explain the color shift as one paralleling the evolution of the course of the Buddha’s enlightenment over the course of his many existences, as he increasingly moved from darkness toward the desirable lightness so clearly manifest in Mumbai’s most successful film stars.
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Even in the case of porch doorways alone, where one would expect concern for symmetry because of their great visibility, there are other such examples (e.g. Cave 14, Cave 16’s carving), where some variation is clearly acceptable, even if not the general rule. The right end of the rear wall shows the wonderfully realized reaction of shopkeepers and other city dwellers to the rampages of the mad elephant Nalagiri, whose trappings are flying in the wind, as he dramatically enters the town to confront the Buddha. Of course, in the next section of the story, he is seen a second time, kneeling in homage, arrested by the Buddha’s field of moral force. On the adjacent right end wall, the Buddha is preaching, his sermon perhaps an explication of the Wheel of Life which is the subject of the focal painting at the opposite end of the porch. He is figured in the authoritative “foot-down” bhadrasana pose—an assertive mode of sitting, always combined with the dharmacakra (teaching) mudra, which (surprisingly) will not make its appearance in sculpture until ten years later, at which point it quickly becomes the pose of choice. The far left end of the rear wall may represent the Buddha’s father, King Suddhodana, giving alms, along the story of Udayin, the son of the minister, who has determined to leave the world of wealth and to follow the Buddha. However, the latter identification is in dispute, since others prefer to see the whole scene as the story of Prince Visvantara, the embodiment of generosity.208 The complex Wheel of Life—perhaps the very subject of the sermon at the other end of the porch—is shown on the left end wall.209 It is the earliest known representation of this famous theme. One can see, by following the hardly visible scratched-in guide line that remains, that the circle originally came down over the top of the cell doorway opening, which was once filled in with a plug for this reason. It is instructive to ask why the Wheel was too big for the usable space, and the answer is clearly this: that when this porch was originally conceived, it would not have had cells at the porch ends. Therefore “back in the capital”, where (we assume) the complex and learned decorative program was conceived and laid out, the wheel was detailed as richly as possible and the “official” orders for its design and execution transmitted on cloth or parchment (?) 208
The stories of Suddhodana and Udayin are described in Schlingloff, 1999, 40. I believe that Dr, Leela Wood first suggested this connection between the two paintings. 209
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to the humble workers at the site, who then coped as best they could, but in somewhat the same way as the village tailor, told to copy a shirt exactly, delivers the finished duplicate just as ordered, carefully reproducing the tear in the sleeve. A similar explanation may apply to the once-filled-in left aisle doorway, where slots (now inappropriately cemented in) at both the left and the right, once held a stone(?) replacement to restore the top of the doorway to its original form.210 The painted composition around the margins of this now-empty space shows forms whose lower portions were obviously destroyed by the later loss of the expedient “plug” along with the part of the scene which once covered it. Just as in Cave 16, where both aisle doorways were “lowered” in this way, it seems likely that the “template” sent down to guide the painters did not take account of the unusual (and probably “unauthorized”) height of these doorways, which had possibly been raised to better illuminate the aisles, without the knowledge of those responsible for laying out the program of decoration.211 That the cell doorway at the left porch end is indeed a late addition not conceived of when the cave was first planned, is evident from its anomalous placement; it is the only porch end doorway at the site which is not properly centered in the end wall. It is off center simply because porch end cells (although de rigeur by about 466) had not been conceived when Cave 17’s porch was excavated. Consequently, the nearby Cave 18, perhaps started only as an elaborate link between Cave 17 and the adjacent Caitya Cave 19 but then later converted to a cistern chamber, innocently intruded into the area behind the originally plain porch end. When Cell PL was finally cut, the doorway was centered in relation to the cell, rather than to the porch wall, to better allow space for the conventional placement of beds along the cell’s left and right sides.212 The fact that the top of Cell PR’s doorway is placed a surprising 8–9” lower 210 The “retaining slots” cut on either side (but cemented in at the right) could very well have been fitted with a large flat piece of stone, slid into place and then supporting a mudplaster or rubble fill above. 211 In Cave 17 the fillers must have been added after the porch had already been plastered, since traces of that plaster can be seen in the (later filled) upper portion of the doorway; presumably the fillers were then plastered over, after which painting could proceed. 212 Such a balanced placement of beds (or sleeping spaces) was the “rule”, but it could easily have been abrogated in this case, in the interests of symmetry (also a “rule”!). One suspects poor planning, or lax authority, here.
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than that of Cell PL would suggest that the problem to be caused by the Wheel of Life was already realized, but if so, the adjustment made was not enough. It is even possible that the planners at the site were given the diameter of the wheel in advance and that they then planned the top of the doorway to be just this distance from the top of the wall—which it is—not realizing that they had to allow for the overhanging figure of Kala (Time). Such a misunderstanding might also account for the great compression of the latter figure; his hands alone can be seen today, but one can easily see how little room was allowed for his face at the top of the composition.213 Just below the Wheel of life, at the left, there are traces of a large seated yaksa, painted in green and labeled Manibhadra. A related figure may once have appeared at the right. On the adjacent front wall, the Avalokitesvara Litany—the Protector of Travelers—is painted, one of many at the site. However, the majority are intrusive, perhaps considered as a particularly effective talisman for those forced by fear or the possibility of famine in the site’s latter days. The fine carved Buddha triad outside, at left court, with evidences of fittings for an altar or platform beneath, is an intrusion, as are those on the fallen top of the cistern chamber on the other side of the court.214 However, the anomalous and clumsy trimming back of the left porch pilaster must have been done just before the cave was inscribed, probably to assure that the long inscription was fully protected by the (now broken) eave. Since the record is in verse, its width would have been fixed; those who wrote it out for the carvers probably did not know (and/or did not care) about the size of the area where it was to be placed. The uncharacteristic haste, even carelessness, with which the pilaster was cut back is enough to recommend dating the work to the very final moment of Upendragupta’s control over the cave and in fact over the Ajanta area. As we shall see, the evident rush that was necessary to get this fine cave dedicated would support this conclusion, as would the fact that he also left the dedications of his Cave 20 and Cave 19 (the latter’s reserved panel never inscribed) until the last moment as well. The exuberantly carefree (indeed, even careless) porch ceiling design, its main painted beams “held up” by painted dwarfs, reveals 213 See Schlingloff, 1999, 39, where however the relationship between the Wheel and the doorway are incorrect. The doorway has two slots to allow an insert to hold a plaster fill. The lowest rim of the doorway was above the slots. 214 See Volume III, Cave 17, for discussion.
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its early date (469) by the exclusive use of floral and avian motifs in its coffers. These are painted with a distinctly limited palette; its appears that three or perhaps four different painters worked upon the ceiling, each being responsible for two or more contiguous sections of the quasi-beamed and cross-beamed composition. Considering the close connections in both style and palette, it is reasonable to suppose these were painters from a single family or a single community. The central porch medallion is of particular interest, as a seemingly radical composition at this early point in the development of the site’s ceilings. But this is, after all, the king’s cave; and Upendragupta was surely a demanding patron, expecting work of a unique character whenever possible. The six “dancers”, their forearms surprisingly joined, may be playing a game still known in Maharashtra today, where people lie in a circle and keep a ball aloft with their feet. The high (and probably expensive) coloring makes it the focus of attention, as does its axial positioning. There is one intriguing point just above the splendid amorous drinking scene on the left rear wall, where the painter of the flametoned palace structure has obviously touched up the ceiling just above his scaffolding with some of that strikingly brilliant pigment; perhaps he was playfully showing his fellow-painters who had just finished the ceiling, how it could be “improved”. He might also have advised them to take a bit more care in laying out their composition, for all of its refreshing exuberance; but it is fair to assume that the workers at Ajanta were paid by how much they got accomplished, not according to the time spent on such tasks. The grand ceiling of the interior hall, with its huge central medallion, soaring celestials, marvelous borders filled with playful vignettes, super-real animals and luxuriating floral forms was started just as the porch was being finished. It presents an ambitious and dramatic design, with a powerful central motif. That it resembles (as guides sometimes say) the waves of the ocean, or a vast flying carpet, only adds to its interest, even though this effect is really a product of the fact that the early excavators were so characteristically imprecise in their alignments, as explained earlier.215
215 As explained earlier in this volume the “skillfully executed undulations” (Behl 1999, 156) have to do with the inexperience and clumsiness of the excavators, rather than to their skill.
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The aisle ceilings are also richly varied, but at least some of them appear to have been assigned to less skillful artists, who were relatively careless about the “structural” integrity of the beamed and cross-beamed design, for the ceiling designs here (even more than the warped structure of this early cave itself ) are often greatly skewed. This “carelessness” is most pronounced of all in the case of the rear aisle ceiling, perhaps in part because it is the most poorly lit. But it is likely too that by the time that this area, deep in the cave, was finally painted, Upendragupta had realized how quickly time was running out, and had urged haste above all upon his artists. This could explain why, despite the developed iconographic character of the front and side aisles, with their varied catalog of motifs, here one finds only flowers. Even the painted dwarfs, who commonly “support” such ceilings in the cave, are omitted here. The hall pillars are startling in their rich complexity when compared to those in the adjacent Cave 16, which were decorated only about a year earlier, but admittedly under increasing duress. As if the pillars themselves were suddenly blossoming, they support a host of rhythmically related floral, geometric, zoomorphic, and (at the crucial corner pillars) human (or at least anthropomorphic) figural motifs. By the same token, the four pilasters, still not “advanced” enough to be decorated with carved medallions, become the ground for significant terrestrial and celestial forms. The bhadrasana Buddha figure on the base of the left front pilaster appears to be the single intrusion inside the cave; the original painting at this exposed point perhaps had been seriously damaged, although some of its borders, interrupted by the later composition, remain.216 As expected, the interior pillars at the front and especially at the rear center, flanking the approach to the shrine, are the most complex. The pair at the rear, with their 4, 8, 16, 32 fluted shafts and elaborate capitals, nonetheless show the time/money saving propensities so often evident even in the royal caves. The front faces of the bases have complex carved motifs including masks and lions; but the lions alone are carved on the side faces, the masks being painted, while at the rear the painted representations take over completely.
216 Dr. Leela Wood, who has done a particularly careful study of Cave 17, agrees that this is an intrusion.
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Upon the corners of these more “modern” square -based pillars (used only along the axis of this cave) one finds the same kneeling dwarfs, rendered in paint, that are just now being converted into carvings in Cave 19 and 1.217 The shift to the more “significant” sculptural medium which characterizes so many developments at the site, is to be seen on the most highly visible pillar capitals—those at the center of the front aisle, and those on the fronts of the rear pillars. A single (unexplained) sculpture, depicting a flying figure, adorns the capital of pillar L4; and, compared to his painted counterpart (on pillar R4) he is not even flying in the “proper” (i.e. shrine-ward) direction—the direction in which most of the painted forms on the cave’s pilasters or on the pillar capitals tend to move or turn. The crowded narratives on the walls of the hall provide a further visual feast, despite their begrimed and damaged condition. Often very hard to see, they are best explained by a guide or the attendants in the cave. Here, only the different scenes and their locations are listed, starting to the left as you enter, and then continuing clockwise. There seems to be no immediately definable program, other than the fact that all of the scenes, quite informally arranged, are jataka tales, describing previous incarnations of the future Buddha, or else sacred tales (avadanas).218 However, the subtleties and complexities of the organization of the paintings, with particular focus on “dana” or gift-giving, and the implied connection of the ruler/patron with both his emperor and with the Buddha, have been deeply analyzed by Wood.219 In the first scene on the front wall, future Buddha is the elephant Chaddanta who generously sawed off his remarkable complement of six tusks for a queen. (The guide will point out the ants climbing up a tree.) Next, in the Mahakapi Jataka I, the bodhisattva, as king of the monkeys, rescues them from an island by making a bridge above the river with his body. At the end of the wall, in the Hasti Jataka, he offers his body as food for starving travelers. In late context in general, such figures on the corners of the pillar bases, are typically rendered in sculpture, a convention continued at sixth century sites, both Buddhist and Hindu. 218 I am following the traditional interpretations of these many scenes, but the reader is advised to consult Schlingloff 1999, for new and authoritative identifications. 219 Wood 2000, 109–131; also her unpublished dissertation (University of Michigan, 2005). 217
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The story on the first few feet of the left wall has not been identified. Just beyond and continuing onto the pilaster, in the Hamsa Jataka, we see the capture of the Golden Goose and then the bird’s preaching in the palace. The popular story of the bodhisattva’s birth as Prince Vessantara, after which he is reborn in the Tushita Heaven (from which he descends to earth to become the Buddha) occupies the whole space up to the rear pilaster of this left wall. The various episodes show him as the incarnation of generosity, giving away virtually everything. Just beyond the pilaster, at the bottom of this left wall, in the Mahakapi Jataka II, the future Buddha, again born as a monkey, rescues an ungrateful hunter, who in return tries to kill him with a stone. The story above the tale of the monkey may connect with the Mahasutasoma Jataka, which occupies the whole left portion of the rear wall. In this richly complicated depiction, Prince Saudasa, whose mother was a lioness, troubles his kingdom with his DNA-connected cannibalism, but ultimately, having captured the bodhisattva Sutasoma, instead of feasting on him, gets converted by him. On the upper part of the right rear wall, in the Sarabhamiga Jataka, the bodhisattva, born as a stag rescues a hunter who earlier was trying to capture him. The Matiposaka Jataka below is the story of an elephant’s devotion to his blind mother. Just to the right, the bodhisattva as the child Sama, with equal devotion, is carrying his parents, who are also blind. Above, largely ruined, the Machchha Jataka, the bodhisattva as a virtuous fish, forced the heavens to save his kinsmen by replenishing their pond with rain. In the Mahisa Jataka at the extreme rear of the right wall, the bodhisattva, as a buffalo, turns the tables on a monkey who is seen harassing him by covering his eyes. The long and dynamic composition occupying the entire space between the two pilasters by and large follows the Divyavadana account tells of the adventures of Simhala and five hundred other merchants on the way to Sri Lanka. However, when their ship is wrecked, they fall into the hands of demonesses masquerading as beautiful (but cannabalistic) temptresses. It is only with the help of the bodhisattva, born as a horse, that Simhala reaches his destination, and also becomes king there. Beyond the pilaster, we find the much-lauded scene of a courtly lady’s toilet; her pearls, painted with a common gesso-like white paste or pigment, stand out dramatically when seen in a raking light. Adjacent to the latter, we find the painful Sibi Jataka, where the bodhisattva, King Sibi, tested by the gods, selflessly cut out his own eyes, as a
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gift for a blind man—yet another one of numerous (and unexplained) references to blindness in the murals of this cave.220 On the front wall, just beyond, and continuing between the two windows, are various scenes involving deer. The first part possibly refers to the Ruru Jataka, but the rest, where hunters lose their hands by way of punishment, is still unidentified. Between the window and the doorway we find the story of the origin of the Deer Park at Sarnath—the Nigrodhamiga Jataka. By offering himself as a substitute for a pregnant doe, the bodhisattva impressed the king so much that he gave up eating venison, and granted all such animals immunity. The shrine antechamber, though much begrimed, has a splendid Miracle at Sravasti, on the right wall, showing the Buddha multiplying himself to confound heretics. On the left, we find his subsequent and related Descent at Sankissa (much overcleaned), the Buddha being accompanied by Brahma and Indra, after his preaching to his mother in the Trayastrimsa Heaven. At the left of the richly elaborated doorway, the towering Buddha offers a simple begging bowl to his son, instead of material treasures and mundane power, as his princely inheritance. The painting on the opposite (right) side of the doorway has been almost totally lost, but probably represented the somewhat parallel Dipankara Jataka, reflecting the pairing of these same scenes on either side of the entrance of the adjacent caitya hall. The shrine antechamber ceiling, blackened by soot, shows three exuberant dancing dwarfs at the center of its large medallion, while their more readily visible counterparts on the antechamber pillar bases provide the music, playing a variety of wind and string and percussion instruments—the flute, the sarangi, and mini-cymbals among them. The shrine antechamber pillars, revealed about 469 (painted 470 or 471), were conceived too early to incorporate overhanging brackets, but make the most of the situation with their rich bands of decoration. The restrained capitals above clearly retain the original squared shape of the roughed-out pillars from which they were cut, thus saving increasingly precious time. Yaksas, seated at ease, hold pride of place on the front faces of the capitals of the two pillars, 220 Leela Wood has suggested that the considerable emphasis on blindness in the cave’s representations may have some connection with the local king’s personal concerns.
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with standing nagas on those of the pilasters; padmasana Buddhas are carved on the side faces, perhaps because they thus flanked the approach to the shrine. The richly ornamented shrine doorway, underway in 470, bears a family relationship with its roughly contemporary (and derivative) counterpart in the same patron’s cave 20. Perhaps the work of the same master, it further utilizes the same distinctive T-shaped format, bordered by multiple Buddha imagery. It similarly effects the transition between the typically early doorways where the goddess in the each upper corner, standing on their makaras, is supported by the pilaster below, and the typically “T-shaped” late doorways where both the goddess and her makara are displaced to the side, leaving the pilaster free to support the lintel. Here, probably influenced by the impressively elaborated shrine doorway of Cave Lower 6 (with its similar pilasters) the goddesses are displaced, but the makaras still use the pilaster for support. One should also note how both the Cave 17 tree-cum-river goddesses extend their outer hand down upon the head of an attendant dwarf. This gesture, which is anticipated in most earlier doorways by the placement of the lowered hand upon the raised tail of the makara, is duplicated in all porch doorways done immediate after the Hiatus, suggesting how influential this splendid pre-Hiatus doorway must have been. In this same regard, it is surely the (still-tentative) source for the decisively composed Tshaped doorways that become conventional at Ajanta, Aurangabad, and Ghatotkacha and Banoti by 477. Indeed, the general format, and the inclusion of a row of seated Buddhas along the top has a suggestive connection with the closely contemporaneous main doorway of Cave 4 at Bagh, although if some of the ideas for this shrine doorway’s decoration came down from there, the significant point of the Bagh doorway’s trabeation—with its structural references—was lost on the way. The somewhat ambivalent transition to the trabeated format was probably already germinating in Cave 1, where the shrine doorway may have been being blocked out at this same time. However, Cave 1’s final definition did not take place until after the Hiatus, by which time (like the associated image) it was probably quite changed in character. So what one gets here in Cave 17 is an impressive doorway, which is neither old nor new, caught between past and future. Even the manner in which the double doors were attached (by means of an applied wooden beam with pivot holes drilled in it) appear almost experi-
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mental, since it seems that simpler and more practical precedents were already being used in Cave Lower 6 (doors hung 468) and in the roughly contemporaneous fittings of the related Cave 20. A detail of interest both here and in the closely related shrine doorway of Cave 20 is the inclusion of a number of standing Buddhas where the proper right hand raised in abhaya mudra, rather than in the standard varada mudra. Significantly, this reflects the pose of the focal image in this same king’s Caitya Cave 19, at this point the intended ceremonial center of the site. But it is a striking fact that once the king (Upendragupta) was defeated by the rival Asmakas, this particular type of image falls very clearly out of favor, and was not used widely again until the Period of Disruption, when the Asmakas’ involvement in and/or patronage of the site had ended, at which point it once again is commonly shown. It seems just possible that the Asmakas, once they had defeated Upendragupta and taken over the site, discouraged its representation, because it was so centrally associated with their now-defeated rival.221 As we might expect, Cave 17’s main Buddha image, being sponsored by the obsessively pious local king, is an impressive conception. Following precedents at the site (some not fully realized) it is still set in the center of the shrine chamber, recalling its ultimate derivation, here at Ajanta, from the Vakataka stupa form as conceived for the caitya halls at the site. The Cave 17 Buddha is seated in the nowstandard padmasana with his hands in the now-standard teaching gesture—the gesture complemented by the still-simple wheel and flanking deer below. Probably in deference to structural realities, the earlier lions are here (as in Cave 20) omitted, in order to show the solidly supportive throne legs. When lions later make their return, in 477, they too will be treated as leonine throne supports— as structural throne-legs, rather than being allowed their earlier independence. The most significant additions to the Cave 17 image are the paired bodhisattvas (never before associated with shrine images at the site), who act as cauri bearers; henceforth these flanking figures are invariably represented in major images at Ajanta right up until the Period of Disruption, when they begin to be replaced by standing Buddhas. They probably can be identified as Avalokitesvara on the left, with 221 The type does appear quite often among the many Buddha types carved in Cave 7 in 477 or early 478.
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an image of Amitabha in his jata headdress and a kamandalu flask in his hand, and Vajrapani on the right, with his thunderbolt. However, the variations and seeming contradictions in the presentation of these images at the site are so considerable that it may be wiser to think of them in more generic terms and to see them, following John Huntington’s suggestion, as the embodiments of karuna (compassion) and prajna (power or knowledge). Indeed, there is also an implicit connection with the character of the priestly Brahma and that of the kingly Indra, who even in the adjacent antechamber are accompanying the Buddha back down to the earth—indeed, into the cave—where he then preaches to his assembled devotees. One may wonder, too, if the particularly regal character of these attendants might imply an intended, albeit subtle, identification with Upendragupta and his beloved brother, whose death turned Upendragupta toward his pious goals.222 The Buddha’s throne, supplied with a large bolster, has dramatically projecting makaras at its upper corners; little figures surge forth from their mouths. Above, chunky dwarfs, reflecting a ponderous quality that is connected with the Vakataka esthetic, bring garlands to the haloed image. Complementing the actions of these celestials, a moving pair of earthly devotees, dressed and coiffed in the style of the day, hold (or perhaps collect!) offerings in the bowls which they reverently hold. Their three-dimensionality is as remarkable as it is effective; and their survival (even including their painted garments) is remarkable too. In Cave 19, the similarly projecting figures (probably of bodhisattvas rather than devotees, however) have been knocked off by vandals at some unknown point in the site’s later lonely life. Indeed, the fact that the sculptures at the site are so remarkably preserved is probably due more to the fact that the sculpture is generally in relatively low relief than to the site’s remote location. But these two charming three-dimensional attendants have rather miraculously survived. The begriming of the shrine and of the cave in general is sufficient evidence that the cave was used for a considerable period, so it is no surprise to see that the shrine doorway was once fitted with double doors. However, instead of taking advantage of the new mode with projecting fittings, already being used for cell doorways at this
222
See Wood 2000, 129.
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time, or the simple and practical devices (with pivot holes within projecting stone beams) in Cave Lower 6 and the related Cave 20, the excavators followed a more conservative and impractical course, with the result that a wooden (?) beam, held on in part by heavy teak pegs (the stumps of which still remain), had to be locked into slots made for this purpose.223 The pivot holes into which the door pivots were fitted must then have been drilled into the wooden beam, to create what could be called a structural (and expedient) variant of the B mode. It is strange that the planners here did not opt for the stronger and simpler utilization of a monolithic beam at the top, inside the door, to hold the door pivots, since such a practical form had been used in Cave Lower 6 a few years before, and was used again in the contemporaneous doorway of the closely related Cave 20. Although the shrine doors had been hung, and (as we shall see) the monks had moved into the cave even before it was dedicated in 471, there is clear evidence that the last few years had been ones of haste and concern. This is most immediately evident in the fact that the expected decoration of the shrine chamber, which had already been plastered in preparation for painting, had to be abandoned, with no more than a hastily rendered medallion on the ceiling above the image ever completed. Then, when we start looking for other signs of difficulties, they are manifold, reminding us (but in a less obvious way) of the situation in Upendragupta’s other vihara, Cave 20, suffered throughout the period of the Recession. One and most probably two cells—both expectedly at the rear—were unfinished at this time.224 However, the most suggestive evidence is in the manner that, by the time the excavators were working on the rear of the cave (even the shrine area itself ) they started doing their work with an evident haste, leaving the walls so surprisingly rough—even somewhat undefined—in places that one can only assume that the patron and his planners must have been only too aware of the fact that time might run out all too quickly. This may even account for the curious 223 The locked-in arrangement is somewhat similar to that used in the slightly earlier shrine doorway of Cave 11. 224 Cell R6’s C mode door fittings were never completed. It is possible Cell L6 was also unfinished when Upendragupta’s connection with the cave was broken; but since it was converted to the D Mode after 475. The evidence of its earlier fitting (if indeed it had one) is lost.
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shaping of the shrine, which carefully follows the contours of the throne, as if to save time and energy thereby. And it certainly accounts for the fact the openings of the cell doorways, which one always expects to be properly trimmed, were left so unconventionally rough throughout the cave, even in the porch, where the plastering and painting (which comes right up to the doorway edges) was surely underway by 469. What this means is that, just as in Cave 20, the order must have down from the capital to worry less about these time-consuming but lower priority areas—particularly those which a good thick layer of plaster could quickly cover—and to concentrate on what readily visible and immediately impressive. If the quality of the paintings was not similarly compromised (at least in general), it was surely because paintings, unlike carved areas, could be done in a matter of days or weeks rather than months; furthermore, a good painter, forced to work fast, generally retains his essential virtues. Even though the Asmakas proscribed the use of Upendragupta’s caitya hall when they took control of the site in c. 475, they clearly allowed monks to continue living and worshipping in this associated adjacent vihara. The reasons were probably purely practical, for not only was much space much needed for residence purposes, but the spacious Cave 17 was far more complete than most other caves at this point. Indeed, such usage was already a fait accompli, for it appears that monks had already moved into some of the more forward cells by 468 or 469, while the cells in the rear, with their newfangled niches and their more developed doorway fittings, appear to have been put into use in 470 and 471, at the end of which Upendragupta’s connection with the site came to an anxious end. It is this usage of the cave, particularly the begriming rituals of worship which started with the cave’s dedication in 471, that has so sadly damaged the paintings throughout the interior—the fine ceiling of the shrine antechamber not the least of all. Cave 17 is a veritable technological laboratory for the study of door fittings, which were improved constantly and consistently as the cave developed over the course of a mere decade. Unlike Buddha imagery, tradition had no force at all when it came to latches and hinges and pivots, which could be (and generally were) given up, revised, or cut away as soon as each better type emerged. The old adage about buying the better mousetrap applies exactly here. A detailed discussion of door-fittings in Cave 17, and throughout the
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site, will be taken up in Volume VI, but a brief survey of such developments would be pertinent here.225 Assuming that Cave 17 was started in 464, the first type used was the useless A mode. Four cells, all located toward the front of the cave, were supplied with the A mode, which (ineffectively) ruled the day through 467. Since no sensible mode of hanging the doors in such A mode openings, it is hardly surprising that at soon as the B mode was developed, all of these cells were supplied with peggedon approximations of the B mode (A+ mode) as soon as that type came into favor in 468–469. Thus, during these years, we find either authentic B modes or conversion to the B mode (= A+ mode) in most of cells opening from the side aisles. Then, by the time that the rear of the cave was reached in 470–471, the slightly more developed C mode (with projections below as well as above) is found in all of the “latest” cells opening into or adjacent to the rear aisle. At this point work stopped abruptly, as the aggressive Asmakas threat came to a head. The only thing that was done in the cave during the Asmaka ascendancy was the conversion of Cells L5 and L6 (and possibly the previous unused Cell L1) into storage chambers, which may reflect practical considerations perhaps at the behest of the Asmaka conquerors, since they did allow the continued use of the cave after 475, and must have felt the need of at least a few cells for storage purposes. We can follow the year by year course of development in Cave 17 quite precisely by this analysis of the cells, even though cells represent only one piece of the complex puzzle. The cell development obviously aids us in comparing the development of all (or most) of the other developments in the cave, since they play a constant part in the overall analysis of the total excavation. Of course we need not expect an absolutely precise analysis of any feature or features, because there are many reasons that things can get out of order. Some children eat their dessert before the main course; and in the development of excavations things can indeed get out of their perfect place. However, usually (or at least often) things progress as they should, especially in an undertaking like the royal Cave 17, where the planners obviously aimed at consistency and constant progress and probably had not much trouble getting all the workers needed and the funds to pay them. 225
For the Cave 17 plan, with door fitting types, see Spink 2000, 99 (plate 7:22).
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And often “inconsistencies” in development can be explained, and can be quite revealing. Thus Cell R1 is obviously “out of place”, and would seem to demand an explanation—why is it not an A mode cell, given its position. The likely reason, as already mentioned above, is that cells cut at the end of the front aisle often appear to have been done later than we would expect, since R2, which lies beyond it is of the A mode. But R2 was clearly underway before R1, which is consequently shifted in its position due to R2’s minor encroachment, as the excavators adjusted it to make sure it had a proper view between pillars R1 and R2. So the question is: why did the penetration of Cell R1 get delayed. The answer to this is the same in a number of instances through the site. The cells at either end of a cave’s front aisle often were not penetrated until the one just beyond it was already started. Cells at the end of the front aisle often suffered some delay for the simple reason that there was so much scaffolding in the busy front aisle, where work was proceeding on the front aisle colonnade, as well as on the windows and doorways, all of which cluttered up that area with large groups of workmen and equipment. In contrast, work could begin on the proximate (but rearward) cell, without being troubled by so many encumbrances.
Cave 18 Cave 18 is an elaborate cistern chamber which also functions as an impressive pillared passage linking Upendragupta’s Caves 17 and 19. The two octagonally shafted pillars of its colonnade are closely related to those of the adjacent Cave 17, their brackets bordered by a double row of deeply cut squares. Except for one small section, however, these original elements have been obscured by the incorrect cement reconstruction of the capitals. The positioning of this cistern chamber—which in fact may have been started as a passage linking Upendragupta’s Cave 17 with his great Caitya Cave 19—was responsible for the unexpected displacement of the vihara’s left porch cell. (See Cave 17 discussion) Whether conceived at first as an elaborate passage, or as an elaborate cistern, its position (as well as its impact on Cave 17’s left porch cell) makes it quite evident that it would have been started in 463 or 464. At this time, Cave 17’s porch cell had not yet been conceived, for like other such cells in
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the earliest excavations, it was an afterthought; such porch cells never date earlier than 465. Even if started as a mere passage, it seems evident, considering the needs both of Caves 17 and 19, that “Cave 18” was soon supplied with its present cistern. Upendragupta’s nearby Cave 17 inscription, placed on the wall that the cistern shares with the cave’s court, honors it with a special reference to its always being “filled with sweet, light, clear, cold and copious water.”226 But actually, this cistern that Upendragupta so honors was probably the second that served the cave, for it would appear that when Cave 17 was first begun in 463, the plan was for Caves 17 and 16 to share the large cistern that was excavated in the space between their courtyards. The huge capacity of these two reservoirs was perhaps developed because of the great amount of use anticipated, for the more elaborate pillared one may have been originally intended to supply Cave 19 as well. Always begun early in the course of excavation, partly because of their location in the court areas, but also for the benefit of the excavators, such water reservoirs were not only convenient for the monks living in the caves but also, when the river dried up in the summer season, essential. The location of the shared cistern at Cave 17’s right was necessary from the standpoint of Cave 16, which had no other area adequate for a cistern; and it seems clear that Upendragupta had fully agreed with such a shared arrangement with the Prime Minister. Indeed, the small chamber at the left of Cave 16’s court even has a tunneled connection with the cistern itself, from which water could presumably be conveniently pulled up from the cistern, without going out of Cave 16’s precincts. Both of the cisterns, one at either end of the courtyard of Cave 17, penetrate deep beneath the cave. Indeed, as mentioned earlier, the raised floor and threshold levels of the cells in that area in Cave 17 surely reflect the cistern’s presence, and would seem to confirm the early date of its excavation, well before the interior’s floor level was reached in the course of excavation. It might also be noted how the cistern top has an unusual division into two openings, one of which is approached by the steps convenient to Cave 16, while the other was immediately accessible from the court of Cave 17 itself. Although
226
Ajanta Cave 17 inscription, verse 26.
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the cistern’s ceiling and the rock above has fallen down onto the walls of the cistern (revealing the tunneled water channel above) one can still peek under the mass of detached cliff in order to view the cistern, albeit with difficulty, from the right side of Cave 17’s court. This whole face of the fallen mass of rock was later used for a series of seated padmasana Buddhas, all intrusive. As mentioned above, it is possible that Cave 18 was first intended merely as an elaborate passage between Upendragupta’s great vihara and his splendid caitya hall, for both its form and orientation differ totally from those of other cisterns at the site. If so, the cistern (quite expediently located) could have been added to it at any time before 471, although it seems likely that it would have been dug fairly early, considering its usefulness. The fact that the left cells near the front of Cave 17 are not raised up like their counterparts on the right might well suggest that they were underway before this new cistern was conceived; and this would in turn show that its date could hardly be earlier about 465, judging from the way work progressed on Cave 17’s excavation. It was certainly underway when the decision was made to cut a cell at the left end of Cave 17’s porch, since it was the presence of the cistern which caused the displacement of the cell. However this may be, the cistern was probably dug at this point to provide a convenient water supply for Cave 19, as well as to supplement that of Cave 17. One can see, in the rock cut passage leading on to Cave 19, how surface water was brought down into the cistern area by means of an old carved channel, now paralleled by a modern counterpart, and connected with the old water channels leading downward from the mountain above. Beyond, the front right cell of Cave 19 appears to have been converted sometime after its completion (in about 470) from a residence cell to a somewhat larger chamber with a low plinth (found in some other cistern chambers) reserved when the east wall was extended, presumably for this purpose. Unlike Cave 19’s other cells, this one’s doorway never was fitted out; the pivot hole (unlike those in the other cells) shows no sign of use, and the expected latch was never cut. This suggests that it may have functioned as a convenient opening connecting the new cistern chamber with the court of Cave 19. In fact, it is even possible that this converted court cell provided more than a convenient link between Cave 17 and 19. The heavy burden of cement on the floor suggests
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that a cistern may have been dug under it, but is hidden from view today. I have found no relevant records, but it would be of interest to remove the cement flooring to solve this problem. The orientation of the tunneled passage and the fact that there is a rail motif running along outside Cave 19’s court, suggests that one could proceed along a pathway (now fallen away) between Cave 17 and the balustrade in front of the court of Cave 19. It would have connected with the old (now-missing) staircase coming up to Cave 19 (and the naga guardians) from the river below, and then would have continued on toward Cave 20; for it is hardly conceivable that Upendragupta’s Caves 17, 19, and 20 were not linked in some such convenient way. Yet, without some sort of path running along in front of Cave 19, there would have been no way to go from one cave to the other except by going down to the river—or perhaps part way to the river on one path and then coming up on another, for the courtyard of Cave 19 was originally accessible only through its now vanished front gate. Admittedly, it is hard to visualize such a connecting path today, because the scarp has fallen so drastically away; but one need only study other caves, such as the Cave 26 complex, to realize that massive amounts of the original rock have by now been lost. Indeed, it is reasonable to believe that the passage leading from Cave 17 to 19 might have fallen away even while the complex was being built, for the very process of excavation caused significant stress; if so, the conversion of the front right cell of Cave 19 would have been the only practical way to then affect a linkage between the two caves. This of course is not true today, nor was after the Asmakas took over control of the site by 475. It was then that they brutally cut through both this “cistern chamber” and the corresponding front court cell of Cave 19 on the left, to make an easy passage to their own complex in the distance.
Cave 19 Caitya Cave 19, in its inaugural diffidence, drew upon the ancient and austere Cave 9 for much of its underlying plan; but it was then transformed, with its up-to-date decoration, into the crown jewel of this pious ruler’s extensive cave complex. Flanked by Upendragupta’s related viharas, Caves 17 and 20, it presides over a spacious stretch
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of scarp at the site’s center. Although conventionally considered a much earlier excavation than Cave 26, its core structure (as opposed to its surface decoration) was probably developed a year or so later; and even a year or so, in these urgently creative days, could produce significant developments. Its “structural” lateness as compared with Cave 26 is suggested by many features: the relative thickness of its walls, the more advanced shaping of its square-based interior pillars, its cell door fittings (compared to those in the earlier contexts of Cave 26), and most particularly the manner in which, when roughing out the vault, the excavators (unlike those of Cave 26) wisely reserved matrix for the monolithic umbrellas that rise above the central stupa. Thus, having got off to a somewhat slower start than many earlier caves—perhaps, because of its importance, there were bureaucratic delays in developing the plans and then getting the funding from the offices of the planners and comptrollers up in the capital— it benefited from both their errors and their achievements, taking what was best to take and rejecting what was not worthy of its intended goals.227 We can surely believe—for the evidence is in the art—that some of the best sculptors available were deputed to this royal project. Some must have been brought down from the capital, while others may have been “borrowed”, by royal request, from the excavations of other patrons. Starting in early 469, by which time his decree had stopped work on nearly every other cave at the site, Upendragupta obviously had a wide array of hungry out-of-work workers who were all too eager to be employed. Perhaps the same urgency which drove Upendragupta on to finish his cave as a foil against the darkening future drove them on too, for they have surely honored the boonbestowing Buddha in their offerings of virtuous work. Whatever the reason—and we must not discount the increasing technical and conceptual assurance that so insistently develops year by year at the site—Upendragupta’s caitya hall, like his emperor’s regal Cave 1, achieves an energy and an authority that makes it an inescapable source of imagery and influence for all later caves. However, Cave 19 suffered a fate similar to, and of course related to, Cave 20’s; for Upendragupta, although he boasts in his Cave 17 227 In the same way, Upendragupta’s vihara, Cave 17, benefited by being a slightly later undertaking than the prime minister’s Cave 16.
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inscription of earlier “having subjugated prosperous countries such as Asmaka”,228 was now well on his way to being ruined by that same rival power in the very year (471) in which he hurriedly inscribed that record. Although it came close to full completion, many details in the courtyard were never finished. Similarly, the dedicatory panel on the front wall of the interior was never properly inscribed, even though it is just possible that a hasty donative record, now no longer visible, was expediently painted on, solely due to the shortness of time. After his pious efforts throughout the past decade, it seems certain that Upendragupta (even if in absentia) would have gotten the cave dedicated, determined to gain the expected merit thereby. However, the fact that there is not a touch of soot on its painted ceiling surfaces or significant breakage of the mudplaster around the garland-hook holes on the front face of its capitals (a few of which were never even fitted out) proves that it could not have functioned more than briefly as a ceremonial center. Very possibly it was sporadically used by its “intrusive” donors during the site’s decline— this might explain the broken plaster around the hook hole in the front ceiling area—but this could hardly have been for long.229 Significantly, when the invading Asmakas took over the region in the early 470s, they not only disallowed Cave 19’s use for worship, but they even went so far as to dishonor the cave and their previous royal rival by heedlessly cutting through its two front court-cells to make a convenient passage toward their own Cave 26 complex at the western end of the site. The Asmakas even may have gone so far as to ban, or at least to discourage any further representations of the hall’s focal standing Buddha image, so clearly associated with the now-defeated local king. The image type, with its abhaya (“fear not”) gesture balanced against the upraised hand holding the robe, appears a number of times on the shrine doorways of Upendragupta’s other caves, and then again quite commonly in the Period of Disruption. However, (except for its appearance a number of times in the anomalous votive program of Cave 7) it is notably out of sight, if not out of mind, during the period (475–478) when the Asmakas were exercising their direct control over the site.
228
Cave 17 inscription, verse 10. This revealing hole has recently been cemented in., but wisely “restored” to its previous condition, albeit without an appearance of authenticity. 229
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For all of its adversities, this truly regal excavation is one of the finest and most influential both at the site and in the world beyond. Although it must have been connected with Caves 17 and Cave 20 by a pathway running outside its spacious court (as the orientation of the original wall with its rail motif suggests), the main or ceremonial approach would have been from the river far below; the (presumed) old staircase, along with a vast portion of the cliff face is now fallen away, although one of an original pair of splendid naga guardians remains at the summit of the approach, at the point where it enters the courtyard. The depth of the courtyard, required by the slope of the scarp, allowed for the presence of the pillared court cell-complexes, although they were surely not started (and perhaps not even conceived) until about 469 or 470, well after such pillared structures had been developed elsewhere at the site.230 Such a conclusion is supported not only by the developed character of the fronting pillars and of their cell doorway fittings, but also by the likelihood that their fronting candrasilas were created by some cutting down of the earlier level of the court floor.231 Their late dating (vis-à-vis the main portion of the excavation) is particularly assured by the fact the four doorways found in these court complexes must have been cut in 470/471, since all have C mode fittings.232 Unfortunately, the badly broken left complex has been recently “copied” in cement, obscuring useful evidence, and in general detracting from the kind of quality and esthetic sensitivity that King Upendragupta desired. The ponderous though powerful shaping of the caitya hall’s main ribbed arch strongly recalls that of the Hinayana Cave 9, although the flaring elements at the sides with their auspicious conch shells and the foliating mask at the apex of the arch are of course later forms. The projecting portico below, perhaps the “regal” source for 230
The ultimate source was probably the pillared court cells of Cave 1. Floors were lowered for somewhat similar reasons in the porches of Cave 11 and 17 and at the rear of Cave 11. 232 Note, however, that Cell RF was never utilized for residence; it was never given a proper door-fitting, probably because it was utilized for a (suspected) cistern instead. The complex on the left side has the niches that come into favor in 471, while the complex on the right side does not, suggesting that it may have been finished in 470, before such niches came into favor. As if to make up for the lack of a monolithic niche, the right rear cell had a two paneled shelf held on inserted teak(?)supports—a unique variant. 231
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this special feature on Harisena’s vihara, Cave 1, is yet another advance on Cave 26’s more standard porch form. Its pillars, with their sequences of 8, 16, 32 flutings, like their Cave 20 counterparts and the related porch pillars of Cave 2, are transitional between the now-outmoded octagonal forms, and the soon-to-be-conventional square-based types already in embryo here in the facade pilasters. The gracefully balanced walking Buddhas on either side of the splendid entrance turn inward, untroubled by the hovering dwarfs above, who proffer crowns which at this point in time can only be refused. The sumptuously muscled guardian yaksa on the left boasts an unexpected seated Buddha in his crown, and receives a shower of coins poured out from a bag held by the dwarf at his feet. The complex of seated Buddha images and proliferating decorative forms upon the facade and portico surfaces reveal a carefully controlled fusion of order and variety. The repeated rows of seated Buddhas at the upper levels—one should especially note the “Eight Buddhas” with their respective trees on the face of the projecting eave—form a visual litany, made compellingly melodic by the wellspring of exuberant associated forms. Tier upon tier, dwarfs and attendant saints, floriated animals and birds, radiant masks and flying couples, all fill the seemingly unquenchable catalog of floral and geometric decorative forms. The pervasive insistence on symmetry that characterizes Cave 19’s facade is broken in one instance only, and then out of necessity: the relief in the eye-level panel on the left side could not balance the equivalent panel on the right because of the intransigent crystalline veins within the rock on that side. Thus a fine relief stupa, reflecting the three dimensional shrine at the heart of the cave, was carved instead. Even so, the standing Buddha within it had to be expediently positioned, in deference to an intractable crystalline flaw. It seems likely that the Buddha panel at the left was done first, the sculptor choosing (assuming that he had a choice) this side because the better character of the rock facilitated his work (and his payment); work on that at the right was probably started after that at the left; and because of the serious flaw problems, the “perfect” symmetry of the façade was compromised, even though the resulting relief stupa is splendidly achieved. Seen in hindsight, it would have been much better to have started on the right, and to have balanced the panel at the left by carving a similar motif.
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Although standing Buddhas and Buddhas seated in the padmasana pose appear in abundance as part of the original composition of the facade, Buddhas seated in the “feet down” (bhadrasana) position never do. This is because the latter type of image did not evolve as part of Ajanta’s sculptural repertory until the great central images of Cave 16 and Cave 26 were started, in about 477, long after Upendragupta’s rule over the region had so traumatically ended. But at the same time, one should note that the type appeared in Ajanta’s paintings almost a decade earlier; and in Cave 19 itself bhadrasana Buddhas appear among the host of painted images on the ambulatory walls. The fact is, it is quite common for iconographic forms and motifs to appear first in the site’s paintings, and then to be delayed in their introduction into the sculptural repertory. Another example, also seen in the ambulatory of Cave 19, are those groups in which the central Buddha is attended not by bodhisattvas, but by a standing Buddha on either side. No matter how suggestive of a crucial doctrinal or ritual development this is, it again took over half a decade for it to appear in sculptural contexts such as the intrusive groups in Cave 19’s pillared court cells. Because of a similar series of hard quartz veins, the scene in which the walking Buddha (right of the doorway) offers his son the begging bowl as his inheritance is placed higher than expected, because the rock beneath it is so bad at this point. However, it must have originally been certainly it was not left plain. It probably was covered first with simple decorative motifs when the figure above was finished, and then later with painted intrusions in the Period of Disruption, somewhat like the sculptured intrusive Buddhas under the large original figure at the left. The positioning of the “parallel” Dipankara Buddha scene at the left appears to have been raised up purely for balance—a virtue that artists at the site often honored. The good stone beneath was quickly taken over by intrusive donors in the Period of Disruption, who added a triad of Buddhas in this particularly desirable location. Being intrusive images having nothing to do with the cave’s original plan or its patron, like the small standing Buddhas “imposed” on the façade’s pilasters, and violating their original (painted) designs, they are located according to convenience and visibility alone. The small panels under the two fine large Buddhas who guard the hall’s doorway with their grace, were probably painted with dec-
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orative forms too, when the façade was originally being plastered and painted. The same would be the case with areas later usurped by the small intrusive standing Buddhas on the faces of the façade pilasters. Donors in the Period of Disruption would not cut away or cover earlier Buddha images, but decorative motifs were of course expendable. The handsome nagaraja (cobra king) at the left of the court was originally to have been balanced by a yaksa or yaksi on the wall opposite—perhaps having been delayed because the stone at the right is particularly flawed. But since this was already 471, time ran out before the expected earth divinity on the right could be carved, even though a simple sheltering roof form represents the start of work on the sub-divinity’s aborted image. A couple of years later, during the Period of Disruption, an eager new donor—and ultimately many different donors—filled this area with fine intrusive images, quite innocent of the fact that they were usurping a space earlier reserved for a yaksa. The same radiantly organized energy, complemented by the pairs of Buddhas in this “perfumed hall” is expressed by the carefully matched pairs of interior pillars. They are all in the very latest—of course evolving—style, distinguished by their now richly varied but carefully balanced shaft designs, starting with the sophisticated pair of more complex entrance pillars; these are adorned with overhanging tree goddesses, features that must be the source for the similarly treated entrance to the shrine areas of Cave 1 and most later caves. The seated Buddhas on the capitals, with their alternating gestures, are surrounded by delightfully complex lateral motifs, carefully matched on left and right. Some pairs show powerful animals with playful dwarfs upon and under them; others show varied groups of loving couples. The most remarkable of all these capital motifs are the crowded orchestras (all-female bands!) that flood the cave with music from their positions on either side of the stupa. The square bases of the pillars, from which vigorous little figures proffer garlands toward the stupa, establish the authority of this newly conventional pillar form, roughly contemporaneous with the façade pillars of Cave 1. Cave 19’s fancifully attenuated stupa—the Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang reported by hearsay that its umbrellas were held aloft by the vow of the Buddha—still proclaims, to the accepting eye, its connection with the ancient Hinayana stupa in Cave 9. But now, of course, the
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Buddha is shown forth, as if projected from its very core. A handsomely designed pillared arch, enclosing him with the very energy of the stupa’s dome, forms an appropriate frame, while a pair of Ajanta’s dwarfs, only emphasizing the Buddha’s static intensity, dance in the panel beneath. Painted and carved Buddhas adorn the drum and the harmika respectively, while high above other dwarfs support the triad of umbrellas. These rise almost to the very top of the vault, the matrix from which they were cut having been reserved when the vault’s excavation was first underway. As noted above, in the slightly earlier Cave 26, the matrix which could serve for such umbrellas was unthinkingly removed. In other words, the Cave 19 arrangement is much more sophisticated technically. The only problem with this wise procedure in Cave 19 is that the whole cave was later wrenched toward a never-achieved alignment with the solstitial axis. Consequently, the stupa, in being shifted to the left, as its roughed-out form was finally being trimmed down, resists this process at its highest levels, being hesitant to disturb its alignment at the upper part, where its more attenuated elements are centered upon the vault, and probably could not be shifted much at all. In front of the stupa, attached to opposite pillars, (L6, R6) the sadly shattered remains of feet attest to the former presence of a pair of attending images, almost certainly bodhisattvas.233 Such an assumption is supported by the fact that the almost contemporaneous attendants of the shrine Buddhas in Caves 17 and 20, finished only a year or two later, and sponsored by the same royal donor, are representations of such Buddhist saints. Such attendants were now just coming into fashion at the site in connection with shrine images. Indeed the two (ruined) figures may be the first of such attendants ever made at the site; if so, one can understand their impact on other donors, probably eager to emulate the king.234 In the exuberantly conceived decorative panels just above Cave 19’s interior pillars, the roiling and floriated forms dramatically contrast with the calm solemnity of the alternating seated and standing
233 They might bear some connection with the royal (?) figures placed in front of the Cave 17 Buddha a year or two later. 234 It should be noted that not all scholars would call these figures bodhisattvas, to say nothing of identifying them as Avalokitesvara and Vajrapani; but I have not found their arguments compelling.
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Buddhas between them. As expected, the seated images mirror each other with their gestures across the aisle, with the one exception of the figure over pillars L4/L5. There, due to a serious flaw, the program was adjusted at this point, and the planned-for dharmacakra mudra, which could not have been successfully defined here, was replaced with abhaya, where the hands were more safely out of harm’s way. One might well ask why here, as in the case of the “asymmetrical” facade panels discussed above, the sculptors did not struggle with the “bad” one first, and then match the “good” one to it. But it appears that the planners were not that percipient in such regards, and that the workers—having been provided with the overall program to guide them, and surely being paid according to how much they accomplished—chose to work on the least problematic panels first, thus making such later design adjustments impossible. We have already discussed a number of similar instances. Quite characteristically, the expensively realized overflowing energy seen in the more forward decorative panels gives way to a still highly salable but cheaper variety of expression halfway down the hall. Similarly, the fine seated Buddhas painted in the main vault begin to share their positions with simpler and less expensive painted stupas starting at about the same point. Such hints of frugality suggest that Upendragupta, in the face of developing political realities, was finally getting a bit careful about “expending abundant wealth”, to say nothing of squandering too lavishly his diminishing reserves of time; for as is even more evident in Cave 20, the local king himself was by no means immune to his kingdom’s developing problems. Contrasting with the iconic intent of the painted main vault, the less important aisle ceiling is decorated with a carefree inhabited scroll. Here, even more easily than in the definable distinct groups of Buddha images so insistently covering the aisle walls, one can identify, as one proceeds along the passageway, the work of a number of different artists working not only in slightly different “styles”, but with surprisingly different palettes.235 From this clustering of crews, one can gain a useful impression of the sense of urgency with which, as the darkening clouds of the early 470s were gathering, Upendragupta’s sacred projects were pursued. It perhaps tells us too how relatively little painting was regarded at the site, as compared with
235
The ceiling in the right aisle has been seriously damaged by inept conservation.
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sculpture. When one man could surely have done this whole ambulatory ceiling in a week or two, producing a “consistent” pattern, one would think that (here as elsewhere) tasks would have been apportioned with such a goal in view. But things were already in a rush, which perhaps explains the surprising assignment of the one task to so many artists. This same sense of rush seems to be revealed by the often very sloppy carved geometric or floral designs on the under-surfaces of many of the capitals. The only excuse for this kind of work in a caves of such otherwise high quality is that time was running out, and that the royal patron had more immediate and anxious concerns. Furthermore, burdened by his mounting problems, he may not have been able or willing now to visit the site himself. As we know, time ran out all too soon for Upendragupta; and after his defeat by the Asmakas in the early 470s, his beautiful “perfumed hall” (Gandhakuti) lay totally unused, the insistent symmetry of its facade decoration far more in evidence than it is today. It was only later, in 479 and 480, when the Asmakas were no longer exercising their control over the site, that a host of new individual donors surged into its sacred precincts and added the hodge-podge of images found along its facade frames, court returns (keeping as much under the protection of the eaves as possible), facade pilaster shafts, and elsewhere. That such intrusions are so often of superb quality is hardly surprising, since the sculptors who created them were precisely the same sculptors who had been working up until this moment for all of the great patrons at the site. We can assume that, like so many such late images in less exposed locations, many of these once had painted donative inscriptions. Although one intrusive image never violates another’s form, the later ones all too readily usurp the frames of those done earlier. The bhadrasana Buddha, datable to 479, at the right is thus surrounded by an assortment of little images carved over the course of the next few months by other donors; one even cuts away the roof motif that the larger image had inherited from its unrealized yaksa forebear. All of these small intrusions are scattered about in a helter-skelter array of offerings, being careful to avoid the many bad flaws in this area. Above, in the fine panel showing two standing Buddhas and four stupas we see one of many instances of the effects of geology upon iconography. The expected dwarfs are missing above the left Buddha, clearly because of a flaw, while (for the same reason) one of the dwarfs above the other image has been necessarily but surprisingly
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replaced by a mere attending hand waving a flywhisk. Similarly the stupas are adjusted to the exigencies of another flaw in the middle of the panel, even though this required that the upper ones renounce their expected three umbrellas. The fine “mandala” comprised of a large Buddha image with four lesser ones at the “quarters” equally resists assured interpretation; the added Buddha within the frame is of course an intrusion (probably of c. 480) upon this intrusion of c. 479. Further intrusions, in two slightly imbalanced groups of four, appear high up, on the return walls close to the facade. Their curious disposition is probably due to the fact that painted standing figures (either paired Buddhas or quite possibly paired bodhisattvas) may have been painted as part of the original program on the vertical spaces between them; one can hardly imagine that these important areas would have been left blank, especially since the fine seated Buddhas above and below were surely themselves part of the original program. Like so many of the other original (but not the intrusive) Buddhas on the facade, or like the famous nagaraja group, they are set off by special frames and are almost compulsively balanced one against the other. Indeed, this desire for symmetry goes so far here, that the attendant bodhisattvas, most unusually, mirror each other’s gestures to the degree that Avalokitesvara, on the left, has moved his aksamala to the other hand; thus both bodhisattvas hold the cauri in their more central hand. However, lest one think that such symmetrizing belongs only to the original phase of work, it should be noted that the mirroring bhadrasana Buddhas in the court complexes show similar adjustments. One of the very late attendant standing Buddhas in each complex has his right hand, most unexpectedly, in abhaya mudra rather than in the standard varada mudra; the reason, very clearly, is for visual balance rather than for meaning. While noting these different Buddha groups, it is significant to note that carved bhadrasana Buddhas in this cave are invariably intrusive. When the original scheme of decoration was carried out—that is, through 471—bhadrasana Buddhas never appeared, except in painting; a number can be seen among the sequences of images that fill the ambulatory. This is not surprising, since painting often precedes sculpture at Ajanta in iconographic development. The seated Buddhas which face each other from within the pillared court-cells are intrusive too, and one might note how they are
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now themselves attended by standing “attendant” Buddhas, a development which in sculpture (reflecting precedents in painting) probably does not occur in such contexts until 480, the final year of intrusive activity at the site. One can see that platforms were fitted into the base of the wall just below the Buddha panels, surely in connection with their worship.236 However, it should be remembered that these present “shrinelets” were originally intended as residence areas, which we can date very precisely to the very last years of Upendragupta’s reign. This is because doorway fittings at the site have such a remarkably complex yet clear development that one can date any given type with great precision. The door fittings here, showing pivot-projections both above and below (i.e. “C” type), appear only in c. 470–471, so the cells must have been finished at that time. Indeed, we can go farther than that and say that the cell at the right rear was finished first, because (unlike the cells in the left complex) it was not fitted out with recessed niches (for belongings, etc.), a feature that does not come into use at the site until 471. At the same time, as if to make up for the absence of such a niche, the workers appear to have put up a structural two-paneled shelf at the same point in the right rear cell—four peg holes show its parallel positioning; it was presumably put in place after the niches in the left complex had been finished, in order to expediently emulate them.237 It can be determined, too, that all of the plastering and painting in the (better-preserved) right complex dates to the time of these intrusions, and was done in connection with them, although the ceiling design obviously copies that of the earlier painting in the ceiling of the front aisle. The fact that the cells are plastered with the same mix as the vestibule walls would further prove that all of the plastering (and thus the painting) was very late, since cells were never plastered at the site until at least 478, and typically not until mid478–480, during the Period of Disruption. Also, the fine upper layer of grayish-brown plaster on the walls continues over the intrusive
236
See Volume III, Cave 17 intrusions. One might ask why the excavators did not merely cut an equivalent niche in the right rear cell in 471, instead of putting pegs in the wall as an expedient substitute. The answer many well be simply that there was no contract to continue such work in the right rear cell; and in the troubled context of 471 there were more important things to spend time and money on. 237
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image, while elsewhere the familiar red plaster—never used prior to 477—has left its stain. Such a conclusion finds support in the fact that the front of the left complex, and the adjacent wall area, is still somewhat unfinished, suggesting that work progressed slower on that side. As for the anomalously enlarged right front cell, perhaps it was being converted into a cistern (?) when work broke off in 471.238 Be that as it may, at least it was never put into use as a cell, since it lacks the expected door latch; nor does its upper pivot hole—the lower having been cemented in—show any signs of wear. It is also of interest to note the nice adjustment of the niches in the left cells (that in the front one now badly broken). Instead of being placed, as usual, on the back wall, they have been shifted laterally, to better receive the light through the complex’s front. By the same token, a structural counterpart to such an excavated shelf surely was fitted into the equivalent position in the right rear cell. One can assume this from the presence of four significantly placed holes in the wall, as mentioned above. The fact that the two front court cells were so insistently destroyed as part of what seems to be a particular Asmaka campaign to negate (or at least to disregard) the significance of Upendragupta’s great caitya hall would in itself suggest that the other two (rear) cells were not allowed as residences either, during the period of vigorous Asmaka control from c. 475 through 478. Such a conclusion finds support in the fact that their pivot holes show very little wear indeed; and what there is could very likely have resulted from occupancy after 478, when many new donors added their intrusive votive images to the facade and court walls. If you stand near the extreme right corner of the facade and sight past the doorway, you will see that the opposite facade wall is wrenched forward in a curving arc. The reason for this surprising warp (in a cave otherwise so carefully constructed) is revealed by the fact that the farthest point of the curvature is in direct orientation with the rays of the rising sun at the winter solstice’ (Dec. 22). In the same way, but less dramatically, the “rival” Asmaka caitya hall was apparently intended to have its axis oriented to the summer solstice.
238 The low bench is characteristic of cisterns; the cell was apparently cut back for this purpose.
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This need to consciously warp the plane of the facade also explains the surprising misalignment of the two pillared court cells, with their sumptuously overflowing (purnaghata) capitals. They were added to the caitya hall complex very late, clearly after the main façade was warped as mentioned above. The fact that they are not placed exactly opposite each other, as would be expected if laid out from the start, is because they are set equidistantly from the warped main façade plane, and thus reflect its decisive curvature. This is probably when the roughed-out right wall, along with the other lower parts of the facade was finally trimmed back and supplied with its carved decor, for the realized motifs go well beyond anything being done in the caves still underway in 468. Fortunately the façade’s left wall could rather easily be skewed at this point by leaving the façade thicker and thicker toward the left. This could not be done at the right, because of the presence of a deep niche cut in the inside of the right front wall; but in any case it was not on this side that the outward curvature of the plane of the façade had to be adjusted. If we ask why such a tightly organized cave involves this surprising warping—which extends to many of its elements—it seems clear that the new solstitial requirement may well have been sent down as an order from the capital, where the patron and/or his officials wanted to do the newest thing. However, up in the rarified atmosphere of the court, they did not realize that, given the already advanced stage of Cave 19’s excavation, orienting the cave to the solstice was in fact impossible. With the stupa at the rear already exposed, it was beyond the abilities of even the most creative excavators to properly satisfy the absurd demands suddenly put upon them. So they resorted, out of what must have been desperation, to that old friend, expediency. Just why such a solstitial orientation was important, not only in Cave 19, but in the caitya caves 26 and 29 as well, is hard to say; other scholars perhaps can find justification in the literature. But the importance of establishing the proper solstitial orientation is manifest when one sees the remarkable adjustments made to in the struggle to achieve it both in Cave 19 and Cave 26. Had the planners and architects known from the start, there would have been no problem; they could merely have shifted the layout of their halls at the start in such a way that they were properly aligned—thus avoiding all of these troubling twists and turn. This would seem to be the
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case in Cave 29, which was not begun until 469, by which time the solstitial orientation for caitya halls was apparently conventional, and the excavators could plan their work accordingly, and in advance. By the same token, Cave 19’s handsome portico has also been twisted into alignment as much as possible; but it is still over ten degrees off the solstitial axis, because it must have been impossible to adjust the positioning of the earlier roughed-out pillars more than that, no matter how they struggled to subtly shift them toward the desired axis. This very obvious and totally unprecedented “wrenching” of the cave actually starts at the rear of the hall, where one can find many subtle adjustments leftward in the shaping (or conscious “misshaping”) and positioning of the stupa and its umbrellas and even garlands, the slight “misplacement” of its off-center Buddha image, the squeezing leftward of the pillars and the vault ribs, and the notable staggering, section by section, of the center-beam. However, if you stand in the court and look straight through the portico, you can see how much the stupa resisted relocation, despite such obvious efforts; it is located very much to the right of center. Indeed, it was an impossible task to get the whole cave lined up satisfactorily, for when it was first roughed out, with no intention of having a solstitial alignment, it was some twenty degrees off the ultimately desired axis. We might say, that having already gotten the cave partially reamed out, it seems like madness to have been determined to wrench it around so stubbornly in this way. But this only stresses how important the project was in the eyes of those who did it—or rather, of those who ordered it done. And if our “solstitial” explanation may seem overly ingenious, the challenge must rest with those who question it; for the adjustments are so consistent and so remarkable that they insistently demand explanation. If the workers at Ajanta were attempting to do the impossible in warping Cave 19 so radically, the explanation may well lie in the remoteness of this rapidly developing site from the capital, where the responsibility for Ajanta’s planning ultimately lay. Just as today, despite the advantages of modern communication, orders coming down from Delhi may be misunderstood and yet carried out inadvisably, in deference to a remote authority whose orders may make more sense on paper than in the stone. Is it possible that Upendragupta (or his advisors), having heard that the rival Cave 26 was being oriented to the summer solstice,
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and thinking that his own caitya hall was still only barely begun and/or presumably could be adjusted, ordered that it be shifted into alignment with the winter solstice, even though in fact the work of reaming out the interior had in fact progressed too far to make this feasible. However, orders are orders, especially when they come from on high, and as a result—so we hypothesize—the planners and workers at the site, out of respect, fear, enthusiasm, stupidity, and/or pride, went boldly ahead attempting to do what in fact could not be done. However, even if my observations about the solstitial orientation of the three caitya halls are Ajanta are correct, this still does not explain why such a solstitial orientation was important. No scholar whom I have asked can so far give a meaningful answer, beyond the observation that any connections with the equinoxes or the solstices almost certainly had some meaning to the people of those days, even if not for us. As a final note, I should mention a situation which I encountered recently while on tour, and which is certainly revealing in suggesting that an alignment with the solstice at Ajanta may have been in some ways important to the Vakatakas and Vakataka patrons. I was visiting a grand old man in the city of Basic (ancient Vatsagulma), which is known to be the ancient Vakataka capital, established by the western branch—Harisena’s branch—of the dynasty. As we were walking toward the major temple in the town he just casually mentioned: “You know, this temple is oriented to the solstice”.
Cave 20 If most of the caves throughout the site reflect the trauma caused by the emperor Harisena’s death in 477, Caves 17 through 20, as well as the nearby Cave 29, memorialize an earlier crisis—the defeat of Upendragupta, the local ruler, by the aggressive Asmakas in 471. At that point all work at the site stopped completely for a period (estimated) of three years—the Hiatus. Then, in about 475, most excavation at the site started up again.239 Only the excavations of 239 The span of what I call the Hiatus—involving the local war and the shift in control from the local king to the Asmakas—is arbitrarily given as three years, although it could be shorter or (less probably) longer. What supports the idea that
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the local king show no further development now that the Asmakas were in control, although Upendragupta’s large Cave 17 did continue in use during this period of Asmaka rule, probably because of the site’s housing demand, already in use as a residence, remained active.240 Upendragupta’s splendid caitya hall—the rival of the Asmaka’s Cave 26—was apparently closed to the public, as was Cave 20, while Upendragupta’s second caitya hall had been abandoned earlier, during the Recession, when Upendragupta had to rein in his ambition to “cover the world with stupas and viharas.” (Cave 17 inscription. Cave 20, like the other caves of this ambitious group, was undertaken by Upendragupta at the very beginning of Ajanta’s renaissance. It tellingly reflects his desire, stated in his Cave 17 inscription, “to make the great tree of religious merit grow”. His developing obsession appeared after the time when “the thunderbolt of impermanence”, by causing the death of his beloved younger brother, made him intensely aware of “the consciousness of transience”. Far smaller than Upendragupta’s vihara, Cave 17, and lacking the grand form and function of the caitya Cave 19, Cave 20, despite its often exquisite detailing, seems to have been accorded a relatively low priority from the start. However, its lesser status became particularly evident after 468, when the rival Asmakas had started troubling the region. Although Upendragupta decisively expelled the Asmaka patrons from the site at the end of 468, a well-justified fear of retaliation caused Upendragupta to stop work totally on most caves at the site while he still ruled the region, since he was obviously expecting war and finally realized the need to build up his defenses. In fact he even began to reduce expenditures on his own excavations, notably those other than his meaningful center for the site, his highly significant Caitya cave 19. In fact all work in the little Cave 20 appears to have been cut off decisively with the start of the Recession in 469, to be resumed only in about 471—the very end of this painful period. As we shall see, the evidence for this confirms what we might well have expected in any case—namely, that Upendragupta did not merely order work
it occupied about three years is that many Ajanta workmen went to Bagh for necessary employment during the conflict, and later came back with a wealth of ideas. Such migrations and transmissions take time; the changes effected at Ajanta in this regard were quite profound. 240 For the continued usage of Cave 17, see Volume III, Cave 17.
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on other caves stopped at the end of 468 because of the Asmaka threat, but also limited the support of his own excavations to a significant and increasing degree. If one had only the evidence of Upendragupta’s two larger caves (Caves 17 and 19) to go by, the effects of the Asmaka threat would not have been at all obvious until almost the moment of the king’s loss of control in the region in 471. But Cave 20 makes it strikingly clear that the problem had been afflicting Upendragupta increasingly from 468 onward. When Cave 20 was begun in 463 or 464, just shortly after Upendragupta’s larger and more central Caves 17 and 19, there was no hint of its dark future whatsoever. Approached by steps supplied with a candrasila and flanked by elaborate spouting-makara balustrades, the porch is raised above a handsomely moulded plinth similar to some seen in the palaces depicted in Ajanta’s murals.241 Two small holes at the top of the balustrade may have been intended for banners, lamps, or other functional devices; similar holes were cut, possibly for the same purpose, in the top front corners of Cave 19’s portico. The facade colonnade seems to announce both its patron’s importance and his intentions with a regal sumptuousness so far unrivalled at the site. However, such an elaborate cave front would never have been conceived when the little cave was intended to be nothing more than a mere dormitory. It was transformed when it was realized the cave was going to become a residence for the Buddha, not just for the monks. When the program for the cave was originally conceived the porch colonnade would have much plainer. The shafts of the pillars were probably intended to have typically early plain octagonal types with the relatively simple capitals found in many of the earliest caves at the site.242 It is clear that ( just as in Cave 2’s porch colonnade or Cave 26’s interior pillars) the shafts, probably still roughed out, were transformed in about 468 into far more complex multi-sided forms. At the same time, the still-rough capitals were even more dramatically transformed with the addition of elaborate
241 See Mahosadha Jataka on left rear wall of Cave 1for a representation of an upscale structural building. 242 We must assume that the capitals were at first very grossly rouged out—which is quite possible (see Cave 24; Cave 5 interior); otherwise the brackets could not have been revealed.
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female brackets, with Buddha groups carved on the fronts and yaksas on the reverse.243 The complexity of such carvings makes it reasonable to date these transformed colonnade pillars to 468, when work throughout the site was still going on with a particular vigor. Furthermore, the fact that the pillars, especially at the lower levels, never were finished, would support such a view, for the vigor of earlier and better days was gone even as early as 469, at least in this beautiful but relatively minor excavation. Obviously, expelling the Asmaka trouble-makers did not solve the king’s problems, who himself was feeling the necessary new constraints, and the need to prepare for a darker future. Ultimately, the only patron not affected by strictures of the Recession was the Vakataka overlord himself—the emperor Harisena. During the Hiatus when Asmaka and Risika was battling it out in the region, work on Harisena’s great Cave 1 could not go on, but otherwise Cave 1 stands quite aloof the local political conflagrations, developing with a similar vigor both when Risika “owned” the site up until 472, and then when Asmaka took it over, from 475 until the moment of Harisena’s death late in 477. The wooden prototypes for such goddess-brackets must have been widely used in the contemporary palaces or temples upon which the artisans would have worked before coming, or being sent, to this new and exuberantly developing site. However, to render them in stone was surely a challenge (albeit a welcome one) to the cave’s sculptors, who would have had no experience whatsoever in excavation work prior to their coming to Ajanta. It is equally suggestive of the significance and taste of the patron, that the capital faces of these pillars and their associated pilasters are carved rather than painted. This elaboration, surprising at such a relatively early date, appears not only on the capital fronts, where preaching Buddhas, flanked by elephants (appropriate for a royal cave) appear, but on the capital backs as well. There seated yaksas, with their female attendants, are shown on the two central panels, flanked by fabulous leonine creatures, playfully pestered by dwarfs. Even the modest inner faces of the pilaster capitals are carved. That on the right, the site’s smallest 243 The desire for elaboration, seen in these pillars, is emphasized by the fact that there are yaksa groups carved on the back of the capitals. This is the only instance at the site where the backs of capital have been carved.
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representation of Avalokitesvara as Protector of Travelers, shows, along with a kneeling devotee, only an attacking elephant and a threatening snake on one side, and what must be a drowning man (praying for salvation) in the lower left corner—the conventional location for the shipwreck scene. The left pilaster shows the complementary Vajrapani, with his crown and his thunderbolt, on the equivalent inner face. From the outer pilaster faces flying couples converge upon the cave. The fine decoration of these porch shafts and capitals, like that of the antechamber pillars within, appears to reflect the forms developed for the influential caitya hall next door; but this decoration was never quite finished. Like so much of the rest of the detailing in the porch, this fine work of what is in effect a revision of the originally conceived simpler motifs, must have been begun just before the Recession occurred at the end of 468, for after that year serious problems started to afflict the cave. At this point many elements both inside and outside the porch, including minor details of the fronting colonnade, had not been finished, and were never destined to be. Only the unnecessarily complicated quasi-structural porch ceiling, probably conceived and added when the cave became thought of as a shrine rather than a mere dormitory seems to have been fully completed before the Recession. Underway shortly after 466, it probably both anticipated and influenced the treatment of the front aisle ceiling in the prime minister’s Cave 16. Indeed, in these halcyon days when it seemed that all things were possible, the workmen even took the time to skillfully repair a few faulted areas of the ceiling. They affixed a pair of special stone or wooden inserts (now missing) where a flaw had cut through one of the major beams, and nearby, a lesser beam is similarly repaired. And yet, as we shall see, the beamed ceiling itself was done in two phases—the three central sections being probably underway around 466, after the porch had been fully roughed out. The two small end sections were carved slightly later, being added when the porch ends were cut back. This adjustment to the plan in the course of excavation was done to allow for new cells to be placed at these points, following a new and assertive convention starting in 466 and ending by 468, during which time porch end cells were added whenever possible. These cells at the ends of the porch, unless we analyze them very carefully, seem to contradict our assertion that the still not quite
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finished porch was underway in 464/465. So how can we explain why, in this active period, it took so long, in such a small excavation, to get the porch cells underway? The answer is that these cells are added features. When the porch was first excavated, it was provided with plain porch ends, following Hinayana precedents, like all other porches excavated prior to 467. However, at this point, perhaps stimulated by the desire to provide living space for the waiting monks as early as possible, convention changed; rapidly, throughout the site, the plain porch end walls, generally revealed well before the walls of the interior, had cells added to them. However, in the case of Cave 20, this revision was not that simple; for it went well beyond the mere cutting of the new cells in this area. The work-order, perhaps originating in the capital where officials did not understand the implications of their demands, may have merely required that cells be added here, as in so many cases throughout the site at this time. If so, they did not take account of what was almost the presence of a cistern at the left of Cave 20’s court. Actually, the presence of the (assumed) cistern necessitated some time-consuming and expensive work, since the new cell (at least on the left) had to be raised high up above the porch floor level, and also had to be troublingly set back. In lieu of breaking the cemented court floor up, and getting at the truth directly, we should note that the heavy cementing-in of the floor of the left court of Cave 20 supports the assumption that there was indeed originally a cistern (now filled up and covered with cemented) at this point. Indeed this should be expected, considering the precedence given to such cisterns at the site, while the rather isolated position of this cave, which would preclude easy sharing with some other patron’s water supply, further argues for the cistern’s presence. In this regard one can note that on the left side of the porch’s plinth, there is a raised platform—common for cisterns at the site— which has a telling concavity—just right for the placement of a water jug—cut into this platform. Such features are surely best explained by the assumption that there was a cistern in this area; and the imaginative eye can even note the area where water was channeled down from the mountain above, even though the losses to the cliff face in this area make such a reconstruction uncertain. However, the most telling evidence bearing upon the presence of a Cave 20 cistern is the curious elevation of the left porch cell, which
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would seem to have taken careful account of the fact that this cistern—as expected—penetrated well back in this area; cisterns characteristically extend well under the excavations which they service, to provide adequate water storage. In fact, the cistern would, typically, have been made rather early in the course of excavation, surely before porch end cells, which were added to all caves wherever possible, were added here, as elsewhere at the site, in 465 or 466. But in the case of Cave 20, porch cells—at least at the left—were not that easily added. The clearly demanded certain adjustments, which can best be explained as due to the presence of a our (assumed) cistern, and the possibility that the often flawed rock in the area might caused a breakthrough in the cistern if further excavation was not handled with great caution. When the cell was necessarily raised up, for safety, over the cistern below, this in turn required a decisive set-back, in order to provide a step—a candrasila—to facilitate entrance to the cell.244 The right porch cell was then not only set back, like the left porch cell, but it was somewhat elevated too, for reasons of esthetic balance, a concern similarly expressed in other related situations at the site.245 We can in fact be sure that these set-backs represent a significant adjustment of the original porch plan, when we refer to a groundplan of the cave. The ends of the porch can be seen to have been (anomalously) extended beyond the margin of the cave’s interior walls, to allow for the positioning of the new cells, both at left and right. That is, the porch end walls and the interior side walls are not aligned, as was conventional at the site; the convention has been broken in order to accommodate the two porch end cells. To add to the weight of evidence explaining the various adjustments necessitated by the making of the new porch end cells we can see that the complex porch ceiling has been extended into these set back areas. One can see that the carved beams in these added areas are not quite as precisely defined as the slightly earlier central beams; nor do they properly line up with the latter, as is particularly evident at the right. At the same time, we can see that these extensions of the porch ends were made before the porch wall in those 244 Candrasilas carved in front of cell doorways are generally an early feature, as in Cave 20’s interior cells. Here, in cell PL it of course serves a significant functional purpose, since the cell is so elevated. 245 See Cave 7 pillared complexes; Cave 17 porch cells.
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areas was smoothed down to its present level, because no division between the old and the new corners of the rear wall shows. Thus we are able to say that the still-not-completed smoothing of the porch wall was occupying the workmen in 468 or possibly 469, the only two years (based on the cumulative evidence of other caves throughout the site) when cells with B mode fittings were made. Indeed, we would probably be right in asserting that all of this work was done in 468 (the cells probably being penetrated even slightly before that) because the evidence within the cave, as we shall see, suggests that work throughout was drastically disturbed by the beginning of the traumatic Recession; serious further work was only picked up again when it seemed essential to get the cave finished, as was eventually the case in 470 or more probably 471. Further confirmation that the porch cells were well on their way to completion in 468 is to be found in the fact that their doorways were conceived with no outer recesses; that is, they must have been finished before 469, since from 469 on such outer framing recesses were standard features. It is likely too that the completed ceiling (including the extensions) was plastered at this time, surely with the expectation that the porch walls, along with the nearly completed doorways and windows, would be ready for plastering (and subsequent painting) shortly thereafter; but these expectations were aborted by the Recession. Even minor unfinished details, like some at the base of the porch pillars or on the candrasila or on the border of the porch doorway, would never get finished now. Finally, we can confidently assert that the cell at the left end of the porch was finished (although minor details remain uncut) in either 468 or 469, since it shows the characteristic monolithic projection of the B mode fitting, a doorway type cut only in those years. It is more likely that it was fitted out in the earlier (pre-Recession) year of the two, for 468 was the far more vigorous period of the two. This conclusion would seem to be supported by the evidence of the “matching” porch cell at the right, which has been elevated slightly to better balance the appearance of its necessarily elevated counterpart on the left. It too had a monolithic B mode fitting, but the fitting broke either from a flaw or during the course of carving. Probably because of the troubled temper of the times starting in 469, it was not replaced during the Recession. Instead, the door was finally hung, but now on the still intact “wrong” side, with a much later recessed D mode variant during the Period of Disruption, at
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which time the cave was briefly used, after years of forced abandonment. By the same token, although it would not have taken long to finish at least a few of the already exposed interior cells, and provide them with proper doors, no one troubled to do so; again, the Recession was casting its dark shadow over any such plans. The sporadic character of this cave’s overall development is also reflected in the slightly unfinished condition of the main porch doorway, which like so many features in the cave was abandoned before its decoration was fully completed. Its unusual decoration appears to be a diffident reflection of the richly complicated shrine doorway begun in Cave Lower 6 at about this same time—probably 467–468. As for the manner in which the doors were hung (or at least prepared for hanging), it is not surprising that it was an A mode type; that is, it was merely opened up, but had no provisions for attaching the doors—a problem for all similar cell doorways too, which were made prior to 468. In 468, however, the B mode, utilizing monolithic projections for the doors’ pivots, first appears at the site, and is used immediately in all doorways still underway. At the same time, most of the “useless” A mode cell doorways were converted to a quasi-B mode type, with an applied (wooden?) projection; this substitute (the A+ mode) obviously worked sufficiently well, as its widespread use attests. This same kind of attachment for the upper projections was applied to Cave 20’s porch doorway too; and although the wooden projections on either side are now long since missing, we can still see the A+ mode peg-holes which held the projections in place, and must have been applied in 468, or perhaps slightly later, once this new technology had been developed. The two windows equally reflect the problems of the cave, for only one of them was provided with the peg holes necessary to secure the exterior shutters; here again, the work is left half-finished. In terms of their shaping (now disguised by the recent cementing-in of the lower portions), they are of the short-lived contemporaneous type found also in Cave 15 and also once planned for Caves 5 and U6 (and probably other caves as well). However, in the latter excavations the early forms were later totally cut away in the process of enlarging them in 475 or later, to conform with developing fashion. But Cave 20 enjoyed no such post-Hiatus patronage, so a transformation of the window type would not be expected. Cave 20’s curiously designed interior was influential enough to have been the chief source for both the plan and the decorative
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scheme of Buddhabhadra’s Cave 26LW, a connection made in those happier days when the Asmakas and Upendragupta were enthusiastically (or at least competitively) developing the site together. Cave 20’s hall may already have been deeply penetrated by 465 or 466, well before the splendid sculptures were carved on the face of the antechamber; indeed, early excavators at the site often concentrated (as in Cave 26) on roughing out the whole excavation before starting the detailed work. The use of such a procedure probably explains why, when the conception of the cave changed from dormitory to shrine, its porch colonnade could still be so dramatically revised even though a number of years had passed since the time when it was roughed out. Although when Cave 20 was started, the concept of vihara shrines had not yet developed, by the time that the cave’s hall was being penetrated, starting in about 466, the new, indeed revolutionary, shrine concept would already have been developed for Cave 20 and indeed for all other caves at the site. Surely the intention was to locate Cave 20’s Buddha in a conventional shrine fronted by a shrine antechamber cut at the center of the rear wall. However, by the time that the excavators had penetrated a few meters into the hall, a serious problem arose. An extensive and complex crack was revealed toward the rear of the main hall (extending to the center), and it was so serious that it would have been unwise to continue cutting the astylar interior in the way originally intended. Therefore the planners, reaching this area by about 466 or 467, very creatively and wisely brought the antechamber forward at least eight feet, using it as a support for the cracked ceiling. But it must also have seemed to be a most reasonable use of otherwise “wasted” space, transforming the old-fashioned interior into something new and effective, even if remains a monument to expediency. In any case, the antechamber, judging from the superb quality of its fine fronting pillars and surrounding frame, must have decorated in the still happy contexts of 468, just before the Recession so direly affected the progress and quality of work on this cave, and indeed delayed the exposure of the shrine beyond. The seven historical Buddhas appear on the antechamber’s upper frame—the center panel adjusted for the notorious flaw—while powerfully realized naga guardians, which can be numbered among the most beautiful images at the site, appear below. Seated loving couples—so comfortably sharing the stage with the Buddhas, just as in Cave 17’s roughly
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contemporaneous porch doorway—appear above the nagas, while the two splendid river goddesses, shaded by fruit-laden trees, further enhance the beauty and auspiciousness of this entrance. It is likely that the figure on the right represents the river goddess Yamuna, for her attendant stands upon a turtle. Her counterpart, more typically, stands upon the makara; this is generally the case at the site, although on some very late doorways the females have no vehicles at all. Needless to say, if we can interpret the right goddess as Yamuna ( Jumna), the left would be Ganga (Ganges)—the pairing so popular in Gupta contexts during this general period. But the matter remains to be resolved; they may be generic rather than specific river goddesses, if we are justified in calling them river goddesses at all.246 It is clear from the fact that Cells L1 and R1 inside Cave 20 were defined before projecting fittings (B mode) came into fashion, that they had been at least roughed out by 466 or 467, even before the porch cells were undertaken. This is a reasonable assumption, since porch cells were invariably afterthoughts in the earliest excavations. Indeed, R1, the only interior cell fully blocked out) was likely penetrated before the hall’s plan was drastically revised, for its doorway opening is noticeably different from the others in the cave, and it is course located at the front of the hall. It is placed very low, apparently opening directly from the level of the (still then unfinished) floor.247 The complex projecting frame may have been added to it later, surely after the cave’s switch from a mere dormitory to a more ambitiously planned shrine-hall. Such fancy frames would never have been added to a mere dormitory, which is what the cave was surely still intended to be when R1 was first penetrated, presumably in 466, just before the shrine concept had taken hold of the cave. At this point, in 466, the interior could not have been fully roughed out, but it must have been planned as a conventional early vihara, with a square hall having cells on its three sides. The present cells Since the Ganga/Yamuna combination is found in may late fifth or early sixth century sites which develop out of the ruins of the Vakataka dynasty, it may be appropriate to see them as “Vakataka” forms—even though the ultimate source is presumably Gupta. 247 The excavator of Cell R1, starting work at the top, may have misjudged the doorway’s placement; it is quite possible that the expected candrasila had to be sacrificed to allow for more headroom in the doorway, particularly if its surrounding frame had already been roughed out. 246
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L2 and R2 had not been penetrated at this point; although very unfinished, both might have been planned for the B mode door type, which never was used before 468.248 Indeed, that might explain why they both were never fully excavated: immediately after 468, most of the energy went out of the undertaking, probably because the workmen here were commandeered to work on the grander Caves 17 and 19. This is surely why Cells L3 and R3, located at left and right rear, never got penetrated at all. From 468 through 470, the little cave remained virtually in a state of hibernation, only to be awakened by a last minute rush, in 471, when Upendragupta determined the get the shrine Buddha, along with the shrine doorway, done. This was the type of effort that would get him merit; and in the anxious context of that year, the finishing of cells or proper smoothing of door frames and the like hardly interested him at all. At this point (c. 467) the hall’s walls and much of the floor would still have been very rough, for now the peculiar door frames and high candrasilas, were cut for L1, L2, and R2, a related door frame being now supplied to (and adjusted to) R1 as well.249 It seems likely that the shift from a mere dormitory to its present more elaborate plan actually took place when the shrine concept came into the site in 466, the very time that Cell R1, with its forward location, was underway; and that at this point the cave’s enhanced status justified the addition of the elaborate frames and assertive candrasilas for the other three cells. This required the addition of a frame to Cell R1 as well, even though it would not fit in the same way, since R1’s simple doorway was apparently conceived more humbly and cut at a lower height, with no expectation of its later being elaborated, as turned out to be the case. But by the time of the Recession none of the projecting door frames, nor the interiors of Cells L1, L2, and R2 had been fully 248 Cell L2 (and thus probably R2) could not have been planned for the later C mode because, in the course of cutting it there was no matrix left at the floor level which could have been cut into lower projection. 249 The walls of the hall may have been still so rough in the area around Cell R1 that the frame could be cut from the surrounding matrix. The site has many examples (e.g. Cave 4) where the cell doorways were cut when the surrounding walls were still in a very rough state. The only alternative for Cell R1 is that the projecting frame was already reserved (as in L3 and R3) when the cell was cut. This alternative may in fact be easier to accept; but it would mean that the concept of the hall had already changed (to now honor the Buddha)when Cell R1 was started—a quite acceptable alternative.
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finished. It is notable in this regard that the inner front walls of both L2 and R2 are cut in such a way that B-mode projections may well have been revealed, had work continued.250 This, and the fact that the cutting of both was abandoned, is consistent with the dating of their abandonment to the end of 468, as victims of the new (and justified!) anxieties about the future. Later on, however, almost certainly in the Period of Disruption, some of Cave 20’s cells were finally put into use. The fully excavated Cell R1, like Cell PR, was then provided with a D-mode fitting, while Cell L1’s inner doorway was given a late recess, presumably for the same purpose. However, L1’s pivot hole was never cut, perhaps because the cell itself was not yet fully finished. Cell R2, with its rough and thick front wall (from which a Bmode projection could have been cut) was now provided with a highly expedient and obtrusive fitting which crudely breaks through the wall. Like similarly late fittings in Cave 16—called here E-mode— it apparently justified its ugliness by its flexibility, and by the fact that it required only the roughest type of recessing. It might also be noted that, as in Cave 16, the front walls of all six of Cave 20’s cells—as expected in early contexts—are very thin, despite the fact that some were not begun until 467 or 468, when somewhat thicker walls were more generally made.251 In both these caves and in certain others, this was probably due to the excavators adhering to the originally laid-out prescriptions in the interest of consistency; the same rule generally held for the treatment of pillars in caves where the creation of the peristyle bridged both early and late phases of work at the site. Even in its happy youth—from its beginning to the Recession— Cave 20 clearly suffered from the fact that, for all its virtues, it apparently had less status in the eyes of its royal patron and/or his planners than his grander Caves 17 and 19. The fact that so many minor details, even in the porch, are unfinished, suggests that after
250 Cell L2’s unfinished ceiling is at the level of the top of the doorway; since it still must be raised a monolithic projection could easily be revealed. In Cell R2, the unfinished front wall is so thick that when cut back, the excavators could reveal a B mode projection. Instead the trimming was never done, and in the Period of Disruption, an expediently conceived E mode was provided. 251 Cell R2’s front wall is admittedly thicker, but that is because it was never fully trimmed down.
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the initial enthusiasm which in 467 or 468 efficiently sponsored the elaborate capitals and brackets of its colonnade, its workers were continually being called away to work on its neighboring excavations. This assumption also helps to explain the striking similarities between some of the figural and ornamental carvings, as well as the pillar forms, of Cave 20 and those of Cave 19 and (to a lesser degree) Cave 17. This would also provide an explanation for the fact that, after being underway for more than five years, the little cave was so unfinished; even its porch walls had not been fully smoothed by the time of the Recession, although the fact that the porch ceiling was plastered (but not painted) just prior to that time suggests that this was about to be done, in normal course, just before more troubled times began. Admittedly, an earlier burst of enthusiastic activity, starting in 466–467, had been brought about by the sudden urge to add shrines to all such old viharas. This explains the dramatic revision of the cave’s plan as well as the obviously committed focus on decorating the front of the shrine antechamber, and possibly even laying out the shrine doorway. It is evident that all the walls of the hall, and of both the front and the interior of the shrine antechamber, were at first merely roughed out, leaving plenty of matrix from which the strongly projecting carving of the antechamber front, the shrine doorway, the projecting cell door frames and the revealed beams up above (related to the deeper beams in the porch) could be later defined. But it was clearly the antechamber’s handsome front, which received the most immediate attention, along with the carefully smoothed inner antechamber walls, all of which were nearly finished when work was suddenly interrupted by the Recession. By contrast, the lower priority cell door frames, and some of the hall’s wall surfaces, were then in a very rough state, as they still remain. The door frames of the two anticipated cells at the rear (identified for convenience as L3 and R3) were merely blocked out at this point, the cells themselves not being penetrated, surely due to the effects of the Recession.252 The clearly visible carved projection which can be seen under the plaster on the right rear wall of course proves 252 We can assume that the projecting doorframe of L3 (which would have opened from the rear wall) was originally similar to that of the similarly placed R3; but the frame of L3 was cut away in the Period of Disruption, when a Buddha was carved at this point.
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that matrix for their curiously old-fashioned projecting door frames had been earlier reserved.253 The quasi-structural door-frames in Cave 20 are unique at the site, although they bear a possible connection with the arched decoration of a number of doorways in Hinayana caves at the site. It is interesting that, slightly later, the Vakataka Prime Minister Varahadeva used related motifs in the porch of his nearby Ghatotkacha vihara, just as his Cave 16’s front aisle ceiling appears to have been influenced by Upendragupta’s quasi-structural porch ceiling. It might be noted that a sculptor broke his chisel in the hasty roughing out of the door frame of Cave 20’s Cell R1. The point is stuck in the stone at the upper right. Since there is so little evidence, other than that of the chiseling of the rock, regarding the tools used at Ajanta, this fragment is of interest. A very similar one was found caught in the rock in Cave 1, but was removed by a worker and subsequently lost. Much of the hall floor must have been still quite unrevealed when this burst of activity took place in the cave’s interior between 466 and 468. Cell R1’s doorsill may well reflect its level at this point, for traces of the matrix which lay just beneath it are still visible, never having been fully cut away. The candrasilas of the slightly later cells L1, L2, and R2, as well as the plinth of the shrine antechamber, all appear to reflect the same matrix level. The candrasilas of the anticipated (but never penetrated) cells at the extreme rear were cut away when the matrix for their reserved door frames was so summarily plastered over at a later date. However, the vigorous activity which characterized work in the cave in 468 quickly came to an end when the Recession started in 469, and (presumably) both funding and workmen were withdrawn. So the situation in 468, immediately before the Recession, was this. The porch, with its various added features, needed only minor finishing touches on the walls, pillar bases, candrasilas, and doorways; the porch ceiling was now plastered, in anticipation of the final trimming of a few areas of the wall, after the plastering of which the whole porch would have been painted. However, as it 253 The peculiarly shaped roughness which borders the left cell doorway in the porch may represent traces of such a projecting doorframe, which was cut away to save time; if so, the situation would have been the same at the right, where the evidence has been even more fully trimmed away completely.
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turned out, this end was never achieved, even after 468, for given the troubles in the offing, this was a low priority concern. As for the recently redesigned interior, by the time of the Recession, the ceiling surface had been fully carved. The floor was mostly finished, although the rear left corner still needed final trimming. Even by 471 this was never done, so limited was the attention paid to this little cave in those years (469–471) when it would appear that Upendragupta’s priorities were focused elsewhere. The walls were properly cut to their final level, carefully reserving the old-fashioned “revealed” beams above, along with the still partially roughedout cell doorway frames, features which required a further trimming which they never got.254 The front of the shrine antechamber may well represent the approximate (and of course somewhat varied) depth to which the old open hall had been cut by the time that Buddha shrines for viharas became the rage at the site, requiring the planners to shift their focus from designing a mere dormitory to creating a now-necessary shrine. This assumption that the hall was quite deeply penetrated before a shrine was added may explain why the shrine antechamber is relatively shallow, and why the (unfinished) cells along the side walls, but not their rear counterparts, had already been largely cut out by 468, or perhaps just before, first in the A mode (L1, R1) and then apparently in preparation for the B mode (L2, R2). Presumably the B mode was originally intended for the doorways of L3 and R3; by of course they were never exposed. Certainly by this same time, still a particularly vigorous period for activity throughout the site, the focus of attention had become the making of the new shrine and shrine antechamber. It can be assumed that the beautiful front of the shrine antechamber was fully revealed and carved by 468. Furthermore, the carefully smoothed rear and side walls of the antechamber strongly suggests that they were also underway when times were still good.255 Furthermore, since the shrine doorway strongly projects at certain points, its frame, like those of the cell doorways, appears to have been reserved and roughly blocked 254 These quasi-structural beams and doorframes were clearly revealed at the same time, as can be seen from the concerted way in which they meet; also, at the right rear, the fact that neither yet has been defined supports this conclusion. 255 By contrast, in Cave 17 the rear walls (including those of the antechamber) were clearly rushed, as the excavators tried to get the shrine Buddha carved and dedicated in the anxious milieu of 471.
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out at the same time, or its projecting elements would have been cut away. Significantly, the general format of Cave 20’s shrine doorway, at least in its blocked-out form, appears to have been the source of the doorway design for Cave 26’s Right Wing, which was roughed out (as it still remains) in 468, just before the Recession cut work off on the Asmaka caves. With the beginning of the Recession, work languished on Cave 20. It appears that work on both its shrine doorway and its barely penetrated shrine was now left in abeyance until 471. Then Upendragupta, who had given work on the related Cave 17 shrine priority, ordered them rushed to completion in that anxious final year of work, when the Asmaka threat was becoming all too much of a reality. Clearly deriving from their counterparts in Cave 17, neither was fully completed, as we shall see, when time finally ran out at the end of 471. In striking contrast to the finished walls of the shrine antechamber, dating to 468, those of the shrine are very rough, while the space within the shrine is troublingly cramped. This can best be explained by the assumption that it had only been shallowly penetrated by the time of the Recession, and that it was then left that way while the patron and the planners, as they apparently had done in the past, pulled the workers away from this less important cave, in order to attempt to complete the more important Caves 17 and 19, and to forward the work on the king’s newly inaugurated (but soon aborted) “second” caitya hall, Cave 29. Needless to say, although work broke off because of the Recession, Upendragupta and his planners would have had every intention of completing the shrine in due course. Furthermore, convention at this point probably would have required the image to be placed in the center of the shrine chamber.256 But for the present the whole cave lay abandoned as far as any more work was concerned. Of course monks may have taken up expedient residence in the more finished cells, but only one of them (PL, itself not quite finished) had a usable
256 The four earlier shrines (Lower 6, 7, 11, and 15) all were probably planned for a centrally located image, following stupa shrine precedents; however, just as in Cave 20, the centralized plan was not realized in Caves 7 and 15, because of insufficient time. See discussion of those caves earlier in this volume; also Volume I, Chapter 3.
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door fitting at this point—a B mode fitting which can be dated to 468. It was not until the “eleventh hour”, in 471—and then under great stress—that a hasty attempt was made to get the image and the still-roughed out shrine doorway carved, and (together with lesser tasks) to expediently decorate the main hall. As in all of Upendragupta’s caves, there was, even in such ominous times, a clear intention to adhere to “regal” esthetic norms, even in rushing the cave to completion. It is evident that the desire to give Cave 20 its proper due clearly affected its artisans at first, despite the expedient nature of the endeavor. One can judge this from the fine quality of the ceiling painting, so carefully coordinated with the cave’s underlying “structure”, which is expressed by the revealed beams along the walls, in the shrine antechamber, and in the porch as well. The richly varied motifs on the ceiling also confirm this intention, even in the fairly generous use of expensive blue pigment. At the same time, the ceiling’s iconographic complexity is consistent with its dating to 471, for its “coffer” motifs, which include various human or anthropomorphic figures, are more developed than those ceilings which were painted immediately before or immediately after the beginning of the Recession—notably those of Cave Lower 6, 16, and the porches of Caves 11 and 17. Similarly, some of its beam-motifs, enriched with the presence of playful painted dwarfs—appearing here for the first time—anticipate the more developed compositions found in the ceilings of the post-Hiatus phase. It seems evident that, even with time running out in 471, Upendragupta’s intention was to finally, and hurriedly, decorate the whole hall. However, due to the imminent threat from the Asmakas, the plaster on the walls and door frames now had to be applied expediently over surfaces (notably the cell door frames) which often had not been fully smoothed or which, like the still-not-penetrated two cells at the rear with their unfinished and unpainted door frames, were summarily covered over; even the floor beneath the projected cell L3 was not smoothed, due to the pressures of time.257 We can 257 Even when this area was taken over by an intruder, who put a bhadrasana Buddha directly upon the unfinished doorway (which consequently was cut away), the floor below remained untouched.
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be sure that the plastering of the ceiling and the walls, and of the painfully unfinished door frames was done in a single campaign. This is evident not only because there is no break in the composition or the application of the plaster in the hall, but also because drips of paint from the ceiling have spattered upon the coating of lime-wash with which the plaster was finished; this “proof ” of the (expected) priority of the ceiling painting is evident from the drips in a number of wall areas which although plastered, were never painted. In fact, by the time the painting of the wall was undertaken, it was about ten minutes to midnight and time was rapidly running out. The decoration of the walls is cursory, to say the least. Two wide bands of green, a few feet apart, divide the wall-surfaces of the hall and shrine antechamber into three horizontal divisions, but only the middle one was ever even partly decorated; those above and below show nothing but a lime wash. Although most evidence is lost, enough remains in the area between the two bands to state that much of it was expediently covered with a simple running lotus scroll somewhat like in Cave 17’s main ceiling, or on the walls of Cave 2 at Bagh. All in all the wall areas which in fact got painted cover only about ten percent of the plastered surface. The smooth surface of the shrine antechamber walls suggests that they have been defined, like the antechamber’s beautiful pillared front, as part of the unhurried program of work that was going on before the Recession. Even though the small antechamber ceiling shows no traces of plaster or paint, we can probably assume that, like the shrine ceiling, this is due to pervasive losses in this area, which must long have been the abode of bats and other creatures. Remains on the left antechamber wall are now illegible, but one can see a row of standing Buddhas at the upper level of the right wall, and fragments suggest that other Buddhas appeared below. Mere traces of paint on the rear wall suggest that the attendant bodhisattvas appeared in their expected positions; this paint, and the thin layer of plaster beneath, may have been of a piece with the not-quite-fully-carved shrine doorway, the painting of the antechamber’s rear wall having been put off, logically, until the carving of the doorway had been completed. Of course, at the last moment, when their was not hope of a reprieve, the uncared portions of the doorway were summarily finished, along with the rest, the Buddha image being treated in the same way, with plaster and paint taking the place of proper chiseling, as time ran out.
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The very fact that only the center strip on the hall walls was decorated—and this by no means completely—and that the planners now opted for such a simple schema rather than the complex narrative murals that one would expect in such contexts, eloquently attests to the fact that in the minds of the planners—and in reality too!—that the end was near. Of course the “abandonment” of the porch decoration, in normal situations invariably completed, or on its way to completion, before the decoration of the interior was underway, points to the same conclusion. There is no suggestion here, nor even in the higher priority Caves 17 and 19, that there was much— indeed any—hope for the future. The affliction with which Upendragupta was now visited in retribution for his earlier excesses—his expensive pieties, his lavish charities—was a mortal one. A situation also reflecting the problems of this latter day can be seen in the shrine, which had been only very shallowly penetrated when work on the cave was ordered stopped at the beginning of the Recession. Had work been able to go on at this date, the Buddha image would almost certainly have been located in the very center of the shrine, just as in Caves Lower 6 and 11, and as would presumably have been the case also in Caves 15 and 7, had they not been rushed to completion in at the very beginning of the Recession, in early 469. Indeed, this was the convention right up to 471, as a study of the images in Cave 17 and Cave 1 and Cave 4 all prove, when one analyzes the development of their shrines, which often evolved between the time that they were originally laid out, and then as they ultimately developed, attempting to throw off the old conventions. Now, however, in 471, with time running out, the planners of Cave 20 opted to start the Buddha image without doing any more excavation than was absolutely necessary. This resulted in an anomalously constricted—very shallow—shrine interior; it is just deep enough to allow the double doors of the shrine to be opened. At first, just as with the fine hall ceiling, the carving of the Buddha was done with a pride and care that belies the tension of the times— or, one might even say, bravely defies it. With its paired bodhisattvas (never found in shrine images prior to 470), flying dwarfs, dwarfspouting makaras, the still-simple wheel flanked by deer, and the newly “structural” (legged) throne base, it is clearly modeled upon the same patron’s great image in Cave 17 (470–471), and quite possibly was even done by the same sculptor(s). In fact, it “improves”
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upon its prototype by the addition of a richly laden mango tree and an extra (second) pillow behind the throne.258 However, by the time that the workers were carving the throne base, and the lower portions of the attendant bodhisattvas, the same overriding concerns impressed themselves upon the work here, just as in the decoration of the hall. The roughed-out legs of the left bodhisattva, and especially the totally undefined legs of the bodhisattva on the right were expediently (one might say shockingly) finished with mere mudplaster, along with the merely roughed out right throne-leg. Then the whole expediently “completed” image was hastily painted, and the shrine’s double-door was hung, while the still-rough shrine walls and ceilings—despite the crucial importance of this area—apparently received nothing but a coating of plaster, and then a simple layer of green wash. Significantly, the situation in Cave 17 was very similar, for the whole of Upendragupta’s impressive complex of caves was facing the same dire political realities at this time. As noted above, the complex shrine doorway was probably roughed out, or at least plans for it developed and the necessary stone reserved, just before the Recession, when the whole shrine antechamber was being so exuberantly revealed. Indeed, the fact that its design appears to have been copied by the doorway of Cave 26RW, an Asmaka cave which had to be abandoned at the end of 468 would seem to show that it had been at least blocked out at this time. However, like so much else in the cave, it must have been abandoned by 469 due to the deteriorating situation at the site. Then, before time completely out, Upendragupta must have demanded that it be finished and its image finished and dedicated. This further and final detailing must have been taken up in 471, at the same time that the Buddha image was so vigorously undertaken, in an expedient last minute rush. It seems likely that Upendragupta could not believe the imminence of the Asmaka threat until very late—really too late— at which point his vaunted quality controls yielded to haste itself. It is ironic that after such a proud and complex start, probably earlier in 471, the doorway was finally “finished” by the end of that
258 Since the mango tree, beautifully rendered here, is associated with the Sravasti Miracle, some connection might have been in the minds of its creators. See Brown 1984.
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year with a cursory coating of thin plaster and then paint, the latter hastily covering over the unfinished left border of the otherwise elaborately carved doorway. We can only explain the fact that the doorway was hastily painted before it was even fully carved, by seeing this as a breakdown of controls in a cave which three or four years earlier conformed to the highest standards. The fact that the unfinished doorway appears to have been plastered and painted, quite logically, along with the rear shrine antechamber wall, (which probably once had the conventional bodhisattva) strongly suggests that the decision to finally paint the unfinished doorway was made at the beginning rather than at the end of the final phase of work on the cave in 471; for it was at this point that complex images such as the bodhisattvas would have been and could have been done, and that elements such as the unfinished borders of this shrine doorway (or other such elements throughout the cave) were expediently covered over, in order to forward more essential work, or work that under the circumstances could be easily accomplished. Such a conclusion is supported by the very similar treatment of the shrine Buddhas in both Cave 17 and Cave 20. The Cave 20 image, a smaller version of the grand image in Cave 17, had been started with great care and efficiency early in 471 after a few years (since 468) of virtual abandonment by its royal patron. And the parallels between the image and the doorway remain when we see the way in which they are both “shamelessly” rushed to a sloppy completion later in 471, when time was precipitously running out. Indeed a further parallel is to be seen in the painting of the hall, where (as mentioned earlier) the whole ceiling got completed with energy and discipline, but where the walls below were hastily plastered before the projecting cell door frames could be fully defined, and after which the painted decoration was applied in a most cursory and partial and even shameful manner. However, given the developing Asmaka threat, it is a wonder that this cave, like the larger Cave 17, even got done at all. After all this urgency, we can certainly believe that the Buddha image was dedicated, and the deserved merit gained. In fact, we can be sure of this by virtue of the fact that a number of intrusive images were added to the cave during the Period of Disruption; and at Ajanta such intrusions were never added to caves where the shrine image had not been dedicated. Furthermore, it seems clear that the double shrine doors (both in Cave 20 and Cave 17) were carefully
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hung in this final and ominous year, 471.259 However, since it is almost certain that the cave was not used for worship (or perhaps even for residence) during the period of Asmaka control over the site, it appears that most of the wear in the pivot holes is ascribable to the Period of Disruption (mid-478–480) and the few subsequent years when some monks were still residing at the site. As this and Upendragupta’s other caves show us, evidences of the precipitous ending of this unlucky king’s control of the site are everywhere; and they are suggested too by the apparent hastiness of his fragmentary inscription on the shaft of Cave 20’s left porch pilaster.260 As the carefully prepared but empty panel in Upendragupta’s adjacent caitya hall also suggests, it appears that time ran all too quickly out before the scribes in the capital could compose and then deliver a properly ceremonious record for either of these caves. The huge and already occupied cave 17 continued in use even after Upendragupta’s loss of control over the site, perhaps because residences for the monks were so sorely needed, and perhaps also because they were already solidly settled in the cave by the time the Asmakas had finally consolidated their hold over the area. However, due to Asmaka antagonism both Upendragupta’s splendid Caitya Cave 19 and Cave 20 appear to have been essentially abandoned from the beginning of the Hiatus in 472 until the Period of Disruption (mid-478–480).261 Indeed, it is worth noting that the standing Buddha
259 Shrine and porch doorways do not follow the same precise rules as cell doorways, but there is a general correspondence between them. The shrine doorway of Cave 20, like that in Cave Lower 6 (of 468) with its projecting beam, would seem to be a variant of the B mode, which in cell doorways is always ascribable to 468 or 469. However the shrine doorway in Cave 20 could not have been cut and fitted out until 471, when the C mode was invariably used, and the C mode properly adds a base projection as well as one at the top. The fact that the Cave 20 shrine door has no lower projection can probably be explained by realizing that when the doorway was first penetrated a few years before the lower matrix was innocently trimmed away, which would not have been done in 471; for in 471 the lower matrix would have been reserved for a proper C mode fitting. 260 See Cohen 1995, #84 and Appendix B, pages 387–393 (“A Discussion of the Cave 17 Inscription, Line 10”) where he disagrees with my identification of the donor of Cave 20, 17, and 19 as “Upendragupta”: see Spink in Parimoo (ed.) 1991, and previous articles. This identification is supported by Chandrashekhar Gupta in “Authorship of Ajanta Caves 17 to 20”, in Parimoo (ed.) 1991. 261 The Period of Disruption began in mid-478 in the main (“Vakataka”) scarp, when the patrons had to flee due to the Asmakas rejection of Vakataka overlordship. Established Asmaka patronage continued throughout 478; in the Asmaka caves, the Period of Disruption started in 479, continuing until the end of 480.
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showing abhaya mudra, which fronts the stupa of Cave 19, and was planned by Upendragupta as the focal image of the site, was seldom represented during the period of Asmaka rule over the site. An apparent exception is a small Buddha on the shrine doorway of Cave 26LW, where the hand could not be shown in the preferred (varada) mudra because of a fault in the rock. Yet this Buddha, like all of those just below him, is apparently a walking image, and not the proscribed type.262 During the Period of Disruption (mid-478–480) other donors took over the cave; an intrusive image (datable to 479) at left rear has cut away the reserved door frame which (as at the right rear) must once have been there. The two seated Buddhas in the porch, both painted, similarly usurped that not quite finished area. As traces of plaster suggest, there were probably also now-lost intrusive paintings on the porch walls. Typically, the ill-paid workers of this latter day attached a doorway in the highly expedient and very late E-mode. They chiseled a hole right through the cell’s thick and unfinished front wall, to allow the easy insertion and adjustment of a wooden pivot holder; and they did this without even going to the trouble to trim the doorway down first.263 A short distance away, in Cave 16, now free of Prime Minister’s control, the same sadly expedient type of work was being done, also during the Period of Disruption. The evidence of the shrine doorway further defines the situation, for it was fully plastered and painted; and yet significant portions of it—notably the outer borders on the left—were never fully carved. Its “completion” can surely be assigned to 471, not only of because the expedient way in which it was finished, but also because it is so clearly derived from the more cohesive (and finished) shrine doorway of Cave 17, from which it borrows its somewhat pointless T-shaped format and its varied catalog of seated and standing Buddha images.
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The only apparent exceptions are the various representations of this “proscribed” type in the multiple representations of the Buddha in Cave 7, all done in 477 and especially 478. If the donor of Cave 7 had some special dispensation, or was perhaps a friend of the Asmaka controllers of the site, this might explain why he could break the “rule”. 263 Naomichi Yaguchi suggested the practicality of these anomalous fitting types, which could be made quickly and could be easily adjusted for proper pivoting of the door.
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As mentioned above, the smooth surface of the antechamber walls suggests that they had been defined, like the antechamber’s beautiful pillared front, as part of the unhurried program of work still going on up until the Recession. If this is true, then the gap of time between these portions on the one hand and the associated shrine doorway and shrine image on the other, further shows how work on the cave languished—albeit a bit nervously—until Upendragupta, in a burst of anxiety, accorded it renewed attention, probably in ominous year, 471, itself. Just as the painting program of the hall falls apart, after a good start on the hall ceiling, and just as the plans to properly complete the shrine doorway fall apart under the pressures of the times, so the fine Buddha image too, finally reflects the desperateness of the developing situation. The surprisingly cramped dimensions of the shrine chamber—which barely allows the double doors to swing open—makes it evident that, under the pressure of time, the planners decided, for expediency’s sake against centering the image in the shrine in the “traditional” way, as had surely once been intended.264 So in this case expediency overruled convention, as was often the case at Ajanta, when time (or the lack of time) necessitated. However, it turned out that it made such good sense to allow the image group to spread out—particularly to provide space for the newly conventional bodhisattva attendants—that this new shrine arrangement became de rigeur throughout the site in the period from 475 onward. The Cave 20 Buddha luxuriously sits against two pillows instead of one, and now has a richly laden mango tree behind him, an unusual addition. But otherwise, the paired bodhisattvas, flying dwarfs, dwarf-spouting makaras, the still-simple wheel flanked by deer, and the newly “structural” (legged) throne base all directly link it to the larger image in Upendragupta’s other vihara, Cave 17. The still-rough right façade of Cave 20 shows traces of mud plaster, almost certainly suggesting that this area once had an intrusive painting or paintings; the originally planners would not have plastered over such an unfinished area before the Recession, nor bothered with it after that time. 264 All earlier images, even that in Cave 17, were planned to be centered in the shrine, even if in the case of Cave 7 and Cave 15 the original central plan had to be aborted because they had to be rushed to dedication. Even Cave 1 and Cave 4 were originally intended as centralized image, even though by 475, when work on them was renewed, no one wanted centralized images any more.
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Cave 21 Cave 21, inaugurated slightly before Cave 23 and Cave 24, and perhaps as early as 466, was probably started in 465, with the cutting back of its court area. The cave, very similar to but slightly earlier than Cave 23, must already have been rather deeply penetrated by the time work throughout most of the site was interrupted in 468, although the pillared complexes in the aisles, the beginning of the shrine antechamber, and all of its carved and painted decoration belongs to its post-Hiatus phase. As originally planned, in 465, the cave would have had no shrine, and no complex cells, either in the porch or in the interior. Even at the time that the front pillars of the peristyle were roughed out (possibly as early as 466) the shrine conception may have not been developed, and so the axial pillars of the front aisle may not have been supplied with a widened intercolumniation. If true, this could be why, untypically, the space between the front central pillars does not match that between those at the rear—the latter of course not having been cut until well after the Cave’s shrines was already planned. It would appear that the front central pillars, if not originally showing a widened intercolumniation, were displaced slightly outward when the matrix which would have surrounded them was cut away in such a manner (by “cheating” of “squeezing”) that the space between them was somewhat widened, even if not as much as would have been desired, if it had been anticipated from the start.265 Although the detailing of these pillars, and most of the excavation of the interior, belongs to the cave’s post-Hiatus phase, we can get some idea about how far the excavation had progressed in the first few years, before the recession of 468, by noting that the wall at the end of the left aisle has been smoothly finished like the main wall of the porch. This is characteristic of early, rather than later, procedures, so it suggests that work had progressed this far before it was first interrupted by the Recession at the end of 468. Significantly, this conclusion seems to be confirmed by the evidence of the cell doorway, whose top is ten inches higher than the top of the (I assume) 265 The shrine was already intended, in 466 or 467, when the front center pillars were cut, and therefore the desired widening of the central intercolumniation. However, it is just possible that is was necessary to “squeeze” them slightly by cutting away more the excess matrix on the axial faces.
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later door opening in the right end-wall, whose much rougher surface relates it to post-Hiatus procedures. At the same time, it should be noted that the front wall of Cell L1 is very thick, suggesting that, although it was penetrated by 468, it still had not been very fully defined by the time work was interrupted. This low-priority status characterizes the dark front walls throughout the site. Thus Cave 21 was relatively simple at its inception; but (and this is characteristic of the rapid developments at the site) it picked up new ideas and forms as it went along, so that by the time it was nearing completion in 477, it represented the Vakataka vihara in a very elaborated form. Already, when work was interrupted at the end of 468 by the Recession, its porch had been fully shaped, while its porch walls were carefully smoothed in a typically early fashion. The fact that this careful finishing of the surface extends into the vestibule of the left porch complex would seem to confirm the assumption that this complex was already well underway when the Recession occurred; and it stands to reason that the porch doorway and the two windows would also have been penetrated by that same time, even though their décor would not have been applied until the second phase of work on the cave, after 475. It is also quite likely that, in the pre-Recession phase, much smaller and vertically oriented windows were planned, as in other contemporary early caves. However, if so, they have been happily masked by rebutting, when the new square types which become conventional from now on, were supplied to the developing cave. Since the great monk Buddhabhadra and his planners appear to have been responsible for all of the caves at the western extremity of the site, and since, in the pre-Recession phase, the approach to these excavations was to define the main areas first before starting work on cells and decorative and “structural” details, it seems likely that the basic space of the porch had already been carefully defined and the walls smoothed by 465 or 466, thus allowing the porch cell complexes to have been started shortly after they came into fashion in 467 and 468; the ambitious excavations developing in the western extremity were nothing if they were not up-to-date. However, this new feature immediately caused anxiety on the part of the planners, for it is clear that when Cave 21 was first started no provision had been made to fit these “extended” features into the space which had been carefully allotted to this cave and the neighboring Cave 23, which had also been conceived with simple
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single cells at its porch ends, rather than these new and space-consuming complexes. This is immediately evident when we view the cliff-face from across the river, and compare the stretch of rock between Caves 21 and 23 with that between Caves 23 and Cave 24; the latter space was obviously planned to allow doubled-and-pillared complexes, as opposed to single cells, at the porch ends. Something obviously had to be done, if Caves 21 and 23 were to keep up with the times; and there was no question but that this was their intent. Therefore, since the porch of Cave 21 was already essentially defined and could not be “moved”, the only alternative was to displace Cave 23 (whose porch had not yet been penetrated in 467) sufficiently to the left to squeeze in the two abutting porch end complexes. We shall discuss the consequences of this shift for Cave 23 (and indeed for Cave 24 and the Cave 26 complex) in due course, but for the present we must note how carefully the Cave 21 planner conserved on his share of the newly extended space. For there was not much leeway! If we look at the right porch complex in Cave 21, we see what could be called an uninhibited example of such a complex; the vestibule is ample in depth and the cell beyond is normally commodious. But by contrast, when we see the left porch complex, parsimony is the rule. By carefully reducing the depth of both the vestibule and the cell beyond the planner has saved over three valuable feet, and still has a properly fashionable complex, even though it would not be decorated, nor the cell door fitted (in the D mode) until after the Hiatus, when the Asmaka presence became paramount at the site. With work on the porch so advanced by 468, one can (correctly) assume that the shaping of Cave 21’s interior had gone on apace. It is clear that, by 468, the excavators had not yet reached the rear of the cave, for if they had penetrated the shrine antechamber before the Hiatus they would never have reserved matrix for brackets on the antechamber pillars at such an early date. Concentrating on the shaping of the interior space, they probably had not even started on the cells; indeed the thickness of the front walls of the cells is suggestive of a later date. However, they would have blocked out most or all of the pillars, and would have carefully given an appropriate emphasis on the approach to the shrine by widening the intercolumniations of the central axial pairs, possibly having to “cheat” in the case of the front pillars, as mentioned above.
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This is clear evidence that a shrine was planned by the time the peristyle was underway, even though the cave was probably being thought of as nothing more than a mere dormitory for the monks when it was being planned, surely by 465 if not earlier. Obviously, the fancy pillared complexes which add such interest to the interior would not have been found on the drawing board in 465 or 466; and just as in the porch there would not have been really sufficient space for them at that early date, because the almost contemporary Cave 23 was already conceived as abutting Cave 21 so closely. Such proximity was appropriate at the time these two caves were planned, because space here at the western extremity of the site was far too valuable to be wasted. Although pillared porch cell complexes suddenly become common features at the site in 467 and 468, such pillared complexes never appear in the cave interiors until after the Hiatus.266 The very first examples, starting in an idiosyncratic manner in Cave 2, were intended for occupation not by monks but by tutelary divinities (yaksas and/or yaksas) and, appropriately, consist of forward chambers alone, where those powerful residents could be easily seen and worshipped. However, almost immediately, copying the vestibule-cum-cell format of the pillared porch complexes, they begin to appear in other late interiors as well, being located not only at the rear, as in Cave 2, but also at the mid-points of the left and right aisles. Considering the overall development of the late caves, the combination of all four complexes may have been first conceived by the obvious enthusiasms of the patron of Cave 2, probably none other than the great monk Buddhabhadra himself, with the high character of his “housing society” in mind. These were all to be impressively decorated, not only with well-wrought fronting pillars, but with fine carved panels above. They also offered the chance to optimize the living space in the caves, by the addition of “extra” cells opening laterally from the inner chamber, although such additions were only made to the rear complexes. The patrons of Cave Upper 6 and of the Ghatotkacha vihara very soon followed suit, in planning 266 Actually, the first appearance of such complexes, which in turn may have been possibly suggested by the pillared court cells of Cave 1, are those in Cave 7, underway in 467 and 468. But these are really elaborated porch-cell complexes, even though the area was clearly used as a hall, with the shrine at its rear center. Nonetheless, both their complex design and their lateral positioning may have influenced the planners of Cave 21 and its counterparts.
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similar complexes both at the sides and rear of their caves, and even Mathura, in Cave 4, may have at least wished to do the same.267 But none of the latter got far enough by the time of Harisena’s death, to be supplied with carved panels like those in Cave 21, as would surely have been the case if troubles in the area had not disallowed such intended developments. In Cave 21, the complexes at the mid-point of the left and right aisles would not have been penetrated until after 475, considering the overall development of the interior, to say nothing of the “late” thickening of the wall between the vestibules and the inner cells of these complexes, in preparation for their late D mode doorways. By this time, considering the “disaster” which developed in the cutting of the abutting right porch cell of Cave 23, the planners must have been all to cognizant of a similar potential problem if Cave 23, as probably expected, replicated the slightly earlier interior arrangement of Cave 21. In other words, the expected pillared cell complex to be placed at the middle of the right aisle of the slightly later Cave 23 might well break into the similar complex at the middle of the left wall of Cave 21. This is surely the reason that the Cave 21 excavators, working after 475, reduced the depth of that complex’s vestibule in the same way that, much earlier (in about 468) they “constricted” the vestibule of the earlier left porch complex, leaving the untroubled right complex without such constraints. By contrast, the unthreatened pillared complex at the middle of the right wall (Cave 21, R3) has (like Cell PR) the expected normal dimensions. That the same thing happened here, in pillared Cell L3, surely tells us that the planners of Cave 21 knew that the still uncut complex at the middle of the right aisle of Cave 23 (Cell R3)was being planned, and promised to present a problem, although we can now assume, that unlike the blind or stupid excavators of Cave 23’s right porch cell, they would have constricted Cell R3, as necessary, when the time came. However, as fate (or history) would have it, the planners of Cave 23 must have decided that such mid-aisle complexes were superfluous, and consequently omitted them (or removed them) from their plans. Although this would be immediately understandable in 478, because of the serious constraints imposed upon developments 267 In both the Ghatotkacha vihara and Cave 4 (?), the addition of such late features was made difficult by the fact that the areas needed on the side walls already had been planned for earlier simple cells, and to some degree obstructively penetrated.
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in that final year, the reason for the omission is not easily evident in 477. However, we can note that in the grand Cave 24, which can hardly have been troubled by lack of funds, the mid-aisle cells were also omitted, so it appears that in these particular cases the trend, unexpectedly, was away from rather than toward complexity. Whereas it appears quite certain that, when the excavators of Cave 21 started the left mid-aisle complex (L3) they reduced the depth of the vestibule for the reason given, they must have discovered, sometime in 477, when their work was going on vigorously, that Cave 23 was no longer presenting a problem with regard to the complex cell, and for this reason they were able to make the inner (residence) cell with the desired normal dimensions, now matching its counterparts on the right and at the rear. As soon as the Asmakas had taken over control of the Ajanta region at about the beginning of 475, work on Cave 21 resumed, and now finally various elements that had only been blocked out by 468 could be completed and decorated, taking advantage of the many stylistic and technological changes which had occurred in the meantime, particularly in the royal caves (1, 17, 19, 20) upon which work had continued during the Recession. During 475 and 476 the porch colonnade, the doorway, the windows, and the porch end cells were now elaborately decorated, while more general excavation, and the cutting of the cells and shrine and the final definition were gradually being accomplished. The present colonnade pillars are cement replacements, but the character of the now-lost fallen pillars can be seen in rare old photographs, which show conventionally developed shafts with bands including as many as thirty-two flutes alternating with fine floral and geometric bands.268 They had lain on the porch floor for centuries before being painstakingly rolled into the ravine during some unfortunate “site clean-up”, perhaps a century ago. Happily the porch colonnade’s pilasters, being integrated with the surrounding rock, have survived. Their early position within such post-Hiatus developments is clearly reflected in their beautiful but still relatively simple design, in which florescent makaras fill the rich medallions and half medallions above. These designs stand mid-way, as it were,
268 A few such fallen shafts can be seen in ACSAA fiche 45:29. The damaged condition of the interior can be seen in ACSAA fiche 45:48 and 45:49.
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between the slightly less “developed” forms of Cave 1 and the further elaborated examples in Cave 24, where loving triads finally appear. The adjacent friezes over the porch end cells yield less to “developmental analysis”, being similar to the complementary naga and yaksi (specifically Hariti) or yaksa groups in Caves 2, 23, and 26. The porch end colonnades just below equally delight in their elaboration, which is even further extended in the more developed “purnaghata” (overflowing vessel) capitals in the slightly later Caves 23, 24, and 26. Although bilateral symmetry is an almost sacred rule in both the layout and the decoration of Ajanta’s Vakataka caves, one of the few variations allowed and perhaps even “required” is the treatment of these porch end colonnades, which typically vary in design from one porch end to the other, left and right. Cave 21’s position as the earliest of the triad of related caves— 21, 23, and 24, is witnessed by the somewhat old-fashioned non-trabeated format of its porch doorway. Here the goddesses, with their crocodilian vehicles (one here intriguingly human-headed) and now attended by little companions, still stand directly on the pilasters, instead of being shifted into the flower-bordered arms of a “T”, as in later doorways. The naga guardians, the lovely loving couples, even the focused flying dwarfs holding cauris—those below pouring out coins—now are increasingly familiar items in an auspicious vocabulary. It is clear that the preliminary shaping of the doorway in the preRecession period must have been very simple, for it is clear that its complex moldings were developed only later, since stone had to be reserved for the converging dwarfs above and the strongly projecting nagas below. One major problem involved a serious flaw on the right side, caused by a “volcanic pipe” which can be seen continuing on its destructive way between the projecting dwarf and the mithuna panels in the upper corner. Matrix intended for two couples has broken away, clearly before they had been defined, as a tiny portion of untouched stone at the upper right of the damaged area reveals. A characteristic repair—with a set-in stone (now lost) was made in the damaged area of the surround with a scroll-motif, but there is no evidence of such a replacement—more difficult, surely—for the missing couples. Quite possibly this “repair”, which surely taste demanded, had been “put off until later”; but later never came in the desperate rush of last-minute work in 478.
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The porch windows are very similar to those in the related Caves 23 and 24, being typically late deep and decorated types, the earliest of this post-Hiatus form probably being that in Cave 2. Of course, these windows had surely been penetrated even before 468, but at that time windows were conceived with shutters on their front, an inconveniently primitive arrangement that one finds even during the Recession, when Cave 1’s windows were similarly defined. The notably thick walls and pillars of all of these later excavations reflect a trend that may have been recommended by the startling collapse of Cave 4’s insufficiently supported ceiling sometime between 469 and 474; but the trend was surely amplified by what was seen and learned in the massively designed sandstone caves at Bagh, where so many of Ajanta’s workers went for work as well as for safety in the late 460s and early 470s, during the difficult times caused by Asmaka’s threat to the Ajanta region. Thus areas such as the cave’s front wall and the front walls of the various cells in the cave are notably thicker than any done prior to the Recession.269 The influence of the Bagh experience, after 475, is pervasive. It explains, for instance, why the windows are now conveniently closed from within the cave, their pivoting shutters being efficiently recessed within the deep walls, rather than affixed to inset wooden frames on the exterior, as was the case prior to 475. This repositioning of the previously obscuring shutters freed the area around the windows for the suddenly conventional carved bordering motifs seen here and, with minor variations, in all completed porches at Ajanta done in the site’s remaining years. Again, the designs would seem to connect with those at Bagh, probably being brought back to Ajanta with the re-inauguration of work at Ajanta in 475. This gradual thickening of the structural elements of the caves in general, and the direct influence of features developed at Bagh in the early 470s, can also be seen in Cave 21’s interior with its solidly composed peristyle and heavy beams above. But it is equally evident in the thick front walls of the residence cells, where the deep inner recessing, again learned from Bagh, allows for the new and 269 Cave 21’s front wall had of course been penetrated by 468, but in normal course would have been left very thick and rough at first anyway, allowing its final thickness. Since the porch complexes were probably not started until 468, it is likely that their inner cells were not defined until after 475, as their D mode doorways would confirm; there is no evidence that they ever had the B mode fittings datable to 468.
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far neater (D mode) closure of the pivoted cell doors than was possible previously, when the doors shut against the often uneven cell wall. Although Cave 21 was still quite unfinished when Harisena died many of the cell doorways had been fitted out by that year or the following (478) so that they could be occupied; and it is clear from the wear in the pivot holes that this use probably went on for a few years even after the established patronage of the site was a thing of the past. The main hall’s peristyle is composed of pillars with neatly carved and carefully varied shafts rising from the conventionally late square bases, a feature recommended by the fact that they provided ideal panels for paintings of yaksas and nagas and the like, such as can still be seen in the happily well-preserved Cave 2. Typical of much of the very late work at the site, the pillar capitals, while skillfully and confidently realized, lack the innovative touch of earlier days. (At Ajanta “earlier days” generally means a year or so before!) Except for the important and characteristically elaborated rear central pillars, which show stupas on their capital panels, all of those inside the peristyle as well as the central pillars of the front row repetitiously boast of two loving couples each, flanked by other flying couples on the capital ends. It is intriguing to note how the carver of the badly flawed capital of pillar L2 has placed a tree rather than some more recalcitrant motif in the center—the area of the flaw. In fact, he may have chosen this somewhat surprising two-couple composition as a way of avoiding the flaw, in which case we might further suggest that he then mirrored this image, for balance, on the opposite (R2) capital, with its delightful music-makers. The carved capitals of the front corner pillars, with their exuberantly filled arches between roiling makaras, and the turbulent beast and dwarf panels over the main pilasters (the latter, so linked with Cave 19, by now a popular motif ) add to the richness of the cave’s design, as do the four skillfully ornamented main pilasters. The curious substitution of half-medallion formats where we have come to expect full circles appears to be a temporary “aberration” which, except for some modest influence in Cave 23, has no future. Perhaps it was conceived in order to allow more space for the painted motifs which (as Cave 2 shows us) must have been planned for the bases of these pilasters; indeed, square-based pillars probably owe their secure establishment throughout the site to the fact that they provided
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such paintable surfaces. By the same token, the fairly decisive shift, starting in Cave 1, to rounded rather than ribbed under-surfaces for the pillar capitals, also allowed effective painting in these highly visible areas. In Cave 1, and later in Cave 26, supporting dwarfs are painted on these nether surfaces; but because of the expediency with which the planners of Cave 21 had to rush their revised painting program, all during the difficult context of 478, these areas were decorated in the simplest possible (even though colorful) way. Cave 21’s tendency toward effective even if not particularly varied elaboration manifests itself equally in the four pillared complexes cells into the interior, most of which were well on their way to completion when work on them was suddenly interrupted by Harisena’s death. A naga and a yaksa flank the seated Buddha in the handsome frieze over the pillared complex at the left rear, which is not surprising; but this can hardly be one’s reaction at the right rear, where the naga is the central motif, and the Buddha, along with a yaksa is in attendance! This is such an inappropriate arrangement that one is tempted to ascribe it to confusion on the part of the sculptor, who may well have been unaware to the significance and the priority which should have been given to the Buddha image. The pillared complex at the left center insistently repeats the loving-couple pattern seen on so many of the cave’s pillar capitals, and we can be sure that the right complex would have been similarly decorated, had time not run out with Harisena’s death. Indeed, just before, it had already been carefully smoothed in preparation for the carved panel, and whereas there was no time now to carve such an “inessential” motif, even in the interest of properly adhering to the intended decorative program, it is significant that the already prepared area was left “open” when the surrounding walls were hastily plastered in preparation for painting. Obviously there was some hope, perhaps even a conviction, that in the fullness of time the missing relief could be carved; and such expectations were not necessarily futile, for this was an Asmaka cave, and it was the Asmakas who were confidently expecting to continue controlling the region and to continue their work on the caves, after the forthcoming conflict which they were fomenting was over. When the shock of Harisena’s death hit the site at the end of 477, the excavation of Cave 21 was already well advanced, even to the point that large eye-hooks (sometimes only the holes remain) were placed at all major points at the top of the walls and over the
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pillars. They were obviously for garlands—intended to be seen— rather than for lamps or curtains; significantly, they are omitted at a few darker points such as the area over the rear faces of the front center pillars. We should also note that, once again, proving this Asmaka patron’s optimism, some of the hooks appear to have been applied after the crisis hit, for they occasionally appear in rough areas (such as over the shrine antechamber pillars or in the stillunfinished part of the right wall) which in normal times would certainly have been properly smoothed before any such hooks were applied. Even though the patron was already thinking about filling the cave with flowers, there were still so many unfinished details, particularly in the shrine and shrine antechamber, as well as the trimming of the borders of various cell doorways, and the smoothing of most of the rear wall, that no plastering or painting had been begun as yet in the hall. The porch ceiling and walls had already been plastered in 477, but now they were to be left unpainted, in order to concentrate on the interior, which would be unusual in normal course.270 By the time of Harisena’s death, the bracketed antechamber pillars were already roughed out, as was the shrine doorway, with its complex format, though never were to be finished, as it turned out. The Buddha image—of the still somewhat old-fashioned Cave 2 type—was surely already underway when the crisis occurred, and of course its completion was a matter of the highest priority. However, even though the patron had to face a new reality, and to expedite his work, with a confidence now more “Asmaka” than “Vakataka” he obviously felt that even in the midst of everyone’s mounting concerns in 478, he could somehow manage to expediently plaster and paint the whole interior and also (most important of all) get the image done and dedicated. To be fair, he faced up to reality to a large degree. Renouncing any further interest in the porch, he ordered his workers to plaster the ceiling, pillars and walls of the hall, even covering over the untrimmed edges of any unfinished cell doorways—something which 270 Unlike the left porch complex’s vestibule, that at the right was still rough when it had to be abandoned in 478; however, after 475, attitudes had changed and rough walls in fact the norm, since it was finally realized that they held the mud-plaster better. Therefore this vestibule, without any further smoothing, was also plastered sometime after 475—probably in 477, since the porch itself never got painted before Harisena died.
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was inconceivable in normal times. A revealing example of this expediency is to be seen on the wall just forward of the right rear pilaster. One can see how the excavators (in 477) had made a faint scratched guideline to aid in the cutting of the adjacent cell doorway’s outer recess, and then (in 478), hastening to get this area ready for the ordered painting (which was never done), merely plastered it over, making the proper recessing of the doorway impossible. An even more evident abandonment of well-laid plans is seen in the way the pillared cell L3 was fully plastered before the doorway to its inner cell was even trimmed. Indeed, the inner cell, with its typically late recessed door-fitting, was probably already in use by 477, like nine other cells throughout the cave, which similarly were supplied with doorway fittings, all of which show evidence of use. None, however, would have been plastered until the Period of Disruption, when of course monks were presumably in residence there, as the worn door fittings reveal. He then apparently specifically ordered a hasty and simplified mode of painting, intending to get the work done quickly and cheaply. The ceiling decoration started in the front aisle, but the painter doing it obviously did not get the point, for his compositions are far too detailed to meet the newly austere requirements. The three remaining aisle ceilings were painted as cheaply and as quickly as possible with simple and repetitive, but nonetheless effective, floral forms. Equal success in this regard is found in the lax design of the ceiling, where the painted faux beams do not properly articulate with the “supporting” pillars of the hall.271 The painting of the undersurfaces of the pillar capitals and the visible surfaces of the beams between were now painted with a speed and slackness that would have been unthinkable a year before, their decoration recommended by nothing more than the lavish use of lapis lazuli blue, which the traders, now that there would be so little use for it, must have been trying to unload after so many years of inflated prices.272 Although 271 The garland hook at the center of the large ceiling medallion, inserted in 477, obviously broke (leaving a stump) when it was being pounded into the receiving hole. It then had to be replaced by a second one close by, now missing. 272 I call this blue pigment “lapis lazuli”, a standard assumption, but the identification is not certain, since proper tests, although requested, have not been done. There is a significant difference between the carefully stipled, discreet, and apparently economical application of the blue used sparingly in Cave 1’s murals, and on the ceiling of Cave 2, and the irrelevantly lavish usage of blue pigment in many of the intrusive paintings, and on various intrusive sculptures.
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most of the colorful decoration of the pillars is gone, lapis lazuli, which survives better than most pigments, has been most effectively used to add gem-shaped “sapphires” to the decorative bands. As far as the painted decoration of the hall goes, this is as far as the workers got; the walls remain merely plastered, although a few had not even progressed that far. Obviously things were suddenly getting critical. Even though the Asmakas controlled the site, it was still subject to the vagaries of the political and economic situation. Although the site itself was in no danger, its funding, so dependent upon the interest of the Asmaka court, surely was; for war was again insisting upon its priorities. Unlike the “Vakataka” patrons, who were in effect expelled from the site when the Asmakas (as we know from Buddhabhadra’s Cave 26 inscription) rejected the overlordship of Harisena’s weak successor in mid-478, the Asmaka patrons at Ajanta did not have to leave because of any mounting threat from on high. Instead, after months of relative privilege throughout most of 478, it now appeared that their funds were being cut off completely because of the demands of the spreading insurrection which the Asmakas were both leading and fomenting. Since their goal was to destroy and then take over the great Vakataka empire, the Asmaka rulers now increasingly needed both money and men; and at least some of both they obviously (even if perhaps regretfully) decided to obtain from cutting off all further funding of their great complex of caves at Ajanta. Although it had been evident throughout 478 that money and perhaps time too was in diminishing supply, by the end of that year it is clear that some kind of not too distant deadline was suddenly imposed upon the site’s Asmaka patronage. They clearly had not a matter of months, but just a few weeks to finish what they could and then leave the unfinished caves, as well as the stranded monks, on their own. At this point, the patron of Cave 21 who (as we shall later see) may well have been the powerful Buddhabhadra himself ) took drastic steps to get his shrine, and the image, done before time ran completely out. He still had some hope, even as the clock ticked down, of “housing” the Buddha properly, although he now had to hurry more than before. At this point he made the harsh decision to slice off the unrevealed antechamber pillar brackets, which he had hoped to create as beautiful female forms, so that he could get the pillars finished both more cheaply and more quickly. But he was not even able to finish their excision, or at least did not trouble to do so.
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The patron’s attention had obviously focused now upon the shrine Buddha itself, a fine conception closely derived from that in Cave 2, and probably also underway in 476. But there were now problems; and so here again, as in the antechamber pillars, to save time and money, he decided to slice away the intended devotees, which at this date “should be” kneeling at the base. He then had to give up on the beautiful but unfinished attendant bodhisattvas, although he presumably completed their final definition expediently with plaster. As for the Buddha image itself, the form itself was well finished, except for the proper carved definition of the hair-curls, which now would surely have been painted on. As for the halo and the expected figures on the elaborate throne, they were never carved at all, except for a few brief chiseled defining lines.273 By the same token, the shrine doorway was never properly recessed and supplied with the expected pivot holes; so needless to say its double doors were never hung. But the image did get dedicated, just as the clock struck midnight. Thus the cave was “alive”, and this is evident from the fact that it has a number of intrusions, added in 479 and 480.274 Considering the importance and the attention given to such features, we should mention the presence of Cave 21’s spacious cistern, even though, perhaps because of the pressure to get the cave itself done, it was never finished.275 The long arcs being reamed out of the matrix on the cistern’s right wall give good evidence of how rapidly the gross excavation work must have proceeded. On the other side, one can see the ruined remains of the expected shelf or bench. The placement of the cistern at the right was understandable, given the proximity of the seasonal cataract just beyond; monsoon water would surely have been collected from this area. To that end, in 478, he started the process of plastering in the porch which, except for the very rough right cell complex, was fully excavated. It appears that the plasterers started on the porch ceil-
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There appear to be traces of paint on the image, as we would expect, since it was dedicated. However, analysis of this matter would be helpful. 274 For the intrusions see Volume III, Cave 21. 275 Much of the important evidence concerning the depth, extensiveness, and state of completion of the cistern—all matters which provide evidence bearing upon the history of this particular cave and of the site, has recently been destroyed with the totally unnecessary and unjustified filling-up of the cistern with tons of the cement with which the site has so long been afflicted.
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ing, which had been left somewhat rough (to hold the mud plaster better), covering this with a thick application of mud plaster, finished with a finer layer. The fact that this layer of plaster extends over the unfinished capital of the right porch pilaster surely confirms its dating to 478. This same fine layer was then used on the very smooth wall surfaces of the porch (still influenced by the carefully finished Hinayana models), the work being continued into the equally smoothed vestibule of the left porch complex.276 Although the situation is complicated, it would appear that the right complex, still very rough, was not touched at this time. This right complex, almost certainly, was plastered in the Period of Disruption, along with many of the interior cells, in which the monks must then have been residing, judging from the wear in the pivot holes of the cells actually put into use. It is of interest to note that the government’s Livermore Laboratory tested two seeds—such materials were typically used for strengthening the plaster throughout the site—taken from the very same mix and area of application in this right pillared cell. The results— although the seeds “dated” (quite impossibly) about 75 years apart, with some margin of error—essentially supported the so-called “Short Chronology” since they both came out with a fifth century date. The extent of this wear, as the evidence of usage, and the fact that the doors were probably not hung in the six finished cells until 477, (considering the unfinished state of the cave at that point), helps support the not surprising assumption that monks continued living at the site for some years after the Vakataka debacle. A monk also resided in the inner cell of the left porch complex (where the pivot hole is worn) but possibly because the vestibule had earlier been plastered, the inner cell was not included in the general plastering of viable cells, which was surely done all at once, by contract. Even while so much of the cave was still in process, and probably to help satisfy the need for places for the monks to live, the patron must have ordered the fitting out of the cells, most of which were nearing completion in 477. The careful carving of their deep inner doorway recesses, and of the pivot holes (which show evidence of wear) suggests that the nine completed D mode fittings were cut
276 As precedents, the vestibules of the court cells of Cave 1 were plastered in 477, and those of the porch cells of Cave 2 also in 477.
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in that same year, rather than in the troubled year to come. A number of the cells show traces of plaster, but it was surely added (as in most such cases) in the Period of Disruption.
Cave 22 The tiny Cave 22 was started at a very late date—probably not until 477—in an area directly above the porch cells of Caves 21 and 23. Its porch pillars are ugly replacements, but the form of the single original pilaster at the left—its ribbed capital hardly expected after the 460’s—suggests that the whole colonnade, when intact, was probably uncritically derived from Cave 23 below.277 Possibly the same patron and/or the same artists were involved—a reasonable suggestion considering its placement and, even more, its mode of access; for the steps to it utilize rock left over from Cave 23’s leftward shift which in normal course would have been cut away. Cave 22’s doorway equally reflects its counterpart in Cave 23 below, with its new and up-to-date trabeated and T-shaped format. Because of the cramped location of both the cave and the doorway, everything is somewhat miniaturized, but even so the expected goddesses, like most others of this date (477) are supplied with attendants. The conventional loving couples, too, are very much up-to-date, with their subtle erotic suggestiveness reflecting that on the very late doorways of the caves below. The doorway appears unfinished at the lower left, but it may well be that, because of the corrupt nature of the rock in this area, the decision was made to paint rather than to carve the missing naga figure here. Like the barely initiated little Cave 23A above the porch cells of Caves 23 and 24, Cave 22 has taken advantage of such still-available space at a time when feasible new locations were at a premium. However, instead of ever being used as a monastic residence, Cave 22 must have been summarily abandoned when Harisena died, for it was quite incomplete and, in terms of size, relatively inconsequential. Its cells were barely penetrated and its shrine not even begun when work on it excavation was given up. Then—but perhaps not until very late in the Period of Disruption—it was taken 277 As might be expected, the capital has the reduced number of ribs characteristic of late examples.
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over by a number of new donors, mostly monks presumably still resident at the site. It was most unusual that they would put their intrusions in a cave which did not have a shrine image which had been dedicated, but perhaps they took over this little cave in the same way that they took over a number of unfinished court cells at the site, as areas which they could appropriate as their own, even though they never did this with major unfinished excavations.278 Although the main Buddha image in the cave at first appears to be the “shrine Buddha”, it is actually carved at the very point where the shrine doorway should have penetrated this wall; it is characteristic of such intrusions that they appropriated such available spots without concern for the original planner’s intentions. It is evident that this central Buddha was not painted until the intrusions along its right frame were carved, probably as late as 480, and painted along with the larger image. A dating to 480 is suggested by the fact that, typically in intrusive contexts, small bhadrasana images always appear to belong to 480 rather than 479. In fact, the simple painting program which covers all of these three images may well owe its hurried character to having been done at the last minute, a suggestion supported by the fact that the conventionally late standing Buddhas on the left wall were not completed at all, while other intrusive images in the cave were also never completed. The main (or central) image, even if so badly painted, is a highly developed intrusive image. With its authoritative three-dimensionality and its rich catalog of late forms, it is clearly linked to the fine (intrusive) panel at the left of the porch doorway of Cave 4. Both suggest the direct influence of the late (478) “shrine” image in the Right Wing of Cave 26, created under the authority of the great monk Buddhabhadra. Starting in 479, later “intrusive” donors proceeded to fill the whole rear area of the cave with their helter-skelter offerings, often using painted details to supplement the carved images for expediency’s sake. Donated by a number of different donors and in a few cases hastily inscribed with painted donative records, the intrusions in the cave form a varied assortment, notably late in type.279 Indeed, a number had to be rushed to a conclusion, while others reached no
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For discussion, see Volume III: Cave 22. The intrusions are discussed in detail in Volume III, Cave 22.
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conclusion at all. One of the earliest (probably 479) and most informative is a painted composition on the right wall of the “shrine” showing the popular Eight Buddhas theme; the accompanying inscriptions give the names of the seven past Buddhas and of the future Maitreya, along with those (four are still legible) of their associated trees. The latter a fortunate addendum, since the trees themselves are irresponsibly represented. Like some of the other compositions, this one has a rather simply painted “honorific canopy” above, which need not be confused with the original scheme for the ceiling’s decoration, which of course was never realized.
Cave 22a A mere start was made on another cave (“22A”) in the still-available rock just below Cave 22.280 All other convenient spaces in the area had been utilized for the large cisterns of Caves 21, 23, and 24, all started a few years before in this cramped area. The fact that this was almost the only usable space left, probably very late in 477, and that it too was utilized, shows how precious such locations had become by this time. However, significant or not, it was recently filled up, thoughtlessly, with cement, as if to satisfy some compulsion to obscure evidence which pristine features can offer, whether broken eaves, innocent pole-holes, garland-hook holes, cisterns, door latches, doorstops, pivots—or all of the above.
Cave 23 Cave 23 is closely related to the adjacent Cave 21, as well as to the much larger, and also adjacent, Cave 24; in fact, as we shall see, they probably were all sponsored by the same patron. Cave 23’s decorative motifs, like the course of its excavation, stand roughly mid-way between those of its two neighbors, both of which achieved their present appearance after the Hiatus. However, all three of these fine caves had actually been begun prior to the Recession, at which point their development was suddenly interrupted when the Asmakas
280 It would seem to be a barely started cave, fronted by two roughed out pillars, like other small late excavations (3, 22, 23A).
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were expelled from the region by the local king, Upendragupta of Risika. Although, like the related Caves 21 and 24, Cave 23 has always been called a “late” cave, its (original) plan was conceived, and its courtyard’s cutting begun, by 466. We know this is true, because its positioning was established, as we have explained in our discussion of Cave 21, at a time when simple single cells alone were conceived for the porch ends, both for Cave 23 itself, and for its slightly earlier neighbor, Cave 21. The limited breadth of the rock-face remaining between them makes that evident. By the following year, however, both taste and the times had changed. Things happened very fast at Ajanta; in discussing Caves 21, 23, and 24, we are dealing with a highly condensed—year by year, or in some cases month by month—development. As explained in our discussion of Cave 21, it was suddenly decided, in 467 or 468, to add the newly conceived pillared complexes at the porch ends of both these caves, even though a just appraisal of the situation would lead to the conclusion that this was impossible. But “impossible” was a word which had little force at Ajanta when a patron was obsessed with a desire to keep up with his neighbors and with the times. We can reconstruct the course of Cave 23’s development to see how this “impossible” problem was solved, or at least how it was supposed to be solved. We know that the idea of adding cell complexes with pillared vestibules to the porch ends became the rage starting in 467, and we know that such complexes must have been begun close to the start of that year (467) in Cave 21, because they were essentially defined in that cave’s porch when work was interrupted in the following year by the Recession. We also know, from the adjustments made in Cave 21’s left porch complex that a similar abutting complex must have been planned at the same time for Cave 23; and by good fortune the excavation of that cave, having been started a bit later than Cave 21—had not proceeded further than the definition of its façade plane. In other words, following a procedure typical of the approach of the planner or planners of the caves in the site’s western extremity, the excavators worked logically from stage to stage, blocking out major areas wherever it was feasible, before penetrating them with cells, or pillars or the like.281 281 For a good example of the process see the “blank” façade of Cave 1 at Nasik. In Cave 21, the whole porch was probably defined, before its cell complexes were
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Thus by the time that it was “necessary” to add the cell complexes to the plan of the Cave 23 porch, the latter had not been revealed at all. All that existed when it was time to begin the exposure of the porch proper was a blank façade wall, probably quite neatly trimmed by the excavators who had been clearing the court area.282 We can imagine that the positioning of the porch colonnade would be scratched (or drawn in characteristic red) on this revealed surface. But before any such drawing was done, it was decided—in fact it was necessary—to move the whole facade plane down sufficiently to accommodate the inclusion of Cave 23’s intended complex at the porch’s right end. Of course this meant that about nine feet of the blank façade wall at the right would have to be “wasted”; but more important, it meant that the whole projected cave would have to be displaced to the left, cutting into the mass of rock between Cave 23 and its other neighbor, Cave 24. This of course caused a problem, since the huge Cave 24 now also, being a late cave, required porch cell complexes, and a suitable provision in the mountain mass was reserved to contain them. However, even allowing for the (startling) fact that Cave 24 could not be properly developed without its own left complex deeply penetrating into the very precincts of the adjacent great Cave 26 complex, the planners had to limit this degree of penetration or else the left porch end itself would also extend into the Cave 26 area; and this would never have been done, since it would mean that both the left porch pilaster and the adjacent pillar would in fact be hidden from view. To avoid this problem, the planners displaced Cave 23 to the left only as much as was absolutely necessary to allow room for its right porch complex; and they made a particular point of making this space minimal, expecting the workers who later cut the right complex to literally squeeze it in, just as the excavators of Cave 21’s left complex had earlier so carefully done. Then everything would fit perfectly, even if with an unwonted parsimony.
started, meaning that although they would have been planned in 467, they were not roughed out (again with their pillars not yet decorated) until 468, the very year at the end of which work suddenly was interrupted on all of the Asmaka caves. 282 Major excavated areas or features often (although not invariably) cut in a quite finished fashion, even if much further cutting remained to be done. This may have been a procedure which facilitated measuring and paying for contractual work done.
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Things would have been fine, had it not been for the Recession and for the long stretch of time between that trauma caused by the Recession which started at the end of 468 and the triumphant Asmaka return in 475. By the time that work started up again in the porch, which was being blocked out before the Recession, and the later time (475 or possibly 476), when the workers were finally ordered to start on Cave 23’s porch complexes, a certain amnesia had set in. The workers happily started the work just as they were told, but no one told them—or knew or remembered—that what appeared to be a normal porch end was in fact a problem waiting to manifest itself. The new crew of excavators in Cave 23 made no attempt to save on space, as their earlier counterparts had so carefully done in Cave 21, but proceeded with all of the confidence of innocence. It was only when, in the midst of opening up the inner (residence) cell in this Cave 23 complex, that they suddenly found themselves chiseling into the air rather than into the rock, and realized that they were looking, ruinously, into the precincts of Cave 21. Obviously someone had to take the blame, but that has not undone the damage, which is still evident today. By this time, too, it is evident that the cave was no longer being conceived as a mere “dormitory” but, as we would now expect, was to include a shrine; the widening of the intercolumniation of the front center pillars, which were probably already roughed out before work was interrupted by the Recession, attests to this. Thus by 467, Cave 23—a still-to-be-realized conception—already qualified as a “fully developed” Vakataka vihara. Even without the pillared complexes at the rear of the interior, which are post-Hiatus additions to the conception, what had developed by 467 was a far cry from the astylar, shrineless, diffidently-decorated, and plain-celled excavations such as Caves 25 and 27, which stand (humbly) as the first Asmaka viharas in this western portion of the site, started only four or five years earlier. It even goes far beyond the influential Caves 16 and 17, which were well underway by the time it was started, providing these slightly later planners with forms and features which they could freely borrow, improve upon, and (as often as not) reject. Indeed, by the time Cave 23 is in its full flowering, after the Hiatus—for by 468 work had probably not progressed much farther than the general definition of the porch and the very beginning of work on the interior—there is even a reduction of complexity. This is most notable in the omission of pillared complexes at the sides of
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the interior,283 but also in the simplification of the capital decorations, very evident in Cave 23, and to a lesser extent in the related Cave 21.284 But this is surely more due to a slight decline in creative energy than to any trouble in the times, for this is a period when the Asmakas were ascendant and the site was flourishing. It is only that the artists here seemed to be depending upon what had already been discovered, rather than (in general) searching out new forms for themselves. At the same time, it is likely that the greatest creative energy was going into the sumptuous caitya hall Cave 26, that “memorial on the mountains that will endure for as long as the moon and the sun continue” made by the great monk Buddhabhadra, who was driven by the belief that “a man continues to enjoy himself in Paradise as long as his memory is green in the world”. (Ajanta 26 inscription, verse 8) And, frankly, it was his great caitya hall Cave 26, not its well-connected but less impressive relative Cave 23, which would keep the proud Buddhabhadra’s memory green, even though he probably oversaw and controlled the development of all of these caves in the site’s western extremity, as we shall see. Unlike that of its neighbors, the porch colonnade of Cave 23 has been largely and fortunately preserved. However, it falls short of its counterparts in Cave 24 in terms of quality, being more competent than exuberant. This perceptible failure of creative force is further reflected in the fact that the ends of the capital faces were apparently going to be merely painted rather than carved. These capital ends, with their three volutes beneath, look back conservatively to the past, quite in contrast to the typically late character of the rest of the decorative forms throughout the cave.285 The carved decoration itself—couples on the central panels and seated yaksas on those on either side—are soberingly unvaried in quality. The complex shaft designs, and notably the carved supporting dwarfs at the tops of the shafts of the central pair, are of course post-Hiatus forms, all
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Discussed above in the analysis of Cave 21. The pillars of the complexes at either end of the porch are—untypically—of the same design. The standard convention is to vary them, despite the generally insistent emphasis on symmetry in the caves. 285 The reduction of the volutes to three and a half is characteristic of capitals carved after 475 (see Upper 6, 5), although preference is now for smooth (paintable) undersurfaces, as in Cave 1, 26, etc. 284
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cut long after the originally squared-out shafts were excavated in 467 or 468. Even though its porch pillars survived when those of the neighboring Caves 21 and 24 did not, Cave 23 was troubled by a number of serious flaws. An impressive serpentine “fill” of lava winds through the interior hall, and slithers into Cell R1, right over the threshold. The porch was less dramatically affected, but one can still note that a fair portion of the matrix needed for the upper level of the extreme left pillar of the colonnade had broken away when the facade was being roughed out, as is evident from the chiseling around the sheared off surface. It is probably significant that the broken capital was not repaired (at least conventional repair holes are not to be seen) before the surrounding areas were plastered in 478, for (together with the evidence of the unfinished right pilaster) this suggests the urgency with which the more expedient work proceeded in the increasingly troubled months of 478. At the same time, the planners must be allowed credit where credit is due, for the geological flaw follows remarkably close to the desired contour line of the capital end. One should also note that the fluted circular (azalea) element at the top of the capital shows traces of red paint, as do a number of the other sculptured motifs in the porch. This is almost certainly a simple coloring rapidly applied by the sculptor when he finished his work, either to “log off ” decisively, or just possibly for some protective ritual reason, rather than the intended final decoration.286 The fine pilasters, probably underway by 476, show none of the somewhat old-fashioned character of the porch pillar capitals; they fit comfortably into the developmental sequence of these very satisfactory forms. This is particular evident if we do not see the work on the instructively unfinished right pilaster as having been cut off at the time of Harisena’s death; for by then developments—even over the course of a few months—had gone on apace, as we can see by comparing the more complex example in Cave 24. Admittedly, developmental “rules” can hardly be too pedantically followed at a site like this, where so many factors are at play, but the situation 286 See also the coloring on the finished details of the unfinished doorway of Cave 14. The porch doorway of Cave 11 has a layer of powdery yellow and orange pigments applied directly to the stone, and (once) completely covered over by the plastered and painted final decoration.
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here may be a special one, explaining why this element alone, among all others in the porch, is unfinished. It seems reasonable to suggest that work on the medallion and on the capital above was probably interrupted when the breakthrough problems erupted in the adjacent cell complex—an embarrassing gaffe that surely required consultation with both the patron and the chief planner. Then, as fate would have it, with time so close to running out, work on it just never got taken up again. The decoration of the complex cells at the porch ends must have been begun as soon as their fronts could be gotten ready, judging from the fact the one at the right was probably completed before the problem with the inner chamber arose, making the cell uninhabitable and possibly (but of course not necessarily) aborting the plans to decorate the complex’s front. The same corpulent paired yaksas that are especially enshrined in Cave 2, and found elsewhere at the site, appear here, while the expected nagas balance them in a splendid frieze at the other porch end. Both groups are framed by auspiciously amorous couples, who play no part in the less complex porch friezes in Cave 21, where far more stolid seated yaksas attend the central figures. Below, the pillars now have overflowing (purnaghata) capitals, which from this time on become increasingly (even if briefly) popular at the site. Cave 23’s porch doorway is a splendid example of the radically new trabeated (or “T-shaped”) type developed first for the searchingly complex shrine doorway of Cave 1 in 476, probably under the influence of the Ajanta craftsmen’s interim experience (during the Hiatus) at Bagh, and reflected almost immediately here, although in a more restrained form. Its format is clearly transitional between the suddenly no-longer-fashionable type seen in Cave 21, and Cave 24’s even more elaborate example of this new quasi-structural form which (violating conventional art-historical expectations) becomes more and more (rather than less and less) reflective of its structural prototypes as work progresses at the site. The doorway has often been mentioned as being in part derived from “Gupta” prototypes, notably the (in point of fact, “Ucchakalpa”) doorway of the Vishnu Temple at Deogarh, because both have, besides a similar format, the same cylindrical “acanthus” motif.287 But if indeed there were any direct 287 Williams 1983, 218, note 3 “The late occurrence of this motif is one reason that I am reluctant to think of the work at Ajanta (where, to judge from the single
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connection, it would go the other way, carried by the suddenly unemployed Ajanta artists, who must have sought work in all directions after the collapse of patronage at the site. Quite in contrast to those difficult days, however, things were going fine in 477, when this doorway was made. Indeed, the spiritual and material expansiveness that characterized this teetering, but glittering, end of the Golden Age is reflected in the doorway’s forms—the loving couples, who sometimes stretch the limits of propriety with their wandering hands, the goddesses and the assertive nagas protecting and honoring the entrance above and below; and by no means least, the exuberant dwarfs who both stabilize and energize the opening. The decorated porch windows, with their now conventional square format and decorative surrounds, stand (with no particular decisiveness) midway in the developing post-Hiatus sequence which starts with the (very slightly) earlier Cave 2 and 4 examples with their single corner panels containing an attended auspicious figure. The windows of Cave 23, like the similar ones of Cave 21, still show fairly large (here male) figures holding flowers at the corners, now paired with a small squatting dwarf. Finally, in the latest examples, in Cave 24, 26LW, and 5, the lower corners show a pair of dwarfs only, in different active poses. Compared with the caves which it emulates, such as Caves 1 and 2 and even 21, Cave 23’s program of interior decoration (even more than that of the porch) is highly repetitive. However, even if the cave’s decorative program is less than inspired, its careful alignment of walls and ceilings and pillars show how far excavation technology had progressed since the time when the prestigious but very warped and wavy Caves 4, 16 and 17 and even 1, to say nothing of the more minor early caves, were cut.288 The pillar capitals of Cave 23’s interior, although delightfully exuberant, invariably show dancing dwarfs at the center, flanked by foliating makaras at the sides; the single exception is pillar R3, where occurrence of the acanthus, the motif could hardly have originated) as concluding by 485 A.D.” But, in response to Williams’ suggestion, I am saying that the single occurrence results from the likelihood that, along with many other motifs, the acanthus motif had just been introduced to the site in this very “open” period; and that it is a “single occurrence” only because it was not carved until some few months before all such creative activity ended at the site; after which the sculptor who made it probably went to the rising new principalities, such as that of the Ucchakalpas, for employment. 288 See Cave 4 for the difference between early and late excavation procedures.
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a less complicated seated yaksa appears, surely owing his presence to a major flaw on the capital face, which would have made if difficult to carve a multi-armed dancing dwarf at this point. The medallioned pilasters, so effectively decorative in the raking light, have somewhat more variety, with splendid carvings of roiling animal forms, such as the floriated equine “sea horse” at the front left. It is just conceivable that the medallion-motifs have been cut back on some of these pilasters—which show an untypical inconsistency of design—in order to better accommodate painted motifs below. At the time of Harisena’s death, Cave 23’s patron must have been confronted with a difficult decision. At that point there were many parts of the interior (and even small portions of the porch) that still had to be finished, not the least of them being the shrine antechamber and the shrine itself. Furthermore the pillared complexes at the rear, especially the one at the right, were far from finished, and the intended friezes above would almost certainly have to be given up. Even with such program reductions, bringing the cave to completion—no matter how many short-cuts could be taken—would be a daunting task. However, perhaps encouraged by the unrealistic optimism which seems to have shakily sustained the continuation of work on the neighboring Cave 21, Cave 23’s patron (probably Buddhabhadra) apparently made the decision to complete the whole cave. Furthermore, just as in the neighboring Cave 21, he somehow felt, as an Asmaka patron, that although he clearly had to rush his work, he wouldn’t have it suddenly cut off before it was done. He, too, obviously did not anticipate the ultimately disruptive order that eventually did indeed come down from the capital. It is of course evident that he failed in his goals, far more disastrously than was the case in Cave 21, which had the advantage over Cave 23 of a slightly earlier start. Even if in 477 the subsidiary rear complexes were being given more attention than the shrine, it cannot be doubted that the shrine area had been at least deeply penetrated before Harisena’ death.289 This surely means, considering the attention paid throughout the cave to “decorative” features, that the pillars fronting the shrine antechamber would have been roughed out in what was, by 476/477, 289 Note that in Cave 2, work was progressing faster on the subsidiary shrines than on the main one, but this does not mean that the ultimate focus of the cave was neglected completely.
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the conventional way, namely with ornamental “goddess” brackets. Since the upper levels of the antechamber pillars would necessarily be the very first elements exposed when the antechamber was first penetrated, we have to explain why the now-expected brackets are missing. Such brackets had become an esthetic “necessity” in the happy days prior to Harisena’s death, and for this reason one must believe that matrix for them would have been reserved if the penetration of the antechamber had taken place before that time; but considering how fully most of the rear area of the cave had been exposed by the end of 477, when Harisena died, it is quite inconceivable that the shrine antechamber and even the shrine had not been deeply penetrated, and the goddess brackets defined, by that time. But given the stresses that clearly accumulated late in 478, when there was still so much to be done, and when a deadline on the site’s patronage (either announced or anticipated) made speed a necessity, it seems certain that, just as in Cave 21, the brackets were excised to save time. Even so, only one of the shafts of the now-simplified pillars got even partly decorated in 478. It is of course difficult to know just how much of the final work done in the cave was the product of its final anxious year (478), because in general the pattern established prior to Harisena’s death was continued. The planner surely had some further work done on relatively essential elements which were still not always complete, such as the unfinished pillared complexes and the interior pillars; the way that the capital of L2 has been decorated even before being properly defined is hardly conceivable as the work of normal times. But, even though he was obviously not overly concerned at first, he should have given a higher priority to work on the shrine antechamber and shrine, where there was much work to do, and to have proceeded upon it more hastily than he would have done in better times. Although it is possible that the optimistic patron continued some work on the two rear cell complexes even after Harisena’s death, they must have been by and large defined by that time. In the anxious context of 478, the patron certainly would certainly not have put much effort into working on the subsidiary complexes when the far higher priority shrine area was languishing. It is true that in the heyday of the site planners felt no necessary pressure to get the shrine completed first; because in those confident days there was
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going to be time for everything. If they rushed the shrine to completion it was more because they wanted to than that they had to, an attitude that helps to explain the surprising fact that although not a single image had been completed and dedicated at this or other Vakataka sites after 472 and until 478, in the latter year at least twelve, and perhaps as many as sixteen images had been finished and “brought to life”.290 The anticipated image in Cave 23 is of course not included in this count, for the exigencies of reality finally triumphed over the wishes and intentions of the patron. Just as in Cave 21, the Asmaka patron approached the task of completing his cave, now that 478 was upon him, both confidence and concern: confidence that being a privileged Asmaka, he could surely get his image finished and dedicated, and (as a thorn on the stem of the rose) concern that he could not.291 This expectation did in fact come true, although most expediently, in Cave 21, as we have seen, before time, all too precipitously, ran out. But in Cave 23, although the patron surely expected to finish the image—he would not have kept working on lower priority features if this was not the case—he obviously miscalculated or misunderstood the seriousness of the situation. For this was war; or at least a time for the preparations of war, and even the privileged Asmaka patrons were not exempt from its infection. It seems certain that like the patron in Cave 21, the patron of Cave 23 had also planned for the now conventional goddess-brackets as integral parts of the shrine antechamber pillars, and would already have had them roughed out when that area was penetrated in 477. They would certainly not have been revealed in 478, when subtraction, not addition, was the rule. In both caves the shrine door290 See Volume I, pages 202–4 and note 6. (The latter should read: . . . 2, 4, Upper 6; not 2, 3, Upper 6) The count varies as to whether the images in Cave 8 (now lost) and Cave 11 (refurbished in 478) along with the images in Dharasiva Caves 2 and 3, should be counted. The images in Caves 17 and 20 were similarly rushed to completion, but in 471, because of an earlier crisis. The images in Caves Lower 6, 7, 11, and 15 (all but that in Cave Lower 6 reworked in 478), along with the “substitute” image (a relief stupa) in the Ghatotkacha vihara, were all presumably first rushed put into service early in 469. 291 As pointed out throughout my study, it appears that the great monk Buddhabhadra controlled the development of all of the Asmaka caves. For simplicity, I often speak of “the patron” of any given cave, and his attitudes; but at least in my view their was only one super-patron, although some of his associates may have been responsible for the planning, supervising, and even funding of some of the separate excavations.
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way would have been roughed out in 477 too in 477, but had to be abandoned in the urgencies of the following year. In Cave 21, the goddess-brackets had only been half cut away when work ended late in 478, because the excavators’ attention had been primarily focused on getting the image finished. In Cave 23, where the excavators not reached yet reached the place where the Buddha would be located in the depths of the shrine, there was time enough for the goddess-brackets to be removed completely, and a small start made on decorating the pillar shafts below, at the same time that excavation of the antechamber and of the early stages of work on the shrine beyond proceeded. The cutting away of such features to save time was hardly a novelty at the site; the prime minister himself had excised many of the pillar capitals in his Cave 16, as well as portions of the anticipated beamed ceiling, with a similar expediency. And in all these cases this was done to save time, although the saving of funds may have been a factor too. However, in Cave 23, the saving of time turned out to be hardly worth the while. Work on the cave had to stop at the very moment when the rear shrine wall was finally smoothed enough to receive the up-to-date Buddha figure, with the expected attendants, which had been prepared for it. The shrine doorway also “got caught in the rush”. Surely roughed out in 477, it appears to have been planned as a standard late “trabeated” type—the wall surface for one of the ends of the “T” has been smoothed at the upper right. Matrix has also been reserved at the base for the expected projecting naga guardians, but this whole lower area is still extremely uncut, making access to the shrine difficult. This, in fact, gives us some insight into the progress of work in this area in 478. In normal course, the antechamber floor would be essentially defined well before that of the shrine, if only to facilitate the removal of the chunks of rock and stone-debris from the area as work progressed. The fact that the expected situation is reversed here suggests that even as the excavators were either simplifying (or avoiding) the work in the antechamber, they were urgently opening up the shrine chamber itself, obviously with a view to getting the Buddha image done. They did indeed manage to clean out the area, so that the image could be carved, but of course, at this late hour, it was never going to happen. The fact that a large mass of uncut matrix still remains in the right front corner of the chamber, while the back
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of the shrine doorway is still very much imbedded in the rock is quite clear evidence that work in the shrine was going on right up to the end of 478, and that that troubled year ended all too soon. And so, the patron did not get his image done. In fact, he did not even get it started, even though the rear wall of the shrine was quite fully smoothed, according to late procedures, so that, just as in Caves 2 and 21, the now spread-out image group could have been cut from it, if time had not run out. Perhaps the patron was waiting for the sculptor doing the Buddha image in Cave 21 to finish that image, already so close to completion, so that he could start on this one—a mere matter of days. Or perhaps the sculptor he had hired was one of the many craftsmen who, in 478, increasingly fled the site, either from fear or from the fear of hunger, or because of the promises of war. It seems too, that just at the time that he was about to get his Buddha image carved—a task that would take a month or more— the patron decided that any other eleventh-hour excavation work that was being done in the cave would now have to be halted, and that he would get the cave decorated, ready or not. This would explain why he now started the plastering of the porch ceiling, the projecting eave, and the facade wall surfaces; and he did this (typically, for 478) even though the carving of the porch had not yet been completely finished. Of course, the poignant truth is that this plastering—the work of a day or two at the most—is all of the “decoration” that ever got done. The demise of the cave’s waiting painting program, so well-intended, parallels the situation in the shrine. Both tell of the death of the patron’s dream. For this reason—because the cave had never become “empowered”—no intrusions were added to it during the Period of Disruption; for such anxious late imagery was only placed in caves where, or when, a main Buddha image had been dedicated. As for its use as a residence, only four cells had had their inner door-recesses cut by the time work stopped in 477; and only two of these (PLa and L1) had pivot holes cut, and the doors hung—as signs of use in the holes reveal. However, monks probably occupied some of the other (mostly-unfinished) cells too, since a few have opposed holes (for clothes-poles), although they are bereft of other amenities. Significantly, only a single cell—the already-fitted-out inner chamber of the complex at the left of the porch—was plastered, and that appears to have been done with the same mix used on the porch
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ceiling, dating to 478; quite possibly the plastering crew, while they were doing the latter job, were told to plaster it for the benefit of the monks that probably were already living there. There is considerable black grime—probably soot—in this area, but this is probably due to later (probably non-Buddhist) residents, who are responsible also for the grinding(?) hole in the plinth of the left pillared cell and a number of other such holes in the floor of the porch. It was noted earlier how embarrassingly—because stupidly—the excavators of the right porch complex broke into the adjoining Cave 21. Now, as a postscript, we can expand upon the rather unique clumsiness of this particular cave’s post-Hiatus excavating crew. First of all, when carving Cell L2 they broke badly into the already-completed Cell L1, the gaping hole then being made somewhat more acceptable by being trimmed to a rectangle. One can only imagine the patron’s disappointment at having such an error made at this late date (476 or 477), by which time excavators had, by and large, become very proficient. And we can only imagine the reactions of all concerned when no less that two other such breaks occurred, one (involving two holes) between R4 and R5 and one (also with two holes) between L4 and L5. The shamefulness of the latter might be reduced by the presence of a serious flaw were it not the excavators’ business to anticipate such problems; here again, the excavators, as in L2, trimmed the edges of the hole, presumably in an effort to make it more acceptable. There is an extremely damaged chamber at the left of Cave 23’s court; if it had fronting pillars or a doorway, as did so many pillared complexes made throughout the site in 477, all evidence is gone. What is clear, however, is that, during the Period of Disruption, it was taken over for a varied group of intrusive sculptures.292
Cave 23a Cave 23A is a tiny cave which, placed at a high level, parallels the positioning of Cave 22; both have been located well up on the cliff face at a high enough level to avoid breaking into the abutting porch 292 This extremely damaged court shrine is not described in Volume III, although a reference to Cave 23’s intrusions appears by error in the listing of “Contents” at the beginning of that volume.
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complexes of the larger caves below: 21 and 23 in the case of Caves 22, and 23 and 24 in the case of Cave 23A. Although Cave 23A is extremely unfinished, with only its porch roughly exposed, it is evident that it was going to be similar in type to Cave 22 and 22A—a typically late little donation, which arrived on the scene too late, and was immediately done in by Harisena’s death.
Cave 24 Cave 24, like the far less finished (and now inaccessible) Cave 28 on the other side of the Cave 26 complex, would have been a fully realized conventional late vihara had time allowed its completion. By now the planners and the excavators had the assurance that comes with experience, despite the remarkable fact that that experience had been accumulated over the course of no more than half a decade, by the time this cave (or at least the excavation of its court) was planned and started in about 466. With its sixteen simple cells and four complex pillared cells (two in the porch and two at the rear) it was intended to house forty monks—assuming two in a cell—if not more.293 It seems evident that Buddhabhadra saw this sumptuously conceived new vihara as a prime adjunct to his adjacent caitya hall and that once it was started he intentionally renounced the continued development of Cave 25, the upper wing of his great caitya complex. This was necessary because, as discussed in the previous chapter, the shifting of the major viharas 21, 23, as well as 24 itself, to the left meant that Cave 24’s left precincts had to penetrate as much as twenty feet into the contexts of Cave 25; the presence of Cave 24’s left cells in the area directly underneath the projected cells along the right wall of Cave 25 meant that the latter had to be abandoned. But when we realize the clumsy, misshapen, and all-too-simple character of the extremely early (started 462!) Cave 25, we can understand why, despite the unfortunate significance of its location, Buddhabhadra decided to abandon this old hut, so that he could build a palace in its stead.
293 Assuming that the two rear corner cells would be provided with an extra cell to the side, the count would be 44.
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It is clear that this decision had already been taken by 466, at which time it is likely that the exposure of Cave 24’s court had begun when, evidently, the porch and interior of Cave 25 had only partially roughed out. Having ceded precedence to the grander cave, this is the abandoned state in which Cave 25 would remain, until the spiritual anxieties of 478 urged Buddhabhadra to try to give it some sacred function before time, all too rapidly, ran out. That is a matter to be discussed in the next chapter. The many just-finished features in Cave 24’s porch, the decoration of which can hardly date before 477, the very year of Harisena’s death. These features essentially reflect the very end of such motif developments at the site, although certain even later related forms, dating to 478, can be found both in the latest contexts of the associated caitya Cave 26 and, in the particularly late Asmaka donations (Caves 1, 3, and 4A) at Aurangabad. The Cave 24 examples can be instructively compared with those in Caves 23 and 21, probably begun a year or so earlier, to see how rapidly and with what surprising consistency many motifs develop at the site. No medallioned pilaster elsewhere at the site quite rivals that at the right of Cave 24’s porch, with its complex figural group and its elaborated foliation. The same could be said of many of the porch pillar capitals, notably the extremely complicated right center one, with its complex grouping of attendants, large and small, around and above and behind and below the fortunate central figure. Counting the three soaring celestials, who are brandishing swords and flowers at each end, this remarkable capital has a total of twenty skillfully carved figures, both large and tiny. Some of the pillar shafts, representing the ultimate development of such forms at Ajanta, are equally complex; the happily remaining (only partial) upper section of the left central pillar, with its overflowing vessel above and loving couples in the medallions below, is startlingly beautiful. Unfortunately, however, these proud pillar shafts are almost entirely lost; only the pilasters, attached to the natural rock, survive wholly intact. The startling loss of essentially the whole porch colonnade dramatically testifies to the problems which major flaws in the layered volcanic matrix could cause. In this case the responsible flaw, the line of which can easily be traced on the rear wall of the porch, must have been visible from the start on the scarp face, but the planners could not avoid it. All they could do was to try to ameliorate its
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potential damage by adjusting the positioning of the cave sufficiently so that, when the porch colonnade was reached in the course of carving, it would (hopefully) run beneath the elaborately ornamented capitals. Even though flaws are notoriously undependable because of their sometimes troubling habit of diverging from the horizontal, this wise solution to an ultimately insoluble problem was essentially achieved.294 In any case, the planners were more concerned about damage to the design than they were about the pillar shafts detaching themselves and falling away from the stone above and toppling over onto the porch floor. To them, this must have been nearly inconceivable, for the pillars by this time were no longer reflecting their attenuated Hinayana forbears, but were thick and stable and strong even though, as in most pillars at the site, horizontal flaws run through them—in this case very large ones. They must have been thought so indestructible that it would take an elephant to break the shafts away from the solid rock above and to push them over. Indeed, this is exactly what the mahameghavahana, the “great storm-cloud elephant”, earlier responsible for the gorgeous carving of the great ravine itself, finally did accomplish. Pouring his torrents down, every monsoon season, upon the mountain above, he gradually filled the vast deserted courtyard with fallen rocks and accumulated tons of dirt and assorted vegetation. All of this debris gradually built up around the unsuspecting pillars of the colonnade and started the patient process of displacement. When the debris was flooded with water it gradually weakened the already weak flaws, and when, throughout the alternating seasons it dried up, its contractions pushed the shafts outward by degrees, millimeter by millimeter, decade after decade, century after century. Finally here, as in so many other caves as well, the implacable pillars fell, leaving the capitals above dependent from the very rock of which they were a part. Old photographs, made in the nineteenth century, show this and many other porches sadly encumbered with the beautifully ornamented broken shafts, while the capitals above are still in place.295 They remained in this embarrassing disarray until, in order to clean 294 The planners would have been concerned about the flaws running through their carvings. They certainly never expected that debris would build up in the porches and displace the lower parts of the pillars which, in fact, must have seemed indestructible to them. 295 For Cave 24, see ACSAA fiche 50:11–16.
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things up, they were all, with great effort, rolled out through the courtyard and tumbled into the ravine, where the raging river successfully completed the process of their disposal. With the possible exception of the somewhat cramped (because delimited a decade earlier) porch doorway of Cave 26, no late “Tshaped” and trabeated porch doorway matches this one in its richness of conception, and even that of Cave 26 cannot compare with it in dignity and clarity of design. There is a highly charged energy in the soaring celestials who converge upon the center of the doorway holding an elaborate crown, and a notable skill and sophistication in the manner in which an axial focus is developed by the cutting away of the inner frames of the lateral panels, so that the loving couples, to the degree that their ardent preoccupations allow, direct their auspicious attention inward. Even the makaras upon which the expected goddesses stand roil with a particular energy. Above, at the top center, a corpulent attended yaksa oversees the scene. Unfortunately, the relatively large naga guardians at the base are missing, destroyed by the disintegrating action of the debris; traces are still visible in old photographs, revealing the incorrectness of the present reconstruction. The subsidiary aisle doorways, which in the earliest caves are not decorated at all, are, not surprisingly, far simpler in format and decoration than the main porch doorway. However, compared with their irresolute and even clumsy precursors in Cave 1, they have become conventional and secure, confidently displaying their loving couples and the expected conventional foliate and floral motifs upon their carefully carved surrounds. The same could be said of the fine and now-established window forms, among the latest of this conventional late type at the site. With their exuberant dwarfs (apparently “borrowed” from the doorway of Cave 23) and similarly exuberant floral scrolls, they “go about as far as they can go” in the esthetic exploration of this design. Although fully completed on the outside, they are still under excavation at the back where, had time allowed, recesses would have been cut to hold the pivoted window panels from within. However, this was never accomplished, and it is interesting to note the conventional manner in which untrimmed matrix has been left in these still-to-be-recessed areas; it is clear that the sculptors by now were too sensible to go to the trouble of smoothing such areas in advance, when they were going to be deeply cut back in any case.
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Despite the interest in all of the features that we have discussed, the particular fascination of Cave 24 is the evidence of “work in progress” in its interior. We can see how different workers or workcrews were assigned to different tasks, whether it be the final fine detailing of motifs in the porch, the gradual cutting down and working back from the ceiling (mostly finished) to the floor level in the interior, or (as in the interior’s front row) the gradual and well-controlled logical definition of the pillars from an initially roughly cut square, through eight and sixteen and thirty-two sided sections to more and more complicated final forms. Other crews, all surely working by contract (one reason things got done so fast at the site!) were roughing out the more rearward pillars, starting to cut cells along the aisle walls as soon as those areas became revealed. A glance at the cave’s ground-plan reveals how each successive cell was being gradually exposed by different crews—quite in contrast to the more diffident early approach, seen in Cave 25, where the whole space of the hall was blocked out before any of the cells were started. At the extreme back of the cave, where the rear aisle was being opened up, one can still see big chunks of stone (never removed) the presence of which reveals how efficiently the cutting away of the rock was handled. Too big for men to lift, they would perhaps be broken up; but it is possible that they could be dragged out on some kind of barrow. It seems likely that Harisena’s death must have put a sudden halt to this all-too-unfinished cave, just when the excavators were starting to penetrate the shrine antechamber. There we can see that two pairs of men were working in the two separate recesses, divided by a narrow margin of rock. The rock was probably reamed out then much as similar work is sometimes done today, with one man trustingly holding a heavy chisel and the other man rhythmically pounding it on its stage by stage downward course. It is possible, too, that pickaxes were also used in such work. The strip of rock left between the two sections here not only defined each work space, but helped assure that each team of workers got paid according to what it did. A very similar approach is used in apportioning tasks in India’s roadwork, and elsewhere, today. It seems clear, by looking at the progress of work in this barely started shrine antechamber, that work on the whole cave ended very abruptly; there was no apparent drive to somehow complete the shrine and get the image dedicated. As in so many other very unfinished caves at the site, excavation work was merely and sum-
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marily given up, when the shock of Harisena’s death affected the various patrons. Buddhabhadra, of course was particularly powerful, but he himself was constrained by realities—the most pressing of which was to get his great caitya hall completed. Indeed, in that hall, but more particularly in its minor adjuncts (Cave 25, 26 Right Wing, 27, and even to some degree in the more important Left Wing) one can see clear evidence of rushed work, as the pressures of 478 mounted. The very fact that the work in Cave 24 shows nothing of this qualitative erosion is convincing evidence that here work had stopped abruptly, as soon as the word of Harisena’s death— or its implications—hit the site. By looking at the many areas where work was in progress when it was suddenly broken off—leaving the floor and the pillars and the cells all in various stages of completion—we must surely believe that dozens of craftsmen (not even counting rock-haulers, water-carriers, blacksmiths, and supervisors) were simultaneously engaged upon their tasks at this time, at the very height of the site’s heyday. In any case, whatever the number, the evidence of the site’s overall development proves that, omitting the cutting already done in the court area by 468, the excavators must have accomplished the often detailed work on the porch and more gross work in the interior in about three years, between 475 and the time of Harisena’s death in 477. It is also relevant to note how vastly excavation technology has developed at the site over the course of a mere decade or so. No longer is it conceivable that, because of lack of proper controls and sophisticated supervision a ceiling could angle upward because of inattention and/or the non-availability of “spirit levels”. Such technical imprecision has caused the ceiling in the early Cave 4 to angle gradually upward an almost unbelievable five feet (!) from the front of the hall to the rear of the shrine.296 Furthermore, in this same Cave 4 and in other caves underway in the 460s the aisle walls typically splay soberingly outward, because no one thought or cared to take a simple string to keep the width of the hall consistent. Such errors both of technique and judgment no longer occur in Caves such as 21, 23, and 24, where the interiors were essentially revealed only after 475. If one wants to see a clear example of the early inaccuracies, one need only look at the
296
See Spink 2004, 86–105.
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old and neighboring Cave 25, or indeed at the great Caitya Cave 26 itself; the latter of course was started very early and, under its obscuring overlay of splendid forms, has a warped façade and interior to show for it. At least they had a ready supply of water, probably available almost from the excavation’s start, as clear evidence in various other caves can prove. There is a large cistern at the right of the courtyard, which collected water via rock cut channels from the heights above. It abuts a similarly ample cistern (provided with a convenient shelf along the left and rear sides) opening off the court of Cave 23; and although a wall keeps the chambers above quite independent, their expansive reservoirs had a shared water supply. Unhappily, however, there is no longer clear proof of this, for a few tons of cement have been recently dumped into these fascinating technological features, and as unnecessarily as successfully have filled them up. The pillared cell at the left of Cave 24’s court was one of many such court cells, always undertaken, as if at the call of fashion, in 477—and only in 477. Unfortunately, but typically, like most of the others it was only partially dug out before being abandoned due to Harisena’s death, its abandonment being the more understandable because work on the huge and hopelessly unfinished cave (of which it formed at part) also had to be given up in 477. The unused court cell, having been started in 477, then lay abandoned, causing great problems to those who refurbished Cave 25 in 478, as we shall see. But at the same time, again as we shall see, its presence clearly establishes the fact that subsequent work in Cave 25 went on in 478; this has great implications for an understanding of Buddhabhadra’s patronage activity and concerns in the year after Harisena’s death. In 479, still quite unfinished, the little complex cell was taken over and converted into a shrinelet (not of course its originally intended purpose) by some ambitious new “intrusive” donor. The added image is one of the most elaborately developed at the site, as its fanciful throne back, with its crowd of tiny attendant figures, alone proves. It is also associated, in a most up-to-date way, with the now popular grouping of six attendant Buddhas, even though two of these (for lack of space in the shrine) had to be carved in the little porch. That at the left has almost entirely fallen away, but it is particularly interesting to note the carver’s red guide lines—now very faint— around the image at porch right. Because of this and other evidence showing that these Buddhas were unfinished, it is certain that they
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were still underway when patronage totally collapsed at the end of 480. This cell-become-shrinelet is discussed more fully in Volume III.
Cave 24a Cave 24, high in the mountain up above Cave 24, may be an illusion. However, if it is not, we may perhaps see here the roughed out flat plane of a large vihara’s as yet undefined façade, still very much in process. If so, it is one more example of the very late (477) additions that were made to the burgeoning site while Harisena was still alive. For a somewhat related façade plane, still not penetrated front of Cave 1 can serve as an example, while it is clear that the dramatic adjustments made to Ajanta Cave 3 were accomplished while its façade plane was equally revealed, prior to the continuation of work on the cave.
Cave 26 Complex NOTE: A study of the Cave 26 complex, motif by motif, and then stage by stage, is provided in the chapters on that cave in Volume II. The present discussion is more “narrative” in form, although the reader will benefit from consulting both sections. The vast Cave 26 complex was made by the monk Buddhabhadra in honor of the mighty king of Asmaka’s former chief minister, to whom he (Buddhabhadra) had been “attached . . . in friendship through many successive births.”297 He also, perspicaciously, gives high praise to his friend’s son, the present minister, whose connections with the developing site must have been of great importance. Once approached by means of a grand staircase leading up from the river below, the Cave 26 complex comprises not only the splendid devotional hall (Caitya Cave 26) at its center, but also two very early upper wings (viharas 25 and 27), surely started in about 462 when the main façade of 26 was being exposed. It also incorporates two just slightly later lower wings: Caves 26RW (Right Wing) and 26LW (Left Wing), which are closely connected with the main hall, and were certainly part of its plan. 297
Ajanta Cave 26 inscription, verse 9.
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Since the Cave 26 complex was one of the inaugural excavations of Ajanta’s Vakataka renaissance, it is evident that relations between the all-too-powerful Asmakas, who controlled the territory to the south, and Upendragupta, the all-too-pious local king, were friendly (or at least peaceful) at the time when the excavation of this great caitya hall was begun in the early 460s.298 However, this happy situation did not last for long; and it is important to note here what happened, since it must bear directly upon one’s understanding of Ajanta’s developments during this period. At the end of 468, hardly seven years after he had started his great caitya complex, being aided by the monks Dharmadatta and Bhadrabandhu, “who (saw) to the excavation and completion of this (cave) temple on (his) behalf ”,299 Buddhabhadra was suddenly forced to stop work on his all-too-politically connected donation. This was surely because the aggressive Asmakas were posing a mounting threat at this point to the very domains (ancient Risika), within which Ajanta lay; and the great monk’s close personal connection with the threatening Asmaka power must have now made both the man and his monument—so tactlessly larger than the local king’s own caitya hall— quite unwelcome. Indeed, at the end of 468, as the political problems with the Asmakas were increasing, Upendragupta, the local king, ordered work to be stopped not only on the Asmaka undertakings but on nearly all of the other excavations at the site as well, surely in order to garner the region’s resources in anticipation of the dangers from Asmaka aggression that appeared to lie ahead. He did allow the “Vakataka” patrons of Caves Lower 6, 7, 11, and 15 to rush their Buddha images to completion (and dedication) during the first months of 469, for their images could all reach the point where they could be dedicated within a few weeks; but this slight relaxation of the sumptuary edict did not extend to the Asmaka caves, even though they easily could have added Buddha images to the main cave (Cave 26) and to the Left and Right Wing if they had been allowed only a days or weeks to do so. However, they, already seen as intimately
298 The Thalner inscription (Mirashi 1982) of Harisena’s third regnal equally shows this general region was peaceful at this time. Mirashi’s interpretation—that a digvijaya was involved—does not seem to be warranted by the content of the inscription. Discussed in Volume I, Chapter 3. 299 Cave 26 inscription, verse 14.
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connected with the enemy, received no such dispensation. Their expulsion from the site was peremptory. The only exceptions to King Upendragupta’s sumptuary proscriptions were his own “royal” Caves 17–20, his newly started 29, and the splendid “imperial” Cave 1, sponsored by his powerful overlord, the Vakataka emperor Harisena. However, even though work continued on Upendragupta’s own donations after 468 with some confidence, they soon began to painfully reflect the troubles of the times, with the situation worsening year by year right up until the time, late in 471, when work on his beautiful caves ended completely with what must have been the Asmaka’s invasion of Upendragupta’s domains. At this point, not surprisingly, Upendragupta disappears from our history; for surely he was either defeated in battle, or was forced to flee from the region.300 Only the caves of the overlord, the Vakataka emperor Harisena had remained unaffected during these difficult but nonetheless productive years of what I call the Recession (469 through 471). But by the end of 471, work stops even on the Emperor Harisena’ grand Cave 1, and from 472 through 474 the site endured what we call the “Hiatus”, when all excavating activity stopped absolutely. This period, the length of which cannot be absolutely determined (472–474 is an estimate) was when the aggressive Asmakas and the surely outmastered forces of Risika, under Upendragupta, battled it out for regional supremacy. In these few years (what I call the Hiatus) although the site’s administrative structure clearly remained in force, for the caves— even those of the Asmakas!—remained protected, it is as if the site retreated into hiding. The flames of the local war between these two contentious feudatories must have been flaring in the region, cutting off the nourishing flow of traffic along the trade routes that sustained both the region and the caves. Of course there is no reason to believe that the battles took place in the area of the caves themselves: they were surely protected if not by their sanctity and by the interest in them which was shared by both parties, then by their lack of strategic military importance. 300 The Visrutacarita (Volume I, Appendix One, p. 405) refers to a “king of Risika” who joined the Asmaka insurrection some years later, but this must have been another king of the region (perhaps a rival of Upendragupta’s), possibly the King Gomika known from the Thalner inscription (Mirashi 1982).
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During these few years of the “Hiatus”—this time of war—most of the craftsmen moved for safety and for work to other places, notably to the flourishing Vakataka excavations at Bagh, perhaps two weeks’ journey away in the fortunately peaceful Anupa region. Anupa, in general, was apparently a safe haven, under the control of an imperial viceroy, a second son of Harisena; and it seems likely that with the influx of eager and already experienced workmen now arriving at the Bagh caves it was partly governmental approval and/or support which, at least in part, sponsored their incredible flourishing in the period between 469 and 474 which started with Ajanta’s Recession and continued through its even more disruptive Hiatus. Much of Bagh’s development, which had already been started, perhaps along with Ajanta’s in the early 460s, seems to have taken place during Ajanta’s time of troubles; and as we shall see many of the developments there were surely transmitted to the greater site when, in 475, with the Asmaka victory, work started up vigorously at Ajanta once again. Of course now, at Ajanta, the tables had completely turned. The aggressive Asmakas, though still—for the moment—feudatory to the Vakataka overlord Harisena, were now the masters of the region. As for the defeated Upendragupta, who had perhaps all too lavishly “adorned the earth with stupas and viharas”,301 is totally gone from the picture. His beautiful caitya hall (Cave 19) intended to be the ceremonial center for the site, was now abandoned completely. Instead, the hopes of the faithful now had to be fixed on the great Asmaka caitya hall—the Cave 26 complex—which was now once again vigorously underway, even though it now existed only as an impressive roughly defined “core”, which still was to receive its remarkable overlay of beautiful and impressive forms. Always threateningly larger than the gem-like hall (Cave 19) of the local king, Buddhabhadra’s Asmaka cave complex, comprising Cave 26 and its two upper and two lower wings, reflects the whole course of Ajanta’s complex history in its development. Its very early structural features had been defined when it was roughed out in the years between 462 and 468, prior to its work program being so abruptly stopped at the end of the latter year. At that point, and for all of the years up to 475, when work started again under Asmaka
301
Cave 17 inscription, verse 22.
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domination, it crouched at the far end of the site like some rough mastodon, without an ornament upon it. For it was common in these early years at the site for excavators to rough out the whole structure before beginning its carved decoration; and the evidence from abandoned or unfinished portions of this complex, notably at the upper and lower levels on the right, shows that such was the procedure here. Of the many telling elements that still reveal something of the primitive character of the complex’s largely hidden or transformed early “core”, the surprisingly thin front walls of the main cave (compare Cave 19!) and of the adjacent right wing—indeed, all of the wings—are especially revealing. Furthermore the impressive but impractical monolithic projections from which the great hall’s doubledoors were hung—perhaps cut out in 466 or shortly thereafter— probably introduced this popular but short-lived B mode to the site. All cell doorways under excavation at the site in 468 use this B mode; and its use continues, during the Recession, in the privileged royal caves, in 469 as well. After that, improved fittings—the C mode briefly, and then the highly practical D mode—became conventional.302 A door-pivot projection in the B mode is found in the cell at the left in the lower right wing (Cave 26RW); and this is crucial (but by no means unique) evidence proving the early character of the cave complex’s core. In the case of cells there is abundant evidence throughout the site that this type came into use in 468, just before the “Recession”, but was long since out of fashion by 475, when work of the caves at the site started up again. Indeed, it seems clear, as will be shown, that this cell (and presumably its much damaged counterpart on the right) were the latest cells undertaken in the complex; that is, all of the others, cut in the more important areas first, were in the more primitive A mode, which had been widely used through 467, but went out of fashion (replaced by the B mode) by the beginning of 468.303 However, none of these, whether the “useless” A mode (which offered no mode of attachment, or even the B mode examples, were fitted out for use prior to the Recession,
302 The C-mode, dating to 470–471, is found only in the royal caves (17, 19, and 1), since they were the only caves upon which work continued in these years. 303 The only exception, not originally planned as an A mode cell, would be Cell PRa, probably added to Cave 27’s simple (and converted) porch cell sometime after 475.
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when the Asmakas had to leave the site; for the whole cave complex at that point was merely roughed out, following the predilections of the caves’ planners.304 Later on, starting in 475, when the Asmakas had taken over the site, all of these primitive early cell fittings were transformed, quite simply, to the highly practical D mode, whereby doors could be hung very simply in pivot holes cut into a recess at the back of the doorways; thus both the earlier A mode and the later B mode were happily superceded by the practical D mode. However, it is clear from the number of cells that were exposed, that the whole complex must have been rather fully revealed by the time the Asmaka donors were expelled at the end of 468. Thus when work started up again with the Asmaka takeover of the site by 475, the whole complex was ready to be decorated, even though this decoration was largely limited to the higher-priority areas—the main cave and the Left Wing. It seems likely, with all the work demanding to be done with the renewal of activity in 475, that most of the residence cells would not be transformed to the D mode and fitted out until 477. One possible support of such a dating is the fact that they do not have niches, which had been in favor in 475 and possibly 476.305 In any case, from a purely practical point of view, there was so much essential excavation work as well as detailed carving to be done in the period of renewal after 475, that it is reasonable to assume that most cells were not ready for residence in any case until about 477. This was not very long, sadly, before the whole cave complex had to be abandoned in the following year. Throughout the great Cave 26, the evidence of its early beginnings is similarly masked by its overlay of typically late forms, although as we shall see below, the decoration of the crucial central stupa revealingly shows how the planners’ original intentions were significantly changed in its final design a decade later. For the present we shall only note how the stupa’s lack of monolithic umbrellas above the stupa provides evidence of the very early date at which the cave was roughed out. It seems clear that when the still-diffident excavators
As we shall see, a few more advanced door fittings were later added to Cave 27. Indeed, there is one cell at the right of the main porch with such a niche; being in an important position it might have been fitted out earlier when niches were still in style. But all such judgments about such a minor motif tend to be hypothetical. 304
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were cutting away the vault of the cave, they depended all too closely upon the examples of the old Hinayana Caves 9 and 10, where the umbrellas (probably of wood long since taken away for use by the villagers) were separately set into the stupas. Following these precedents too closely, they thus failed to reserve matrix from which to cut monolithic umbrellas, as they so easily could have done. The rival craftsmen cutting out the same area in Upendragupta’s slightly later Cave 19 were careful not to make the same mistake, and it appears from the course of work on Upendraguptas’s unfinished Cave 29, which was begun just about the time that work on Cave 26 was interrupted, that the excavators there had learned the lesson too. The Main Cave’s porch pillars, surely conventionally octagonal in format when first roughed out in about 464/465 (by which time excavation had progressed to this area) were transformed after 475 into properly up-to-date square-based types. However, as a consequence of this unanticipated transformation, which involved cutting back the originally roughed-out octagonal shafts, they are much smaller in section than their otherwise late character (defined after 475) would warrant; one need only compare them with the pillars of Caves 24 and 23 to validate this point. In the case of the caitya hall’s interior pillars, where such a drastic shift could not be workably effected, the final shaping of the shafts, originally conceived like the close-set octagonal pillars in the ancient Cave 10, is a necessary compromise, utilizing the earlier design schemas of the porch pillars of Caves 19 and 20, just as was the case in the elaboration of the previously-primitive transformed porch pillars of Cave 2. Only the eight pillars in Cave 26’s apse—relatively hidden from view, retain their original octagonal forms (properly trimmed down). We can assume that, being “hidden”, they were accorded a very low priority, and consequently, in a situation where there was too much to do, and too little time, they may have been painted, but never received their carved decoration. If there were any question about the early inauguration date of this Asmaka cave complex, the very layout of its four wings would resolve it. All conformed, at least as originally undertaken, to the simple Hinayana precedents readily available to them in the neatly functional Cave 12. Thus, like Cave 12, and like some of the other late (Vakataka) caves at the site, they were all originally conceived as astylar, with no shrine and no cells at the porch ends. Cave 25, if we disregard the hastily carved and unfinished (storage?) cells cut
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out later in 478 expediently at the left, instructively shows such an excavation in mid-course. It was being roughed out in a most general way, before any decorative details whatsoever were added— those which one does see were all added after the Hiatus, indeed in 478. A comparison with the much later and also very unfinished Cave 24 is instructive; for by 475, when the latter cave was vigorously underway, the decoration as well as the cells were begun just as soon as the now experienced excavators were out of the way in any particular area. This was an efficient way to proceed, and kept workers with different skills at work on various portions of the cave all at once. The larger Cave 27 had progressed a bit further than Cave 25 in this early period, since (as explained below) it is likely that a single cell, later to be transformed, had been cut in the porch at this time, while, in the interior, a number of its present (later) cells had already been slightly penetrated. But then, surely by 466, Buddhabhadra and his planners appear to have given up any interest in these oldfashioned and inconvenient caves at the inconvenient upper level, deciding to concentrate exclusively on the newer and more coherently laid-out lower levels of the cave complex, to say nothing of continuing work on the compelling needs of Buddhabhadra’s proud Cave 24, which by this time, by invading Cave 25’s precincts, had already made that now obsolete old cave “unfinishable”. Caves 25 and 27, along with the upper levels of the facade and vault of the main hall, were of course the earliest areas reached in this vast undertaking, as the excavators proceeded in their generally downward course. However, it is testimony to Buddhabhadra’s prestige and power—perhaps even to his fund-raising abilities—that the lower level of the huge monument was also well underway by 466. The slightly earlier Right Wing—still reflecting, as can be seen on plan, the curiously skewed orientation of the outmoded Caves 25 and 27—must have been largely reamed out as early as 464 or 465.306 Various factors show this, but the evidence of the porch ends is particularly clear. As soon as the very sensible new idea of placing simple cells at the formerly blank porch ends hit the site by 466, the planners from one end of the ravine to the other picked it up. 306 It is tempting to see this skewing, with its roughly solstitial alignment, as an early attempt to relate to the solstice. But this requires discussion.
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However, Cave 26’s Right Wing, with its abutting cistern, was already too far excavated to be changed at this time, so it had to remain old-fashioned. However, the Left Wing, probably not even started in 466, could still be adjusted, to conform to the new convention, even though this involved taking drastic measures, which tellingly disrupted the once-balanced arrangement of the cave’s courtyard, with its originally intended symmetrical wings. When Cave 26’s Left Wing was originally planned, it was surely going to have a simple interior design just like the Right Wing, involving an astylar square hall with two cells on each side; for, following the powerful demands of symmetry and of good sense, the two wings were going to be carefully balanced across the court, with a neatly disposed courtyard area connecting them and the main hall. However, the validity of this neat and conventional arrangement was in effect destroyed by the problems afflicting the Right Wing, not only from the serious corruption of the stone where the rear right cell should have been placed, but from the fact the courtyard of Cave 24 made it impossible to place the two expected cells at the rear.307 Furthermore, the main cave, taking understandable precedence over this little wing, appropriated the spaces where both its expected Cell L1, and its cell PL would be. So all in all, this little cave turned out to be a disaster, even though later on, first in 468 and then in 478, Buddhabhadra—never giving up—would finally turn it into an anomalous shrine. If Buddhabhadra was distressed by the highly unsuccessful developments in the Right Wing, he must have also regretted the early and expedient arrangement of the two upper wings, which really bear no clear connection with what was obviously the focus of his concern—namely the great hall and its wings below. In neither of the upper wings, underway so early, had connections with the main hall been well thought out; Cave 25 must be inconveniently reached via the courtyard of Cave 24—quite distant from Cave 26—while Cave 27 apparently could only be reached by an inconvenient and expedient climb up over the left side of Cave 26LW’s porch. For all such reasons, added to the primitive clumsiness of its excavation, Buddhabhadra in effect sacrificed Cave 25, in about 466, to 307 The floor as well as the left margin of the courtyard of Cave 24 was cut so close to the right wing, that it was impossible to put cells (or later a shrine) in that area.
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allow the expansion—into its very precincts!—of Cave 24. At the same time he appears to have lost interest in further developing Cave 27—or perhaps it is fairer to say, preferred to focus all his efforts on the huge task of making the main hall and the integrally connected wings below. In any case, at just about the same time that he stopped work on Cave 25, he gave up on Cave 27 too. One clear evidence of this is that he gave up cutting Cave 27’s cells by 466; considering the early, even if ill-destined, inauguration of these two upper wings, all of these cells had probably already been penetrated by 464 or 465.308 This is why, in the rear wall—the wall opposite the porch, which faces out on the court below—there is no evidence of a shrine being started, even expediently. (The shrine in Cave 25 was never started because work on the interior hall had been early abandoned due to Cave 24’s planned intrusion) As if in confirmation of the early work, and the early interruption of work, on this cave, none of the cells have been cut in the B mode, as they would have been if work had continued to 468. We can probably assume that the more finished cells at the rear—the real rear, not the right wall where, in 478, a shrine was to be started—were cut out in 464 or 465 or possibly 466.309 while those on the right wall were barely begun, although a few would be worked on a decade later. The simple cell at the right porch end (and perhaps a lost one at the left) was probably also cut in 466; it would be transformed, like the one just below in 26LW into a pillared complex well after the Hiatus. In any case, with an understandable commitment to the convenience of the main cave and its closely related lower wings (at least its left wing) and with an equally understandable discouragement caused by the inconvenience of the primitive upper wings, Buddhabhadra gave up work, at least for the time being, on both of the latter. At the same time, he temporarily abandoned the highly faulted lower right wing too (26RW), which had run into serious difficulties, both geological and developmental. The two upper wings obviously
308 One or two of the cells on the right wall (where a shrine was later started) may have been planned but not penetrated prior to 466; the presence of roughedout candrasilas confirms this. The cell (PR) at the end of the porch, like other porch cells at the site, was originally cut in 465 or 466, and later transformed. 309 Had they been started as late as 467, a shrine would surely have been planned at the center of the wall.
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got started with more enthusiasm than technical facility or planning ability at the moment of the site’s inauguration. From the point of view of 466, when so many developments were already taking place throughout the site, these two old caves, so poorly integrated with the great caitya hall which they flank, were hopelessly old-fashioned. In any case, the planners kept up-to-date by putting a cell (or possibly cells) at the Left Wing’s porch end(s) and (even more important) planned a shrine at the back of the hall, emulating the successful (if expedient) arrangement in Cave 20.310 At the same time the whole porch of the Left Wing (and the interior with it) had been shifted (westward) by nearly ten feet. This facilitated the placement of the single cell at the right porch end, and at the same time made sufficient room for a similar one at the neighboring end of the Main Cave’s porch (see Plan) for since both of these abutting areas were to have these newly conventional single cells, their positioning had to be worked out in concert. (We note below how both of these porch end cells were soon and perhaps surprisingly transformed— as fashion changed—into vestibules for inner cells.) Since the courtyard itself was extended to the left when the porch of 26LW was repositioned, we can get a good idea of how the excavation was progressing at these lower levels. It is evident that this repositioning of the Left Wing to allow for the deeper porch required the extension of the whole complex’s courtyard, breaking its original carefully laid out symmetry. As already suggested, Buddhabhadra, dissatisfied with the old-fashioned Caves 25 and 27 at the upper level, and distressed with the highly faulted Right Wing, was determined to expand and improve the complex’s left wing, giving it a proper porch with a cell at either end, like all of the standard viharas at the site. The left porch cell probably once existed but has long since fallen away, but the right porch cell was indeed cut, bringing the plan “up to code”, for by 466/467 such porch end cells were added to every vihara, where it was still possible.311 In fact the whole displacement of the court to the left may have had as its purpose the provision of space for such a porch end cell, making 310 Because of the collapse of so much of the scarp, we cannot be sure if a cell was placed at the left end of the porch; but it seems likely, in part because the steps to Cave 27 went up over this area. 311 Often previously excavated features got in the way; for instance Cave Lower 6 could have no such additions, because there was already a cistern at one end of the (broken) porch and a doorway leading to Cave 7 at the other.
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allowance at the same time for a porch end cell at the left end of the main cave’s porch. The two new porch end cells in the main porch and the porch of the Left Wing, probably both cut in 466, were fitted well and closely together. However, no sooner were these new single cells started in the Left Wing’s porch—that at the left end has long since fallen away—but taste changed once again! By 467, a proper cave had to have pillared complexes—not single cells—at its porch ends. By now, however, the 466 plan was well underway, and not surprisingly the single cell at porch right was almost completed. This is evident from the notably “cell-like” depth of Cell PR (see plan), which is not at all characteristic for the pillared vestibules of such complexes. Its shape has to be explained by recognizing it as having been converted from a prior single cell. The assumption that Cave 26LW’s cell PR was quite fully cut out in 466 is supported by its lack of a step at the rear; the matrix had been all cut away by the time the conversion took place. Thus, as we have noted, Cave 26 LW’s single—at least single remaining —porch end cell (PR) now had to be drastically transformed by the demands of both taste and convention. This is because by 467 or at the latest 468, porch end cells were conventionally transformed into pillared porch end complexes. The transformation of course involved cutting the sacrificed cell’s front wall into attenuated pillars—so attenuated, in fact, that in the case of Cell PR they have broken away and are now totally and imprecisely restored. However, the related slim pilasters are intact, and happily supply the needed evidence. As we might imagine, the final decoration of the front of this pillared cell (as opposed to its blocking out) was done, like the decoration of the cave complex in general, after the Hiatus. It is evident from the way that the inner “residence” cell in the high-priority pillared complex at the left end of Cave 26’s main porch had to be set at 90 degrees to its vestibule that the plan in 466 (replacing the original intention to leave the porch ends plain) was to have only single cells at these points. This originally planned arrangement, as opposed to what eventually took place, would of course have involved no conflict at the juncture of the porches of the Main Cave and the Left Wing. However, because there was so much else to do on the Main Cave, it is quite possible that the planners did not even think of beginning to expose these single porch
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end cells in 467, at which point any thought of single cells was given up in any case. By 468, single porch end cells were no longer wanted; pillared complexes were the thing to have. At this point these were, quite understandably, added to both sides of the porch, with an extra cell being added for further accommodation at the right, where there was extra space available. (See Cave 26 plan) The assumption that these new pillared complexes were now started, like that in the Left Wing, in 468, is confirmed by the thickness of the fronting pillars in these cells in the main porch. These relatively thick and close-set pillars do not look like they were cut from previous simple cells with a standard size doorway in the middle. Furthermore, since such pillared cell complexes continue to be made throughout all of the rest of Ajanta’s evolution, it is likely that they were not excavated until the later phase of work on the cave, after 475. Certainly their decoration belongs to that period, even though that is not necessarily a key to when they were originally cut.312 One can see the problem that the planners of the left porch complex of the main cave faced. That is, by 467, the Left Wing’s single cell (as explained above) was already cut at the right end of the porch. Thus, although the Left Wing had been pushed back out of the way of the Main Cave once, it was now the Main Cave that had to adjust, at least on its left side. On the right side of the main cave’s porch, there was no conflict, and the complex could be laid out normally, because the little Right Wing had in effect been abandoned by this time, and in any case had less priority. In fact an extra cell was even added to the Main Cave’s right porch complex, to help satisfy the demand for residences. When we ask why the Left Wing (26LW), planned as a simple dormitory, would be elaborated by the addition of a pillared cell complex on one (or perhaps both) sides of its porch, the answer can only be the same answer that throughout the site was responsible to the sudden elaboration of many of the caves starting in 468. That is, the simple monastic hall was now newly conceived as a shrine,
312 If they were not cut until after 475, one should ask why Cave 26 RW did not put its “missing” Cell L1 in that space, since the projection for the image was defined in 468, and the cell to the right also cut. But we must remember that this is a carefully planned complex, and even if the right porch cells of the main cave had not been cut by 468, they surely would have been “on the books” and would have had priority over a cell in the faulted Right Wing.
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and such elaboration, both architectural, and sculptural, and painterly, was now not only justified, but in a sense required. The thinness (by post-Hiatus standards) of the front walls of nearly every cell in the two-winged Cave 26 complex, and in Cave 27 above, argues that all of these cells must have been well underway by 467 or even before, since they appear to have been planned in the earliest (A mode) manner, essentially involving nothing more than a simple opening in the wall. Whether the plan was to brace a wooden frame into the opening, or whether it was merely a case of leaving the matter up to later architects to figure out, the A mode was an embarrassment from the point of view of the more sophisticated later planners. Their predecessors’ only excuse was that they had so much else to think about and so little experience with rock cut monuments that they left the problem of fitting the doors up to someone else to decide. As mentioned earlier, only a single relatively late cell in the Right Wing has the kind of (B mode) projection that came into use in 468, just before work was halted on the cave.313 As we would expect, this cell’s displacement toward the back of the cave (See Plan) supports the assumption that the abutting complex at the right end of the Main Cave’s porch was excavated somewhat earlier, in 467, when the pillared complex was added to the original conception; or else that, since the main cave would have had a higher priority, that area was reserved for its use. However, when work was suddenly halted on the Cave 26 complex in 468, most of the cave was still only roughed out. Therefore, it is hardly surprising that not a single cell door got fitted (even in the two cells with B mode fittings in the Right Wing) until after the Hiatus. Then, quite understandably, all were provided with characteristically late recessed outer borders (conventional from 469 on) as well as the standard late inner (D mode) recesses, within which the doors were pivoted. Even the B mode doorway of 468 in the little Right wing was similarly converted to the D mode after 475, despite the extreme (early) thinness of its wall, which required that the D mode recess be minimal in depth.314 313 The ruinous cell R1 also once had a B mode fitting, but it can barely be made out today. 314 A further “proof ” that it was converted to the D mode is the presence of a niche on the rear wall; such niches never are cut until 471 or (as in this case) in 475 or 476.
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It may well be that all of the three still-remaining cells opening off the Main Cave’s porch and the ten (four now fallen away) in the Left Wing were fitted out in this same year (477) too, for in that year the carvers, when they fitted the doors, either added the “long” niches (found also in the Main Cave’s PRa) or else (as in these remaining cells) no niches at all, regular niches having gone out of style after 476.315 Furthermore, we can note a clear consistency in the way the doors are fitted with recesses, pivot holes, latches, latchpins and the like, all expectedly late in character. This would suggest that—quite in contrast to procedures used in certain other caves, such as Cave 17—a crew did the work all at once here, after all the cells were fully excavated. Since it would hardly have been practical to have done this until the excavations themselves were fairly fully trimmed and decorated (and the obstructive scaffolding taken down), a date of 477—or just possibly 478, when such work on the specially-favored Asmaka complex was still proceeding—seems most reasonable. It is evident that monks continued living in the cells for at least a few years after the site’s sudden decline in 478, since the pivot holes in the doorways show clear signs of wear. We can assume that such residency did not go on very long, since the whole site must have been essentially abandoned at some time in the 480s, as even local sources of charitable support dried up. On the other hand, there is evidence that someone—presumably a sadhu or the like— moved into the Left Wing’s Cell R2 and R2A, since a thin coating of cowdung covers some of the wall surfaces. Indeed, it is smeared right up into the pivot hole, making it evident that by the time of this occupancy, there was no door in the cell, for a door would have quickly worn the cowdung away. Presumably a door was present in 478 and for a few years thereafter; but it must have long since fallen away. It is evident that the anomalous and unfinished cell “complex” off the left porch end of Cave 25 is very late, not only because it totally conflicts with the presumed original intention of having normal cells opening off the hall in this area, but also because its floor level is consistent with that being defined in 478, as will be shown.
315 I have distinguished these later longer niches from the earlier type by calling them “shelves”.
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As for Cave 27, upon which work was also interrupted very early, although some of the cells there may have been penetrated by 465 or 466, all of the doorways (finished or not) were actually defined after the Hiatus. Indeed, that of R1, whose candrasila attests to its early beginnings, was so little penetrated at that time that its excavators were able to make its front wall some 30” thick, following late conventions. As we might expect, the door fitting, which shows signs of use, is of the post-Hiatus D mode. Although the latch area has been unhappily cemented in, one can still see a drop-slot—a feature often found (only) in D mode doorways, where typically there is a sufficient depth to the recess to provide for such a “lock”. Together with the inner doorstop normally found, and the standard latch arrangement, such drop-slots were one more convenient way for securing the door from within. It is interesting too that there is not only a standard hole for a door-stop on the door-base, (apparently an alternative way to secure the door from within), but another very similar one which surely was used to fix the door in an open position—an “advanced” nicety not found elsewhere at the site. Of course the surprising “excess” of ways to secure the door from inside the cell does not explain the reason or reasons that this was necessary or desirable! In excavations such as this great complex, the positioning of cells, and even the decision about which areas to concentrate on, depended upon priorities. Thus it is not surprising that the Main Cave itself, with its right porch end complex, usurped the space needed for both a porch end cell, and a cell at the left front of the interior of the long-suffering little Right Wing. To make matters worse, a cistern— always started early for practical reasons in such excavations—had been cut shortly after the Right Wing was blocked out in 464, innocently usurping the area just beyond the right porch end; for at that date porch ends were invariably plain, without cells, and no one would have anticipated that a few years later anyone would have thought of adding another cell at this point. Finally, as mentioned earlier, it had been discovered, once the scarp had been cut back, that the right rear corner of the Right Wing was execrably afflicted both with bad faults and with friable red bole, so that no cell could be cut there; instead, it was somewhat sliced away to make a convenient passage down from the far higher-priority Cave 24. All in all, it is little wonder that after having been cut out in about 465, work on this all-too-small and all-
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to-distressed cave was abandoned, just as work was abandoned at the same time on the embarrassingly old-fashioned and inconveniently located Caves 25 and 27 above. (However, unlike Caves 25 and 27, there was an abortive attempt to add an image there in 468, at the same time that the adjacent cell was cut (but not yet fitted out for use). This negative attitude toward these older caves may have played a definite role in the developments that soon took place vis-a-vis Cave 24; for by 466 (as explained in our discussion of Cave 23) Buddhabhadra already knew—in fact, intended—that Cave 24 was going to invade his great complex’s precincts, making it impossible to develop either the right side of Cave 25, or (because of the leveling of Cave 24’s court) the rear side of the Right Wing, where one would otherwise expect a shrine to be located. It seems obvious that the great monk Buddhabhadra must have approved the “sacrifice” of Caves 25 and 26RW, located so directly within his vast Cave 26 complex. In fact, it seems reasonable to assume that he initiated it, and that he was directly connected with the development of the adjacent, and highly impressive, Cave 24, to say nothing of Caves 23 and 21, as discussed earlier, which lie beyond.316 After all, had Buddhabhadra objected to—rather than encouraged—these developments, the huge Cave 24 could have been made smaller, so as not to invade the precincts of the Cave 26 complex. Even prior to 466, when the intrusions into the great complex appear to have been planned, it seems inconceivable that such plans could have been made without his approval; but after 475, when his own “party” was in power and the great Cave 24 barely begun, this great friend of the minister of Asmaka surely could have put it where he wished. That he did indeed do so, makes it clear that Cave 24 was his own undertaking, and that he was consciously sacrificing areas that he did not particularly want developed for areas that he very much wanted. Naturally, he realized that it was a conscious “trade-off ”, essentially sacrificing the almost embarrassingly obsolete old Cave 25, as well as the totally disorganized and blighted Cave 26RW.
316 This is a point that I have made before, but is essential for an understanding of the development of these Asmaka excavations. See discussion of Caves 21 and 23, and the adjustments which necessarily displaced Cave 24 to the left.
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This is understandable when we realize that the impressive Cave 24, adorned from the start (after the Hiatus) with particularly fine decorative forms, was destined not only to provide residence for forty (possibly even forty-four) monks, but to be the most up-to-date and well-appointed vihara at the site. The loss of a few cells in some obsolete caves perhaps seemed a small price to pay for that. At the same time, it is evident that work stopped on Cave 24 as soon as Harisena died, whereas it continued on other caves in Buddhabhadra’s complex. Buddhabhadra was surely realistic enough to know that he could never finish the huge Cave 24, which was by no means even half done when Harisena died, whereas the addition of shrines and a small number of decorative features in the wings of the Cave 26 complex was a far more manageable and feasible undertaking. In any case, the “invasion” of Cave 24 seemed to seal the fate of Cave 25, at least for the few remaining years up to the Recession, while the inconveniently located and shrineless Cave 27 too (though not because it was affected by Cave 24) went into a dormant state at this time. As for Cave 26RW, as we have seen, it enjoyed a modest renaissance in 468, with the addition of two cells, both having fittings in the early B mode, always utilized in that year. Buddhabhadra must have decided—perhaps because its location made it so inevitably a central part of his monument—to work on the little Right Wing again. The prime motivation must have been to provide it with a shrine, which (after 466) all proper viharas had to have, and were clearly seen as merit-producing features. But since this Right Wing’s rear wall had already been sacrificed to the expansive court of Cave 24, the planners, in laying out the shrine, decided upon both an unusual position and an anomalous projecting format, for there was really no other place to put it. For the present, the planner merely blocked out a projection for the shrine on the left wall, for here as elsewhere in the complex the detailed carving was put off until later. He then went ahead with the cutting of the two cells, even though originally, before realities set in, six had been intended! It seems likely that the roughing out of the doorway, porch colonnade and plinth-rail formats were not started until after 475. Then, in 468, throughout the complex, work stopped, due to the recession and the expulsion of the Asmakas from the site at the end of 468. Surely for this reason, the two cells in the Right Wing, intended for the B mode, did not get fitted out at this time, and were later converted to the more practical later D mode.
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Of the four subsidiary portions of Buddhabhadra’s great complex, it was only the more malleable Left Wing (Cave 26LW) that greatly concerned the great monk after 465 or 466; and as we shall see this favoritism continued in the complex’s post-Hiatus phase as well. The fact that the Left Wing’s development starts just as work on the other wings (upper and lower) stops—or vice versa—reveals not only its importance, but provides insights into the realities of work at a site which was getting busier by the year, and of course running into unexpected difficulties too. We have seen how, even before its excavation was underway, the Left Wing’s plan—once mirroring that of the Right Wing —was significantly changed to include single cells at the porch ends. At that point the anticipated plan of the hall within would have remained the same, conceived, like that of the Right Wing, as a square astylar hall intended to have two cells on each side, as yet innocent of a shrine. With its interior cells probably not yet begun (as the hall’s blocking out continued), it probably looked (in 466) very much like the barren Cave 25 still looks today. But then, in 467, conceptions changed again. This new change involved not merely the conversion of the single porch cells to pillared complexes (discussed above), but—most important of all—the addition of a shrine. In fact the two developments were probably conceived together, for there was no reason to put a decorated pillared complex in a mere monastery. For his shrine’s and shrine antechamber’s source (and later for its decoration) the planner of the remodeled Left Wing drew directly upon the just-developed and idiosyncratic arrangement in Cave 20. There the excavators, as the interior hall was being opened up, discovered a very serious flaw in the ceiling—a flaw so large that it might well cause a collapse of the ceiling, which of course, being early, had no supporting pillars. For this reason, wisely, they brought the shrine antechamber well forward into the interior space, where the ceiling would (they must have believed) be properly secured. The fact that it has held to this day justifies their decision. Although the presence of flaws was not a factor in Cave 26’s Left Wing, this Cave 20 arrangement, with its obvious space-economy, obviously appealed to the excavators of this Left Wing, for they not only copied the Cave 20’s projecting antechamber design, but would later decorate it with the same motifs as those used in slightly earlier cave. However, in the Left Wing the square interior must already have been largely blocked out by 467. For this reason the additions—the
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shrine and the corridors (which conveniently provide extra space for extra cells)—had to be excavated to the rear of, rather than cut within, the boundaries of the former plan. Perhaps to indulge his own creative sense and to “balance” the new corridors at the rear, the planner has squeezed a curious pillarless (but pilastered) vestibule, leading to the right wall’s second cell, between the other cells opening off the right wall. Actually, this curiously cramped feature, considering the careful positioning of Cell R1, may have been narrowed as a way to keep the third cell from facing too bluntly onto the shrine antechamber wall; for architects were generally quite concerned about each cell’s outlook. We can rightly assume that this complex cell (R2 fronting R2A) would not have been developed for a mere dormitory: the shrine must already been underway at the time, and in fact this is evident from the positioning of R3, which opens into the “corridor” formed by the positioning of the shrine antechamber. The Left Wing’s surviving cells must have all been roughed out, probably in 467, in the A mode, as their lack of “468” B mode fittings would suggest. Not surprisingly, they lack candrasilas, which were rapidly going out of fashion by this time. We can assume that the extant cells were mirrored, originally, by a similar group, now lost, on the opposite wall. Although there may not have been enough cliff face to contain a deeper middle cell on the right to mirror R2 on the left, we do know that a vast amount of the cliff-face (carrying with it the whole of the old stairway up to the complex) has fallen away in this area, so it is hard to be certain one way or the other. What does seem clear is that in 468, just before work was interrupted, various architectural elements in the Left Wing, just as was now the case in the Right Wing, were being trimmed down in a rather general way, while the walls of the cave—following early procedures—were being carefully finished. But it is surely true that not a bit of the detailed decoration, anywhere in the great complex, was added until after the Hiatus. Indeed, either through haste, or misunderstanding, the merely squared (yet to be further shaped) pillars and pilasters of the shrine antechamber were decorated “as is” in the post-Hiatus period, while the simple pilasters of the curious “vestibule” on the right were, like elements in the porch of the opposite Right Wing, never further elaborated at all.317 317 This vestibule (= R3) may have replaced another barely started single cells, planned for the previous conception; and for this reason could not have the expected
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As for the post-475 history of this enlarged and improved and enshrined Left Wing, when the decoration was started, the overall ornamentation shows a thoroughgoing late character; in fact, because it is so developed in this regard, it appears to have been done in 477 and 478 (when Asmaka patronage was still flourishing) rather than earlier. This may be because, when work suddenly could start up again in 475, it is quite possible that priority was given to the main hall first, since it was obviously the most important conception. As pointed out earlier, this would even pertain to the late D mode fittings (converted from A) of the Left Wing, which would presumably have been associated with niches if cut before 477. Cave 26LW’s handsomely medallioned right porch pilaster, all that is left of what must have been a beautiful colonnaded entrance, has its closest counterparts in the very late central porch pillars of Cave 24, while the equally splendid porch doorway, with its variously angled meander motifs, surely has the late (477) Cave 2 doorway, along with equally late “T-shaped” doorways, as its sources. By the same token, the remaining window, with its two dwarfs at either corner, and its now-“standard” lavish moldings, relates to the very latest (i.e. Cave 24, Cave 5) of these late windows at the site. In both the window and the doorway, slots at the bottom appear to be devices to lock the open doors in place; but in fact, they are probably to facilitate the sliding of the pivoted doors into place. The shrine and shrine antechamber, as explained above, took their format from Cave 20 just prior to 468; and now, probably in 477, we see the sculptors literally copying, almost verbatim but in a far drier mode on this later frame (the left one missing), the beautiful nagas and couples and goddesses that adorned the antechamber frame in Cave 20. It is perhaps curious that with all the troubles between the Asmakas and the king of Risika, that the victors would now appropriate the decorations of the defeated. Perhaps the reason was that this was already planned (but of course not started) in 467 or 468, before the troubles began. But it is perhaps also true that such decorative forms are relatively immune to political attitudes.
fronting pillars, since the needed matrix had been cut away by an earlier (later incorporated) doorway. In any case, the character of the remaining pilasters suggests that it was not properly finished in the post-Hiatus phase, and so it is not surprising that fronting pillars were not separately cut and “plugged in”.
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The (much reconstructed) shrine doorway, however, is quite different, although its repeated Buddha images bear some connection with the Cave 20 arrangement, as well as by the example of the Cave 4 shrine doorway which, with its obsessive focus on Buddha imagery, probably was also conceived and carved in the anxious context of 478. If there is anything to the (arguable) theory that the Asmakas banned representations of the standing Buddha in abhaya mudra— this being the pose Upendragupta chose for his own central image in Cave 19—it probably would not apply to the vertical row of Buddhas on this doorway, because they are shown as walking Buddhas, not the hieratic type which is the central motif in Cave 19. As for the damaged Buddha in the shrine (the rather ugly face is a reconstruction), although the image has been somewhat elevated because of a flaw, it is generally related to relatively conservative image-types such as those in Cave 2. It was almost surely started in 477, even though it may not have been finished and dedicated until the cave was more fully finished, in 478. We have shown how (and why) Buddhabhadra’s work program was continuing, quite unabated, in both the Main Cave and the important Left Wing, during 478, at the very time when the “Vakataka” patrons, giving up such well-laid plans, were anxiously trying to get their main images done and dedicated in a most expedient way. In fact, a “normal” course of work was proceeding on all of the caitya complex’s four wings during 478, and although it was not particularly intensive, it surely proceeded more vigorously than in the years just before. This was probably because the Main Cave was essentially complete by this time, making it feasible for Buddhabhadra to pay more attention to the wings; but it may also suggest that even Buddhabhadra was affected by the anxiety of the times. In any case, it seems clear that Buddhabhadra, sensing that time was running out in 478, was trying to get Buddha images hastily finished not only in the main hall, but in all of these subsidiary areas. We have mentioned that the Right Wing’s early (468) cell was not actually fitted out until 477 or 478, when the old B mode doorway was converted to a rather clumsy version of the D mode; both the doorway’s outer recess and the niche inside the cell, were cut at this same time when, not surprisingly, the Buddha image in the cave’s anomalous shrine was also started. This Buddha image in the Right Wing, which relates closely to images in the ambulatory dat-
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able to 478, clearly derives from the very slightly earlier, and highly prestigious, central image in the Main Cave. In fact (despite the anomalous shape of its “shrine”) it improves on its prototype in terms of its more ample composition. The bodhisattvas upon their lotuspedestals, the flying couples, and the “structural” form of the lionthrone all proclaim its very late date. Above, the elaborate entablature shows the eight Buddhas, while just to the left the “wasted” space (usurped by the Main Cave’s porch cells) has been converted into a comfortable pillowed bed (similar to the Dying Buddha’s) just the right size for an average monk of that day. It is not surprising that (as mentioned before) the fitting out of the adjacent cell appears to have been done at this same time (477/478). As for the Buddha figures at the porch ends (that at the right ruinous) they were typical intrusions, probably dating to 479; the smaller “intrusion upon an intrusion” cut into the larger panel at the left might be dated to 480. Buddhabhadra’s apparent concern, or that of his associates, to finally—now at the last minute!—get shrines cut in all of the wings of his complex is notably evident in Cave 27; for here, just as in the Right Wing, expedient adjustments were required to make this possible. In fact, this new feature was added so late that the shrine proper never even got started, nor the antechamber finished. The surprising placement is also a function of the late date of the addition; it could not be placed, as one would expect it to be, in the cave’s rear wall, because by this time Cave 28—which itself had just been started in 477, and abandoned hardly months thereafter because of Harisena’s death—was in the way. Thus we can be sure that the Cave 27 shrine cannot be earlier than that date; indeed, since it is so unfinished, and since time ran out, even for the Asmakas, in 478, it seems most reasonable to date it to this latter year. The urgent and expedient character of the planning of Cave 27’s shrine/shrine antechamber is evident from the fact that it is set in a wall (in fact a side wall) where, when the cave was first begun, four cells were to have been located. This is evidenced by the fact that two candrasilas (or matrix for them) are still intact; indeed, one such riser is directly in front of the antechamber’s right opening, which may have incorporated the beginnings of the related old cell as well, just as was being done at this very same time in the influential Cave 16. This would perhaps explain why the antechamber is not absolutely centered in the wall: it was shifted to the right
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out of necessity, in order to incorporate the already penetrated old cell.318 However, it is also possible that when abandoned in 466, Cave 27 was still merely blocked out like its counterpart Cave 25, but with matrix for typically early candrasilas reserved. The late character of the Cave 27’s door fittings makes this reasonable, and even though the depth of the front walls of the cells might argue for a late date; although they are thinner (some 17” for the average) than we might expect at this date, the carvers may have been influenced by the example of the earlier cells cut throughout the complex. Indeed, had the cells been penetrated—at least very significantly— by the time work was stopped in 466, we would expect them to be significantly thinner than they are. Perhaps the most likely conclusion is that at least a few of the cells were penetrated by 466, but so slightly that it was possible to make the walls relatively thick when work was taken up on them again after the Hiatus. Cell R1 of Cave 27 is curious, because it is the only cell anywhere at the site that was painted. One can make out traces of a medallion on the ceiling, and even the fragments of what must have been an iron garland hook is still to be found at its center. This cell has a niche of the type used elsewhere only up to 476; so unless it is an anomaly (explained by the cell’s presumably non-residential character) it seems reasonable to assign the cell to that date, since such a dating is appropriate too for its developed (D mode) doorway, discussed earlier. Quite possibly, since at this point the cave’s nearby shrine had probably not even been conceived, the cell may have been utilized as an “expedient” shrine, with an image probably being placed in the niche. The pillared cell complex at the right porch end may also have been carved at this same time; at least its door fitting is very similar. However, it too was apparently converted, after the Hiatus, from a typical simple cell which had been carved here in 466, ( just before work on the cave was then abandoned) to bring the blank porch end in line with current taste. The surprising depth of the cell complex’s vestibule confirms its conversion from an original cell—just like its counterpart in the porch below—while the molded bases of 318 The plan of the Cave 26 complex—not done under Burgess’s critical supervision—is unreliable in many regards, the layout of Cave 27 included. The plan used here (which should be redrawn) is from Yazdani Vol. IV, 1955.
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its broken fronting pillars can only belong to a post-Hiatus context, like the similar “converted” cell in the porch just below, or Cell L1 in Cave Upper 6. Because the decorative overlay of the main hall and of its particularly developed left wing was not started until the Asmakas finally took over the region in 475, it is notably late in character, with a lavish quality perhaps reflective of the victor’s new resources. Although the helter-skelter array of carved Buddha images on the facade returns are intrusive additions dating to 479 and 480, Buddhabhadra himself completed all of the decoration of the now-broken porch, as well as the carefully organized decoration of the whole facade (except for the carved intrusions beneath and within the previously painted great arch).319 He also sponsored the rich tapestry of the interior friezes over the pillars, with their varied catalog of Buddha imagery, and all of the painting in the cave, except that connected with intrusions. The pillars of the hall itself, when it had been left in its roughed out state at the time of the expulsion at the end of 468, would all have had simply roughed-out octagonal shafts, following the pattern of the pillars of the Hinayana Cave 10. But now many years had intervened during the Recession and the Hiatus and form and decoration throughout the site—particularly in the active royal caves— had greatly proliferated. It was this decorative complexity which Buddhabhadra took advantage of when he now elaborated the old plain pillars. He could not give them the now-conventional square bases, for cutting them back to that degree would have overly attenuated them, but he followed the solution utilized in the recutting of the porch pillars of Cave 2, with results which are remarkable in their elaboration even if perhaps somewhat too enriched with detail to “read” with clarity. The cave’s focus is of course the monolithic stupa with its very modern and authoritatively-posed teaching Buddha image of the socalled bhadrasana (foot down) type. Together with the Vakataka prime minister’s Buddha image in Cave 16, undertaken in the same year (477), this is the first appearance of such carved bhadrasana images—a revolutionary” and immediately influential conception.320 319
For the many intrusions on and in Cave 26, see Volume III. This type of Buddha image is often referred to as “pralambapadasana” instead of bhadrasana. The devotees of Buddhabhadra’s days probably spoke it differently, anyway. 320
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However, Buddhabhadra’s image is obviously uncomfortably cramped within the space provided for it, as so many of its surrounding motifs declare. As a result, the by-now conventional bodhisattvas (which can be better seen in the more spaciously composed derivative reliefs in the right aisle) had to be miniaturized and placed around the corner on either side of the stupa drum. The problem is that the stupa had been roughed out a decade earlier, with an earlier type of image in mind—very possibly a standing Buddha much like that in Cave 19, for relations between Buddhabhadra and Upendragupta would still have been good in 466 or 467. Indeed, with such a dramatic disruption of tradition— the replacement of the primacy of the stupa with an image projecting forth from it— it is only reasonable to believe that in both of these initial instances the image would have been of the same type. It would be hard to believe that two significantly different images would have evolved at the site at the same time. On the other hand, it is hardly surprising that the images which were finally carved on these stupas, nearly a decade apart, turned out to be so dramatically different.321 But this was because of our famous Recession! When the local king, Upendragupta, expelled Buddhabhadra and his Asmaka hosts at the end of 468, he naturally continued work on his own caitya hall and its central image. The Cave 19 image was probably revealed in 469 or some months earlier. Then, once work on the cave was nearly complete, it would have been dedicated, probably in the midst of much anxiety, sometime before the end of 471, when Upendragupta lost control of his kingdom, or at least of the site. It was then a number of years before the Asmakas were able to come back to the site; but when they did return, they returned in force. Work would then, in 475, have started up on the elaborate decoration of the Cave 26 caitya hall, its splendors reflecting the new Asmaka domination over the area. The core of the hall, as it had been roughed out by 468, was of course very severe, when the Asmakas ordered work on it begun again; but now Buddhabhadra could take the opportunity to make it as lavish as he desired. By 477, we can assume that the caitya hall’s decoration was moving toward completion, and that it was an appropriate time to carve the new Buddha image on the front of the stupa. But now nearly
321
For discussion see Volume II, Chapters 2 and 3.
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ten years had passed, ideas of Buddhist imagery had rapidly changed, and there was no reason why the old concept of the standing Buddha image should still be honored—especially since the standing image in Cave 19 was the very symbol of the defeated enemy. The only problem was that the frontal projection on the stupa, the space reserved for an image, had been made to fit a standing Buddha, not the more expansive bhadrasana type, especially since seated Buddhas at the site, unlike the earliest images, now required the conventional attendants, Avalokitesvara and Vajrapani. Thus not only was the new image crowded in its too high and too narrow stupa front, but the attendants had to be relegated to proximate positions on the stupa drum where, in fact, (although their presence is essential) they cannot even be seen by a devotee walking toward the image itself. Nor, when the stupa and a location for the image being planned just prior to the Recession (468), was provision made for devotees who would attend the image by kneeling in front of its base. This was another feature that no image required prior to 475, but was almost invariably expected from that time on. Although of course no stone had been left for their definition, happily there was just enough uncut matrix on the floor at the left, when work started again in 475, to squeeze three devotees in at the left, even if they had to be placed a bit too far back. By contrast, at the right, where more of the deep floor matrix had been cut away by 468, the kneeling figures (now missing) had to be carved separately and plugged into a slot in the floor. Unlike their monolithic counterparts, they are quite reasonably put in the “correct” position, where they can better see and worship the newly revealed great image. In 478, with the trauma of Harisena’s death so much more drastically disturbing the other patrons throughout the site, Buddhabhadra, protected by his Asmaka connections, began the work of decorating Cave 26’s aisles, getting some remarkable images done before everything came to a sad and sudden ending at the end of that year. The sumptuous triad of “Sravasti Miracle” panels, the related wellilluminated panel at the rear (with the first Tara image carved at the site attending one of the Buddhas above) and the adjacent highplaced frieze of “Eight-Buddhas” in the right aisle were carved at this time, while two even more remarkable panels, sponsored by Buddhabhadra himself, appear in the left aisle. One, the skillfully carved Temptation of the Buddha by Mara, halfway down the aisle, competes with some of Ajanta’s mural paintings in its complexity,
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making us all too painfully aware of the price that was paid by the cutting off of the site’s consistent patronage at precisely this point. The other, the Dying Buddha, with its grieving devotees, poignantly— even fittingly—records this same absolute end of the site’s brief but amazing span of consistent patronage. A few abandoned sanguine sketches on the white plaster over the Dying Buddha show how the painted surface layer, having poor adherence, has fallen away; but one can see the original colors still in the tree leaves near the Buddha’s head. This seems sufficient to prove—as we might expect—that the whole was once painted. But this listing of Buddhabhadra’s remarkable ambulatory images tragically signals the end of consistent patronage both in this great cave and throughout the site in general.322 All of the rest of the helter-skelter panels in the lower-priority positions in the aisles, as well as the carvings on the facade returns and within and under the previously painted (probably 477) great arch are “intrusions”, given by eager new donors when the previously authoritative control of the site disintegrated in 479. These donors, as we know from the many brief inscriptions beneath their images, were by and large the monks still resident at the declining site, like “the Sakya monk Gunakara” who gave appears to have been one of the first of the pious intruders to invade the cave, giving at least one and perhaps both of the two great standing Buddhas that occupy the highly desirable positions on the left and right facade returns.323 These rapidly mounting difficulties at the site were the direct result of the untimely death of the emperor Harisena in 477, and the succession of his inept son Sarvasena III to the throne. At the latter’s accession, the increasingly aggressive Asmakas immediately began to act upon their long-nourished plan to take over the empire for themselves, which they could by no means do while the forceful Harisena was alive. This profound change in the political situation is why Buddhabhadra’s donative record (inscribed in 478 on the porch wall) so volubly praises the Asmakas, and so insultingly omits any reference whatsoever to the weak new Vakataka overlord. And this is
322 As mentioned earlier, the consistent patronage of the “Vakataka” patrons, as opposed to that of the Asmaka patrons, ended slightly earlier—about mid-478— when the Asmaka rejected the control of the Vakataka overlord. 323 For a discussion of these and all other intrusions in Cave 26 and elsewhere, see Volume III.
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why, with the demands of the military suddenly paramount, the great patrons, throughout the site, were able to do little more in the early months of 478 than to get their central Buddha images finished, before midnight struck. As mentioned above, the following Period of Disruption (c.479–c.480) saw the creation of a vast number of “intrusive” images, which probably could be ordered very cheaply from craftsmen with nowhere else to go and nothing else to do in these troubled days. However this compulsive merit-making phase lasted hardly, if at all, beyond 480. By then, the burgeoning insurrection started by the Asmakas against the Vakataka house was beginning to ignite the whole of central India with its flames. At that point, its demise defined by the many unfinished intrusions everywhere, Ajanta’s active developmental history was over. It seems evident that absolutely nothing was being done on Cave 25 (upon which work had been abandoned over a decade before) in the busy years just before 478, when the caitya hall itself was so vigorously underway, for it was not only the new court cell of Cave 24, but its developing left aisle too, that was destroying Cave 25’s future—obviously with Buddhabhadra’s consent and even approval. One senses that it was not because work had suddenly had to stop on Cave 24 (due to Harisena’s death) that the decision was made to continue work on Cave 25. The truth is, the damage was already done; even if Cave 24 had been finished, it would have had little more effect on Cave 25. Instead, it must be that, in the anxious climate of 478, which could not but affect the monks of the Cave 26 complex, the monk Buddhabhadra, just as in Cave 27, Cave 26LW and Cave 26RW, felt urged to make a shrine in this old cave, even if it would have to be of a very unorthodox type. Thus all four of the subsidiary parts (or “wings”) of the great caitya complex would be supplied with Buddha images which could be worshipped. But of course, since it was now 478, it was too late to get all of these four shrines done successfully. Cave 26LW was no problem, because that image did indeed get completed, perhaps even in 477, for it had been given special attention, and in fact its doorways and windows and various pillars (most now lost) had been beautifully decorated. Cave 26RW, also on the same convenient level of the court, also was supplied with a fine image, of the latest bhadrasana type, completed as it were at the last minute, in 478. Cave 27 had
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less success, for time ran out before the large antechamber was unfinished, so obviously a shrine was never completed; however, as already noted, Cell R1, the only cell at the site which was ever painted, may have been developed with a special niche at the rear, to hold a substitute image, in lieu of the necessarily abandoned proper shrine. The treatment of the long abandoned Cave 25, which could never be properly developed because of the extensions of Cave 24 beneath it, was nonetheless at the last minute—in 478—accorded some special treatment suggesting that Buddhabhadra wanted to install an image there too. Although the hall itself could not be used, because its floor could not be cut down to a practical level due to the penetrations of Cave 24 beneath, Buddhabhadra (or his associates) ordered the porch area decorated at least to a minor degree. Thus, although time ran out before it could be done, the two old octagonal pillars were being upgraded, quite clumsily, to more fashionable types, and the porch doorway was provided with a very up-to-date lintel design. The latter, carved all too shallowly, was accomplished in a most cursory and almost illegible fashion; and in fact it served no really sensible purpose, since the hall into which it led was abandoned. But at least it had a decorative function, or at least a conventional pattern, which may have been desired as part of the whole scheme to give the old porch a more modern dress. Considerable effort was made now to cut down the court floor, which had so far been filled with a foot or two of matrix. However, at the right end, this cutting had to stop, because of the presence of Cave 24’s court cell, excavated the year before, in 477. It rises up well into the matrix which the workers in Cave 25 would, if it were not there, have cut away. So the only thing that could be done was to leave this area alone, turning it into a large platform. The evidence which this problem area gives is very important, for it is clear proof that, whereas the court cell of Cave 24, like so many other undertakings at the site, had to be summarily abandoned at the time of Harisena’s death at the end of 477, work was going on in a somewhat normal course in Cave 25 during 478, as the workers tried to adjust their cutting-down of the court area to the reality of the troubling cell below sticking up in the area at the right of the court, making it impossible to continue cutting the floor down to the desired level. This is but one further proof—like the treat-
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ment of Cave 21 immediately after Harisena’s death—that Asmaka patronage continued unabated—even if troubled—in a somewhat normal course throughout 478. Thus Ajanta suffered a dual disaster in that ominous year. For that was the very year when, just prior to (or perhaps compelled by) the Asmaka “coup de etat” that the “Vakataka” patrons were so frenziedly rushing their shrines to an expedient completion, and were leaving the site in both a pious and a practical desperation. The “platform” which the excavators has to leave at the right end of Cave 25’s court may actually have been conceived as having a useful purpose. There is no way to be sure, but perhaps it was going to be converted to an offering platform for a loose image which was to be placed in the anomalous “niche” at its rear. It is hard to understand why such a niche was cut in this rear wall, except to hold an image, although admittedly there are no attachment points; but this is hardly surprising, for in this ominously troubled period time probably ran out before the niche could be properly prepared. What argues for the view that an image was to be placed here is the fact that all of the work on the doorway and the fronting pillars, to say nothing of the cutting down of the floor, would seem to be totally purposeless if there had been no plan to make some kind of shrine in the little cave; certainly it was not being prepared for residence, for the interior hall was clearly abandoned. One point which might support this view—other than the realization that Buddhabhadra seems compelled to add shrines, generally at the last minute, to all the other wings also—is that a rather similar niche has been cut in the front wall of Cave Upper 6, in the midst of a whole series of intrusive Buddhas. As we know, the Asmakas had to leave the site by the end of 478, not too many months after the frenzied departure of the “Vakataka” patrons. However, this Asmaka departure was more saddening than really traumatic, for it was caused by their courtly support being cut off due to the demands of the Asmaka’s developing insurrection. We cannot believe that the Asmaka authorities up in the capital did not feel pain in putting a halt to an undertaking that by now was deservedly famous throughout the Indian world and far beyond; and they also must have known that they were cutting it off at the moment of its greatest flowering. But at the same time, they almost certainly had the conviction that, after the insurrection was over,
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and the smoke of war had cleared, and after the great Vakataka empire was finally safely in Asmaka hands, they would return to give this incredible developing site its due. Needless to say, such a dream turned only into nightmare, and Ajanta never came to life again.
Cave 28 Cave 28, like Caves 3, 14, 22, 23A, and (the problematic) 24A, was among the small group of excavations started after the Asmakas took over control of the site in 475. Perhaps surprisingly, none of them appear to have been started at once; indeed, it seems likely that none of them, even the more developed Cave 22, were begun until 477; and as we might expect, since Harisena suddenly died at the end of that year, work broke off on all of them at the time, before they were significantly underway. This delay in their starting might be explained by the fact that, with the renewal of work on the major and ongoing caves in 475, there was such a pressing demand for workmen. In fact, the competition was probably responsible for the fact that work on some of the relatively minor caves such as the old Caves 5, 8, and 15, did not start up again immediately after 475. At the same time, we must realize that there was a strong authority operating at the site, and that it may have taken some time and deliberation before permission was given for patrons to start the new caves, all of which, incidentally, are at the upper level, the only space where space was still available, even though its utilization may have required some discussion with the donors busy at making their caves below. Although Cave 28 is of course also located at the upper level, it is in a quite different situation, because it is the first of (we assume) a whole series of fine viharas which, as if balancing Caves 21, 23, and 24, would have gradually filled up that area. The area is now of course an extremely precipitous and extensive expanse of dramatic scarp, but when we consider the vast amount of cliff face— perhaps well over twenty feet—that has fallen away close by, along the front of the great caitya complex, we can well imagine that in the fifth century the whole area must have been more immediately accessible. Certainly the workmen going back and forth to Cave 28 were not rock-climbers.
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Cave 28 was planned in what was now the conventional formula for the Asmaka viharas, as represented by Caves 21, 23, and 24, and this, to say nothing of its location, must reveal that it was yet another undertaking by the great monk Buddhabhadra—part (we suggest) of his ambitious plan for making the whole western extremity of the site a huge complex which would have the grand Cave 26 as its central focus. That this (assumed) plan never worked out was due of course to the tragic consequences of the Asmaka insurrection, which cut off all consistent development at the site at the very moment, in 477, that Cave 24 was getting underway. Thus this large and obviously well-planned cave never got excavated farther than the back of the porch. Even the grand (six pillared) colonnade was merely roughed out by the time that the order to stop all work came. A matter of interest is that, in laying out the cave, Buddhabhadra, or his planners, assumed that the upper left wing (Cave 27) of the great caitya complex had been abandoned—a reasonable assumption, since the upper right wing (Cave 25) had been abandoned too, as Buddhabhadra concentrated his efforts on the more productive and important lower levels of the complex. They (perhaps Buddhabhadra himself ) had no reason to think, when these caves were earlier abandoned, that in 478—in that turbulent year when so many last minute things were done—they would see these two old and obsolete, caves as candidates for shrines themselves. Therefore, since Cave 24’s right aisle cells, and its deep (double) porch cell would intrude into the relevant area in Cave 27, the Cave 27 shrine had to be started (never to be finished) in a most unorthodox way, on the right side of the cave. This curious situation actually provides us with important insights into the matter of Asmaka patronage. Unlike the relatively frantic struggle of the “Vakataka” patrons to get their shrines done by mid478, before the Asmaka rejection of the imperial overlordship, the Asmakas worked anxiously but consistently through the whole of 478, until their involvements were cut off by word from on high. The fact that Cave 28 occupied (potentially) space needed for the properly place shrine of Cave 27 is clear evidence that Cave 27 was still being developed throughout 478; and when we realize that this was equally true of Cave 25, and of the main hall of Cave 26,and of its two lower wings, and indeed of Cave 21 and 23 also, it leaves no doubt but that the Asmakas, unlike the “Vakataka” patrons, continued
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their work, either hastily or (in Cave 26) splendidly, right through that last difficult year.
Cave 29 The unfinished Caitya Cave 29, cut in the area high above Cave 21, at a time (469) when there was no sufficient space remaining for such a hall at the site’s main level, had apparently not even been discovered when Ajanta’s sequential numbering was done. Placed in a relatively inaccessible spot high above the other caves, its spacious court area must have invited an obscuring growth of plants and trees, flourishing in its deep accumulated debris. We should note the early confusion in its numbering, since it is described in both The Cave Temples of India (1880) and Report on the Buddhist Cave Temples and their Inscriptions (1883) as “Cave XXVIII”, while the present Cave 28 is described as “Cave XXIX”. And just to add to the confusion, the accompanying site plan, in the latter volume, shows the number 28 where the cave described as “Cave XXIX” is located. It seems quite certain that it was the “authority” of this Site Plan, where the last cave in the western extremity of the site is clearly numbered “28” that finally established the numbering used today throughout the site, allowing the caitya hall under discussion, which in fact is not shown on the early plan, to inherit the missing number “29”. Since only the upper portions of the facade and the vaulted area of the interior had been revealed when work broke off, it seems likely that Cave 29’s excavation was underway for only matter of months, or perhaps as much as a year, before work stopped. Thus the very incomplete cave has generally been considered (along with Cave 28) as one of the site’s latest undertakings, upon which work stopped when Ajanta’s active patronage ended. However, this is certainly not the case, as far as Cave 29 is concerned. The proximity of Cave 29 to Upendragupta’s royal complex—it is as close to Upendragupta’s extensive complex as it was possible to get in 469, by which this area was already “built up”—makes it reasonable to believe that this was another of this lavishly pious king’s donations. Nor surprisingly, it was started at the very moment when he had expelled his Asmaka rivals from the region, and consequently had forced them to abandon work on their own rival—
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and perhaps threateningly large—Cave 26 complex. It was the ultimate put-down, similar to the retaliatory manner in which, when the Asmakas had banished the local king from his own region a few years later. As explained above (see Cave 19) they sliced through the monks’ cells at the front of his own sacred hall to make a more convenient path over to their own complex. However, within a year or so after Upendragupta had expelled his aggressive Asmaka rivals, his goal of “covering the world with stupas and viharas”324 (Ajanta 17 inscription, verse 22), not only at Ajanta but surely throughout his whole kingdom, ran into the harsh insistencies of reality. His concerns, or at least those of his admirers, were increasing, as the rumors of the developing Asmaka power, and of their developing intentions mounted. Having already, instituting what we have called the Recession, forced the stoppage of pious expenditures by his associates throughout the site, he now began to take his own situation, and that of his kingdom, with a proper seriousness, cutting back on the funds with which “expending abundant wealth” he had so vigorously funded and encouraged all of his donations at the site. But now, as is immediately clear from a study of the impositions put upon developments in both his Cave 20 and Cave 17, and to a lesser degree in his focal Caitya Cave 19, he was recognizing the implications of the fact that a war with the Asmakas was imminent. The first clear victim of his concerns was this vaunted Cave 29 which, after a mere year of hopeful development, was suddenly, and sensibly, abandoned. The treatment of Cave 29’s facade immediately suggests that it is (compared with Caves 19 and 26) a relatively late conception, begun only after work had been halted on the latter cave; in fact, this occurred at the beginning of the Recession, when the development of all of the non-royal caves had been halted, or were about to be halted, at the site. We can conclude this, because Cave 29 has been quite carefully detailed not only with carved associated beams and crossbeams but with a fully defined kirttimukhas mask and flower scroll at its apex; this parallels the treatment of its counterparts in both Cave 19 and Cave 26. However, like the Cave 26 arch, which was decorated after the Hiatus, Cave 29’s has a projecting rosette, suggesting that it was decorated after that of Cave 19, as would
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Ajanta 17 inscription, verse 25.
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surely have been the case if this very unfinished cave was not started until 469. It should be noted that the definition of such details is quite characteristic of procedures applicable to caves done after the site was well underway; in the earliest phase of work, whole excavations sometimes were roughed out in only the most general way, with the detailing left until later. Indeed, the Caitya Cave 26 itself, along with its wings, appears to have been still in such a plain state when work on it was interrupted in 468; its decorative overlay was all added later on. The same is true of the early viharas Cave 5, Cave 4 and Cave 2, with their typically late doorway and window decoration, added after 475 upon a previously undecorated core. By way of contrast, Cave 29 was underway at a point when the excavation and its allied decoration was approached in a more confident and also probably more cost-effective way, workers being assigned to the decorative detailing even while adjacent areas were being roughed out. Continuing on with such observations, we should note that the excavators have stopped at the very point that we would expect the stupa’s umbrellas to be revealed, judging from the placement of the stupa in Cave 19. That is, they appear to have been planning, had work continued, to reserve the rock in this area, so that the umbrellas could be a monolithic continuation of the stupa itself— a far more sophisticated way of proceeding than was the case in Cave 26, where the necessary rock was unthinkingly cut away, due to inexperience. This would be one more reason to believe that the cutting of Cave 29 did not begin until the time when the more advanced and sensible approach seen in Cave 19 could have been emulated, making it reasonable to suppose that Cave 29 was started as the latest of the three, particularly given the other evidentiary factors. Even the precision of the cave’s layout—most evident in the relatively straight alignment of the various facade elements—contributes to this conclusion, by removing it from association of typically warped early excavations. Thus we might reasonably conclude that Upendragupta started this new caitya hall in 469, precisely at that point when his relations with the rival Asmakas had soured; just as we might further suppose that Cave 29’s inauguration, following immediately upon the interruption of work on the rival Cave 26, is not at all coincidental. Having forced the stoppage of work on the Asmaka’s Caitya
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Cave 26, and probably still intent on “adorning the earth with stupas and viharas”, Upendragupta had perhaps decided (not unhappily) to excavate his own “replacement” for it, in order to companion the wrenched-around Cave 19. Indeed, Upendragupta appears to have oriented Cave 29, like the now disfavored Cave 26, to the summer solstice, with which, even in its merely-penetrated state, it appears to be aligned. We do not have to believe that Upendragupta actually needed a cave oriented to the summer solstice; what he needed perhaps most of all was to put down his Asmaka rivals while he still had the funds and the confidence to do so. On the other hand he surely would have taken satisfaction in having both a winter-solstice focus (Cave 19), and a summer-solstice focus (Cave 29) to his name. I have not yet been able to get any information about why an orientation, whether to the summer or to the winter solstice, or to both, would be important and presumably effective. But it is evident from the evidence of Caves 19, 26, and (presumably) 29 that this must have had some importance. In this regard, it is interesting to note that when I was in the old western Vakataka capital of Basim (Vatsagulma), I was privileged to meet an old man with a deep interest in the history of the city. As we were walking toward the main (Saivite) temple in the town, he suddenly said to me, quite unexpectedly, “You know, this temple is oriented to the solstice.” Since the foundations of the temple were—as is so often the case in India— presumably very ancient, I found this information, even if it perhaps explained nothing, of signal interest.
A BRIEF APPRECIATION
Just as I am profoundly grateful to Professor V. V. Mirashi for providing the foundation for my own studies of the cultural context of Ajanta and other Vakataka sites, I am equally indebted to the work of James Burgess and his colleagues, both Indian and English, in surveying and recording the most important of India’s excavations with such a consistently startling precision. It is the very precision of this work, preserving the faults of the planners and the workers as well as their triumphs, which make these ancient “works of art” such an invaluable resource. When a cell, for instance, appears to be misaligned, we must seek the reason (or reasons) for such a seeming error, and this often points us in the direction of discovery. If such plans are “cleaned up and straightened out” as is so often the case, even in purportedly scholarly publications, they can no longer tell the truth. Each of the plans here, testifying not only to Burgess’s deep commitment but to his staff ’s evident sense of responsibility, embodies in graphic form, the same story, with all of its twists and turns, that our investigations must elicit. I must also express my warmest thanks to Dr. Suresh Vasant, who worked together with me for many years, constantly challenging me with his own views and constantly, by virtue of his love of the site and of his abilities as a facilitator, making our work productive. Without either elaborate help or elaborate equipment, he drew the “missing” plans, thus making the catalog complete; his contributions are identified by the initials SV. My friend Naomichi Yaguchi has studied Ajanta’s cells (notably the cell doorways) with consummate care; I hope to work with him, in a future publication, on a very comprehensive study of these crucially revealing features. I include his schematic drawing of four types of doorway fittings. Ajit Rao and Nitin Veturkar of Samaskara have worked with me to make “virtual” renditions of certain caves as if still in the process of excavation; one, of Cave 2, is published herein (see Fig. 5); others will appear in Volume 6.
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a brief appreciation
BCT = Buddhist Cave Temples and Their Inscriptions (Archaeological Survey of India, IV), James Burgess, London 1883 CTI = Cave Temples of India, by James Fergusson and James Burgess, London 1880 HASA = A Historical Atlas of South Asia, Joseph E. Schwartzberg (ed), Chicago 1978 Unless otherwise indicated, the charts and graphs are by the author.
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Fig. 1. India in the Age of the Guptas and Vakatakas (Adapted from HASA IIID1, IIID4; I have taken the liberty of “magnifying” the Vakatakas)
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Fig. 2. Ajanta: plan of Site (BCT 14)
Fig. 3. Ajanta: Topographic Survey of Site (GSI)
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Fig. 4. Ajanta Cave 1: plan (CTI 40); long. section (BCT 21)
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Fig. 5. Ajanta Cave 2: plan (CTI 44); cross section (BCT 21) Excavation progress as of 468 (source: Samaskara)
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Fig. 6. Ajanta Cave 3: plan (SV)
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Fig. 7. Ajanta Cave 4: plan (CTI 46)
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Fig. 8. Ajanta Cave 5: plan (SV)
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Fig. 9. Ajanta Cave 6: Upper and Lower Plans: (CTI 32) long. sections (BCT 26)
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Fig. 10. Ajanta Cave 7: plan (BCT 28)
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Fig. 11. Ajanta Cave 8: plan (SV)
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Fig. 12. Ajanta Cave 9 façade and transverse section (BCT 17)
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Fig. 13. Ajanta Cave 9 plan and section (CTI 28) Ajanta Cave 10 plan and section (CTI 28)
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Fig. 14. Ajanta Cave 11 plan (BCT 28)
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Fig. 15. Ajanta Cave 12 plan and section (BCT 27)
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Fig. 16. Ajanta Cave 13 plan (BCT 28)
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Fig. 17. Ajanta Cave 14 plan (BCT 28)
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Fig. 18. Ajanta Cave 15 plan (BCT 28)
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Fig. 19. Ajanta Cave 16 plan (CTI 33)
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Fig. 20. Ajanta Cave 16 stages of development (WS)
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Fig. 21. Ajanta Cave 17 plan (CTI 33)
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Fig. 22. Ajanta: passage between Caves 17 and 19 (SV)
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Fig. 23. Ajanta Cave 19 plan and long. section (CTI 36, 37)
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Fig. 24. Ajanta Cave 19 façade, transverse section, stupa (BCT 30,31)
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Fig. 25. Ajanta Cave 20 plan (BCT 28)
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Fig. 26. Ajanta Cave 21 plan (BCT 34)
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Fig. 27. Ajanta Cave 22 plan (Yazdani Vol 4) Ajanta Cave 23A plan (SV)
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Fig. 28. Ajanta Cave 23 plan (BCT 34)
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Fig. 29. Ajanta Cave 24 plan (BCT 34)
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Fig. 30. Ajanta Cave 26 complex:(Yazdani IV) with conjectural reconstruction: original plan (WS)
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Fig. 31. Ajanta 26 plan and long. section (CTI 37; BCT 36)
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Fig. 32. Ajanta Cave 26 transverse section (BCT 36); stupa (CTI 38)
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Fig. 33. Ajanta 29 plan (SV)
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Fig. 34. Ajanta Cave 1 showing conversion of door fittings, and dates. Based on CTI 40.
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Fig. 35. Ajanta Cave 17 showing door fitting modes and dates. Based on CTI 33
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Fig. 36. Door fitting modes A, B, C, and D. (drawing: N. Yaguchi)
illustrations
Fig. 37. Count of Ajanta caves’ cells, either intended or finished. Assuming two monk for each cell.
387
388
illustrations
Fig. 38. Reconstruction of events related to Ajanta’s development
illustrations
389
Fig. 39. Time Chart: Vakataka Patronage at Ajanta and related sites
390
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Fig. 40. Defining Features (1)
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Fig. 41. Defining Features (2)
391
392
illustrations
Fig. 42. Chronology of the paintings at Ajanta (1)
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Fig. 43. Chronology of the paintings at Ajanta (2)
393
394
illustrations
CHECKLIST OF SCULPTURED INTRUSIONS AT AJANTA All of the votive intrusions at Ajanta were added to the caves during the brief and troubled Period of Disruption from mid-478-480. Generally Buddha images, but sometimes stupas or bodhisattvas, these votive offerings were given by eager and anxious new donors, most of whom appear to have been the monks who had never been able to share in this merit-making activity during Ajantas elitist heyday. These intrusive images, both painted and sculpted, were generally positioned with little or no respect for the original patrons well-laid plans. Understandably, locations near the shrine, or in good light, or on already smoothed wall surfaces, were preferred, as long as they did not cover or cut into previously finished iconic images. Intrusions were placed only in caves where the Buddha image was already dedicated. A few separate shrinelets (e.g.9A-D; 10A; 12A; 24 court) were also made at this time by more affluent donors. We can judge how intensive, and how brief, this intrusive phase was by noting how many of the carved images in the ambulatory of Cave 26 or in the lower priority areas of Cave Upper 6 were simultaneously underway when work on them was abruptly abandoned. Because these intrusions violate the original patrons plans for the caves, it is important to be able to identify them. By visualizing the caves as if such added images were not there, we can better imagine what the completed programs might have been like. The following list comprises the sites sculptured intrusions. For the painted intrusions, see Chronology of the Paintings at Ajanta.
CAVE
LOCATION
2
Courtyard
Buddha at right
4
Porch
Buddha and Litany panels
Shrine
Buddha images on walls (many unfinished)
Court
Shrinelets and front wall images
Porch
All images (many unfinished)
Hall
All Buddhas; relief stupas; shrinelets at right
Antechamber
All small Buddhas; completion of large Buddhas
Shrine
Buddhas on front and side walls (some unfinished)
Porch
Left rear wall painting
U6
7
Fig. 44. Checklist of sculptured intrusions at Ajanta (1)
illustrations 9
Façade
All Buddhas and stupas (some unfinished)
9A-D
Shrinelets
All intrusive
10
Façade
Two panels on right return
10A
Shrinelet
All intrusive
11
Porch
Buddha panels at right end
12A
Shrinelet
Unfinished Buddha
15
Hall
Two Buddha panels at left rear
17
Court
Buddhas at left and right
19
Court
All images except nagaraja panel
Façade
Images on façade frames and pilaster bases
Approach
Buddhas and miniature stupas at left
Porch
Buddha panels at left and left rear
Hall
Buddha panel at left rear
21
Porch
Buddhas at left end
22
(Shrinelet)
All Buddha panels
24
(Shrinelet)
Buddhas added in left court cell
26
Court
All images on facade returns
Facade
Images under and in front of caitya arch
Hall (aisle)
All panels, except Parinirvana, Temptation, Sravasti panels (R2-4: L8) and 8 Buddhas
26LW
Shrine
Buddhas on shrine doorway
26RW
Porch
Left end Buddha panel(s): right end ruinous
20
Fig. 44. Checklist of sculptured intrusions at Ajanta (2)
395
396
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Fig. 45. Development of Iconographic Features at Ajanta
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