Overview
The Ajanta Caves are cut into a 76-meter-high crescent of volcanic basalt above a bend in the Waghora River, 107 km northeast of Aurangabad in Maharashtra. They were carved in two phases: Phase I (c. 200 BCE–200 CE) produced five caves of restrained Hinayana Buddhist character; Phase II (c. 460–480 CE) under Vakataka patronage produced twenty-five caves of the Mahayana period, with profuse sculpture and the extraordinary polychrome paintings for which Ajanta is celebrated. The paintings — applied in tempera on a plastered rock surface, not true fresco — cover an estimated 5,600 square meters and depict scenes from the Jataka tales (past lives of the Buddha), court scenes, celestial beings, and landscape settings of astonishing complexity and naturalism. The figures display the sophisticated understanding of bodily movement, foreshortening, and emotional expression that would later influence Buddhist art from Central Asia to Japan. Ajanta was abandoned after its patrons lost power c. 480 CE and was gradually forgotten until a British officer, Captain John Smith, stumbled upon it while tiger-hunting in April 1819. When he arrived, the caves were inhabited by bats, overgrown by jungle, and structurally intact; the paintings, however, had suffered badly from moisture and soot from fires lit by forest people who had used the caves as shelter.