200th Anniversary Year of Ajanta Cave Wall Paintings in Ajanta Cave 9

Summary: The 200th anniversary year draws academics and tourists to Singh-restored Ajanta cave wall paintings at Ajanta Cave's second-oldest site, Ajanta cave 9.

Buddha frescoes, Cave 9, Ajanta Caves, Maharashtra state, central-west India; July 29, 2014:  Akshatha Inamdar, CC BY SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Ajanta cave wall paintings in Ajanta cave 9 appear less ailing in the 200th anniversary year of the first acknowledged European acquaintance with the Ajanta Caves of Maharashtra state, central-west India.

Ajanta cave 9 bears its number by physical location as the ninth cave from one of two ends to the horseshoe-like building of the Ajanta Caves. It contains the second-oldest Ajanta cave wall paintings, sculpted pillars and stupa (from Sanskrit स्तूप, "[memorial] dome") from the third or second through first centuries B.C. It domiciled animals before tiger-hunting drew John K. Smith, 28th Cavalry Captain for the Madras presidency and Colonel Henry Martin Lockhart Smith's great-great-grandfather, April 28, 1819.

A 17-year-long restoration extracted bat and bird excrement, dead invertebrates, dust, grime and restoration shellac without ending geologic stresses and 2.5 times the maximum tourist-holding capacity.

Ajanta cave 9, like neighboring, older Ajanta cave 10, functioned 1,300 to 2,200 years ago as a chaitya (from Sanskrit चैत्य, "funeral mound, pedestal or pile").

Doorways in a screen-like façade with arched windows guided the Ajanta caves monastic community into a central, long, narrow, nave-like vaulted prayer hall during rainy seasons. Twenty-three octagonal, painted, sculpted pillars herded circumambulating, meditating artisans, merchants and monks along a horseshoe-shaped, semicircular, u-like pradakshina (from Sanskrit प्रदक्षिण, "to the right-turning"). Halfway around the loop is the center of the end wall's semicircular apse (from Greek ἁψίς, hapsís, "arch") with arched ceilings and dome-topped, drum-based, stone-sculpted stupa.

Lay and monastic Buddhists journeyed clockwise around Ajanta cave 9, between fire-, moon-, star- and sun-lit left, end and right Ajanta cave wall paintings and pillars.

Ajanta cave 9, unlike Ajanta cave 10, keeps no stone-sculpted Buddha (from Sanskrit बुद्ध, "awakened") of the enlightened Siddhartha Gautama (624?-544 B.C.?) on its apsidal stupa.

Perhaps that lack or that loss led later artisans, merchants and monks to locate larger and littler chaitya-tōrana (from Sanskrit चैत्य, "memorial" and तोरण, "gateway") outside. Ajanta cave 9 and Ajanta cave 10 interiors maintain later manifestations of Ajanta cave wall paintings from the fourth through sixth, seventh or eighth centuries A.D. Self-enlightening Hinayana (from Sanskrit हीनयान, "lesser vehicle") Buddhism nurtured early eye-level, frieze-like Ajanta cave wall paintings of horizontal, instructional, meditative scenes with transitional rocks and trees.

Mass-enlightening Mahayana (from Sanskrit महायान, "greater vehicle") Buddhism occasioned the later Ajanta cave wall paintings of scenes organized horizontally and vertically from wall top to bottom.

Ajanta cave wall paintings present precise profiles, from Archaeological Survey of India conservation chief and science head Rajesh Singh's 1999-2016 restorations, in their 200th anniversary year.

The Singh quest quit Ajanta cave wall paintings 9 and 10 of Victorian varnish, Italian unbleached shellac and oxidized dark red-brown that "totally obscured the visages." Singh-restored Ajanta cave wall paintings reveal ancient southernmost reaches of Chinese, Central Asian and North Indian tempera techniques with ferruginous earth, organic matter and lime plaster. They support scrutiny in their 200th anniversary year of non-angular, non-modeled, scene-centering, signature gestures and poses in lamp-black, lime-white, red and yellow ochre, and terra verde.

The 200th anniversary year tenders no paintings once "so fragile that in some places there was a great fear even to touch them with the hand."

ground plans for Cave 7 (above), a vihara (monastery), and Cave 9 (below), a chaitya hall, at Ajanta Caves; ca. 1850 pen-and-ink and wash drawing by Major Robert Gill (Sept. 26, 1804-1875): Ms Sarah Welch, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Buddha frescoes, Cave 9, Ajanta Caves, Maharashtra state, central-west India; July 29, 2014:  Akshatha Inamdar, CC BY SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ajanta_caves_Maharashtra_280.jpg

ground plans for Cave 7 (above), a vihara (monastery), and Cave 9 (below), a chaitya hall, at Ajanta Caves; ca. 1850 pen-and-ink and wash drawing by Major Robert Gill (Sept. 26, 1804-1875): Ms Sarah Welch, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Plan_of_Ajanta_Cave_7_and_Cave_9,_1850_sketch.jpg

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