200th Anniversary Year of Ajanta Cave Wall Paintings: Pithora Wall Art

Summary: Pithora wall art perhaps arises from ancient artistic traditions apparent in the 200th anniversary year of European-accessed Ajanta cave wall paintings.

Pithora wall paintings in a model Rathwa house; Udaipur; Oct. 25, 2014: neil zaveri (nevil zaveri ( away :)), CC BY 2.0, via Flickr

Pithora wall art of central and northern India and, in their 200th anniversary year of European access, Ajanta cave wall paintings of central-west India attract appreciators of perhaps common ancient artistic traditions.

Ajanta cave wall paintings by ancient Maharashtra state itinerants and residents and Pithora wall art by ancient and modern Bhil peoples build upon religious, ritualistic bases. The 1,300- to 2,300-year-old Ajanta cave wall paintings and the present-day and preserved Pithora wall art communicate similar color schemes on painted plaster on residential murals. They both divulge devotionally dutiful opportunities even though Ajanta cave wall paintings do not display the equipment means and problem-solving motives that Pithora wall art does.

Ajanta cave wall paintings and Pithora wall art emanate from an artistic continuum from the north-central Indian Deccan Plateau to Central Asia and the Far East.

Lamp-black from candle, oil- and torch-flamed residues; red and yellow ocher from iron-oxidized soils; and white chalk and lime from calcite fit over fresh dung-forged plasters.

Perhaps khachora-root brushes got area pigments, blue-greens of imported lapis lazuli, carbon particles and white powder onto Ajanta cave wall paintings and early Pithora wall art. Bhil honers of Pithora wall art headed 600 to 1,600 years ago from Madhya Pradesh westward into Gujarat and Rajasthan and southward into Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra. Their itineraries throughout the Deccan Plateau between the Godavari and Kistna Rivers perhaps impelled them into intermittent or intensive interactions with the Ajanta cave wall paintings.

Tourists in the 200th anniversary year journey past later, second-phase, 1,300- to 1,600-year-old Ajanta cave wall paintings, perhaps by Deccan artists of early Pithora wall art.

Façade and interior monastery and prayer hall walls keep inscriptions to patrons of Ajanta cave wall paintings by itinerant artisans for itinerant merchants and resident monks.

Unmarried Bhil girls load cow dung paste and powdered white chalk for family men to layer respectively once and twice over three conjoining interior house walls. Veranda walls to family kitchens or first front walls in first entry rooms inside maintain Pithora wall art that memorializes Bhil creation stories and Pithora Dev. Two side walls, half the size of main walls, net stylized ancestors, ghosts and minor deities; animals; celebrations, festivals and weddings; and dancers, farmers and hunters.

Ajanta cave wall paintings and Pithora wall art respectively offer Siddhartha Gautama (624?-544 B.C.?) as bodhisattva and Buddha and Pithora with earthly worshippers and fellow divinities.

Family men perform rituals proposed by the problem-solving Bhadwa (village head priest) and produce Pithora wall art as thanks and wishes for happiness, peace and prosperity.

Their narrative, petitioning, thankful murals queue up such lucky mascots as horses, the moon and the sun to quell family misfortune and to quicken family fortune. The Bhil peoples remain among regional residents least removed from the Waghora River bend's world-famous caverns, perhaps as descendants of artisans of Ajanta cave wall paintings. They safeguarded their Sahyadri Hills hunting grounds, and therefore the Ajanta Caves, once Hindu dynastic patronage of Ajanta cave wall paintings stopped after the fifth century.

What perhaps turned artisans of desire-free Ajanta cave wall paintings into ancestors of artisans of desire-fulfilling Pithora wall art well before Ajanta Caves' 200th anniversary year?

Pithora wall painting; Crafts Museum, New Delhi, India; May 11, 2010: Anilbhardwajnoida (Anil Bhardwaj), CC BY SA 3.0, 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:

Pithora wall paintings in a model Rathwa house; Udaipur; Oct. 25, 2014: neil zaveri (nevil zaveri ( away :)), CC BY 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/nevilzaveri/16093481062/

Pithora wall painting; Crafts Museum, New Delhi, India; May 11, 2010: Anilbhardwajnoida (Anil Bhardwaj), CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pithora_wall_painting.JPG

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