Ajanta Cave 19 in 200th Anniversary Year of Ajanta Cave Wall Paintings

Summary: Ajanta cave 19 aligns artistically between aged Ajanta caves 9 and 10 and less aged 26 and 29 in the 200th anniversary year of Ajanta cave wall paintings.

exterior of chaitya Cave 19, drawn on stone by English watercolourist T.C. (Thomas Colman) Dibdin (Oct. 22, 1810-Dec. 26, 1893) from sketch by Scottish architectural historian James Fergusson (Jan. 22, 1808-Jan. 9, 1886); J. Fergusson's Illustrations of the Rock-Cut Temples of India (1845), Plate VI: Not in copyright, via Internet Archive

Ajanta cave 19 assumes a less ancient and assailed, more angular aspect than Ajanta cave 9 in the 200th anniversary year of the first European approaching the Ajanta Caves in Maharashtra, India.

Ajanta cave 19, unlike 9 and 10, belongs to the second building phrase, between the fourth and sixth, seventh or eighth centuries in central-north Maharashtra state. The captain for the Madras presidency and Colonel Henry Martin Lockhart Smith's great-great-grandfather carved John Smith, 28th cavalry, 28 April 1819, into Ajanta cave 10 artwork. Ajanta cave 19 painting styles dominate 2,000- to 2,200-plus-year-old Ajanta caves 9 and 10 except on their respective end and left and left and right walls.

Artisans and monks enigmatically excavated Ajanta cave 19 as an elaborated, expanded equivalent of Ajanta caves 9 and 10 than of Ajanta caves 26 and 29.

Ajanta caves 9 and 10 and Ajanta caves 19, 26 and 29 function as chaitya (from Sanskrit चैत्य, "funeral mound, pedestal or pile") prayer meeting halls.

Yaksha (nature-spirit, from Sanskrit यक्ष) dvarapala (from Sanskrit द्वारपाला, "guardian [of god Kubera's wealth]") guard the Ajanta cave 19 façade's vatayana (from Sanskrit वातायन, "[arched] window"). Sculpted naga (from Sanskrit नाग, "serpent") and yaksha helpers of Buddha (from Sanskrit बुद्ध, "awakened") and merchants perhaps hinder harm to those heading through façade doorways. Ajanta cave wall paintings inundate all Ajanta cave 19 walls, from side to side and top to bottom, to the nave-like, vaulted hall with 15 pillars.

Ancient Ajanta cave 19 artisans, merchants and monks journeyed clockwise between left, apsidal (from Greek ἁψίς, hapsís, "arch") and right Ajanta cave wall paintings and pillars.

Ajanta cave 19 knits left, apsidal and right pradakshina (side aisles, from Sanskrit प्रदक्षिण, "to the right-turning") together behind its apsidal stupa (from Sanskrit स्तूप, "memorial").

Its stupa, from whose front side a sculpted, standing Buddha looks out, lauds the stone-sculpted location of Buddha's ashes 1,000-plus years previously in Lumbini, southern Nepal. Left, apsidal and right Ajanta cave wall paintings and pillars manifest the enlightened Siddhartha Gautama (624?-544 B.C.?) as Buddha through hand-gesturing mudra (from Sanskrit मुद्रा, "finger-positioning"). Douglas Barrett and Basil Gray of Oriental Antiquities at the British Museum in London, England, note painting as adjunct to sculpture in their Painting of India.

Ajanta cave 19 offers the 200th anniversary year obliterated ceiling paintings above u-looped sculpted panels above sculpted capitals (from Latin caput, "head") atop obscured pillar paintings.

Sculpted capitals, façade and panels present folkloric, instructive, meditative, symbolic jataka (from Sanskrit जातक, "born under") biographies and mudra more permanently than Ajanta cave wall paintings.

Elephants queue up Buddha as the bodhisattva (from Sanskrit बोधि, "perfect knowledge" and सत्त्व, "essence") King Chaddanta ("six-tusked") whose jealous Queen Chullasubhadda quickens his death and hers. Horse, lotus and mother with child reliefs recall Siddhartha's favorite mount Kanthaka, seat of enlightenment under bodhi tree (Ficus religiosa) and wife Yasodhara with son Rahula. Mother with child also suggests the seeker of a shelter, where nobody succumbed to death, for sowing mustard seeds to snatch her son back from death.

Ajanta cave 19 truculently transmits mass-enlightening painted, sculpted tales despite the time, traffic and trauma that trouble Ajanta cave wall paintings in their 200th anniversary year.

Buddha with Mother and Child sculpture, right side of Cave 19 entrance facade; Ajanta Caves, Maharashtra, central-west India; Tuesday, July 29, 2014, 12:30: Akshatha Inamdar, CC BY SA 4.0 International, 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:

exterior of chaitya Cave 19, drawn on stone by English watercolourist T.C. (Thomas Colman) Dibdin (Oct. 22, 1810-Dec. 26, 1893) from sketch by Scottish architectural historian James Fergusson (Jan. 22, 1808-Jan. 9, 1886); J. Fergusson's Illustrations of the Rock-Cut Temples of India (1845), Plate VI: Not in copyright, via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/details/gri_33125008543106/page/n22

Buddha with Mother and Child sculpture, right side of Cave 19 entrance facade; Ajanta Caves, Maharashtra, central-west India; Tuesday, July 29, 2014, 12:30: Akshatha Inamdar, CC BY SA 4.0 International, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ajanta_Cave_19,_before_entrance_door,_right_side,_the_Mother_and_Child_scene_with_the_Buddha_and_begging_bowl.jpg

For further information:

"Ajanta Caves." UNESCO > Culture > World Heritage Centre > The List > World Heritage List.
Available @ http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/242

"Ajanta Caves Vulnerable to Landslides, Says Study." NDTV > India > News > August 6, 2014 15:50 IST.
Available @ https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/ajanta-caves-vulnerable-to-landslides-says-study-616005

Bankar, M.V.; and N.P. Bhosle. November-December 2017. "Ethnobotanical Survey of Medicinal Plants in Ajanta Region (MS) India." IOSR Journal of Pharmacy and Biological Sciences Volume 12, Issue 6 Ver. II: 59-64.
Available @ http://www.iosrjournals.org/iosr-jpbs/papers/Vol12-issue6/Version-2/I1206025964.pdf

Barrett, Douglas E.; and Basil Gray. 1963. Painting of India. Geneva, Switzerland: Skira, Treasures of Asia. Distributed in the United States by World Publishing Co., Cleveland OH.

Behl, Benoy K. 2005. The Ajanta Caves: Ancient Paintings of Buddhist India. London UK: Thames & Hudson.

Boyd, Ryan. 14 December 2018. "Sacred Sites: Ajanta Caves." Evolve + Ascend > Ancient Wisdom > Culture > Occult > Sacred Sites.
Available @ http://www.evolveandascend.com/2018/12/14/sacred-sites-ajanta-caves/

Boyle, Alan. 25 November 2013. "Religious Roots of Buddha's Birthplace Traced Back 2,600 Years." NBC News > Science News.
Available @ https://www.nbcnews.com/sciencemain/religious-roots-buddhas-birthplace-traced-back-2-600-years-2D11648772

Burgess, J. (James). 1879. "Notes on the Bauddha Rock-Temples of Ajanta, Their Paintings and Sculptures, and on the Paintings of the Bagh Caves, Modern Bauddha Mythology, &c." Archaeological Society of Western India, no. 9. Bombay, India: Government Central Press.
Available via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/details/archaeologicals01indigoog/

Dalrymple, William. 15 August 2014. "The Ajanta Cave Murals: 'Nothing Less Than the Birth of Indian Art.'" The Guardian > Culture > Art & Design.
Available @ https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/aug/15/mural-ajanta-caves-india-birth-indian-art

Fergusson, James. 1845. Illustrations of the Rock-Cut Temples of India: Text to Accompany the Folio Volume of Plates. London, England.
Available via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/details/gri_33125008483717/

Fergusson, James. 1845. Illustrations of the Rock-Cut Temples of India: Selected From the Best Examples of the Different Series of Caves at Ellora, Ajunta, Cuttack, Salsette, Karli, and Mahavellipore. Drawn on Stone by Mr. T.C. Dibdin, From Sketches Carefully Made on the Spot, With the Assistance of the Camera-Lucida, in the Years 1838-9. London, England: John Weale, M.DCCC.XLV.
Available via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/details/gri_33125008543106/

Fergusson, James; and James Burgess. 1880. The Cave Temples of India. London, England: W.H. Allen & Co.
Available via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/details/cavetemplesofind00ferguoft/

Fergusson, James; and Robert Gill. 1864. The Rock-Cut Temples of India; Illustrated by Seventy-Four Photographs Taken on the Spot by Major Gill. Described by James Fergusson. London, England: John Murray.
Available via HathiTrust @ https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100206115
Available via Wikisource @ https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Rock-cut_Temples_of_India

Gill, Robert; and James Fergusson. 1864. One Hundred Stereoscopic Illustrations of Architecture and Natural History in Western India. Photographed by Major Gill and described by James Fergusson. London, England: Cundall, Downes & Co.

Gupte, R.S.; and B.D. Mahajan. 1962. Ajanta, Ellora and Aurangabad Caves. Bombay, India: D.B. Taraporevala Sons and Co.

Marriner, Derdriu. 25 January 2019. “200th Anniversary Year of Ajanta Cave Wall Paintings in Ajanta Cave 9.” Earth and Space News. Friday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2019/01/200th-anniversary-year-of-ajanta-cave.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 18 January 2019. “Ancient Ajanta Cave Wall Paintings and Inscriptions in Ajanta Cave 10.” Earth and Space News. Friday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2019/01/ancient-ajanta-cave-wall-paintings-and.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 11 January 2019. “Ajanta Cave Wall Paintings Ailing at World Heritage Centre Site.” Earth and Space News. Friday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2019/01/ajanta-cave-wall-paintings-ailing-at.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 4 January 2019. “Accurate, Ancient, Artistic Ajanta Cave Wall Paintings to Buddha.” Earth and Space News. Friday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2019/01/accurate-ancient-artistic-ajanta-cave.html

Pisani, Ludovico. 6 August 2013. "The Ajanta Cave Paintings." The Global Dispatches > Articles and Culture.
Available @ http://www.theglobaldispatches.com/articles/the-ajanta-cave-paintings

Singh, Rajesh. 2012. An Introduction to the Ajanta Caves: With Examples of Six Caves. Vadodara, India: Hari Sena Press Private Limited.

Singh, Rajesh Kumar. 2017. Ajanta Cave No. 1: Documented According to the Ajanta Corpus of Dieter Schlingloff (Photographic Compendium, Ajanta Narrative Painting). Vadodara, India: Hari Sena Press Private Limited.

Somathilake, Mahinda. June 2013. "Painted Jataka Stories of Ancient Sri Lanka." International Journal of Arts and Commerce 2(6): 139-150.
Available @ https://ijac.org.uk/images/frontImages/gallery/Vol._2_No._6/14.pdf

Spink, Walter M. 2018. Ajanta: History and Development. Volume 1: The End of the Golden Age. Handbook of Oriental Studies. Section 2 South Asia, Volume 18/1. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill Academic Publishers.

Spink, Walter M. 2018. Ajanta: History and Development. Volume 2: Arguments about Ajanta. Handbook of Oriental Studies. Section 2 South Asia, Volume 18/2. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill Academic Publishers.

Spink, Walter M. 2005. Ajanta: History and Development. Volume 3: The Arrival of the Uninvited. Handbook of Oriental Studies. Section 2 South Asia, Volume 18/3. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill Academic Publishers.

Spink, Walter M. 2008. Ajanta: History and Development. Volume 4: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture - Year by Year. Handbook of Oriental Studies. Section 2 South Asia, Volume 18/4. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill Academic Publishers.

Spink, Walter M. 2006. Ajanta: History and Development. Volume 5: Cave by Cave. Handbook of Oriental Studies. Section 2 South Asia, Volume 18/5. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill Academic Publishers.

Spink, Walter. 2017. Ajanta: History and Development. Volume 7: Bagh, Dandin, Cells and Cell Doorways. Handbook of Oriental Studies. Section 2 South Asia, Volume 18/7. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill Academic Publishers.

Spink, Walter M; and Naomichi Yaguchi. 2014. Ajanta: History and Development. Volume 6: Defining Features. Handbook of Oriental Studies. Section 2 South Asia, Volume 18/6. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill Academic Publishers.

Uno, Tomoko; and Yoshiko Shimazdu. "Thermal Environment in Ajanta Caves." Archi-Cultural Translations through the Silk Road: 2nd International Conference, Mukogawa Women's University, Nishinomiya, Japan, July 14-16, 2012, Proceedings.
Available @ http://www.mukogawa-u.ac.jp/~iasu2012/pdf/iaSU2012_Proceedings_401.pdf

"World Heritage Sites - About Ajanta Caves 01 to 29." Archeological Survey of India > Monuments > World Heritage Site > Ajanta > About Caves.
Available @ https://web.archive.org/web/20120501151253/http://asi.nic.in/asi_monu_whs_ajanta_caves.asp