Earth and Space News: Ajanta Cave 25: 200th Anniversary Year of Ajanta Cave Wall Paintings

Summary: The Ajanta cave 25 hall appears atypically pillar- and shrine-less in the 200th anniversary year of Ajanta cave wall paintings and sculptures.

upper level Cave 25 (center right), with stairway and one of verandah's two pillars visible, neighbors, to the east, large-arched and profusely ornamented Ajanta Cave 26 (center) and, to the west, Cave 24 (right), with five pillars visible; Ajanta Caves, Maharashtra, central-west India; Wikimedia Commons page created Monday, Sep. 5, 2016, by Anupamg via UploadWizard: Anupamg, CC BY SA 4.0 International, via Wikimedia Commons

Absent hall pillars and shrines accord the less ancient Ajanta cave 25 a more ancient aspect in the 200th anniversary year of European-accessed Ajanta cave wall paintings and sculptures in central-west India.

Ajanta cave 25 bears no stone-sculpted shrine in its astylar (from Greek ἀ-, "not" and στῦλος, "pillar") hall despite its being from the second building phase. The 1,300- to 1,600-year-old Ajanta (from Sanskrit अजित, "invincible") caverns that convoke Maitreya Buddha (from Sanskrit मैत्रेय, "benevolent" and बुद्ध, "awakened") characteristically contain carved, commemorative shrines. First-phase 2,000- to 2,300-year-old and second-phase Ajanta chaitya (memorial monument, from Sanskrit चैत्य) prayer halls each display a devotional, stone-sculpted stupa (from Sanskrit स्तूप, "[memorial] dome").

First-phase monastery caves, excavated between the third and first centuries B.C.E., exhibit no sanctum sanctorum (from Latin sanctum sanctōrum, from Hebrew קֹדֶשׁ הַקֳּדָשִׁים, "holy of holies").

Ajanta caves 8, 12, 13 and 15A/30 function as first-phase, fundamental monasteries whose floor plans feature a central hall flanked by dormitory cells with stone-carved beds.

Pradakshina (from Sanskrit प्रदक्षिणा, "to the right turning") aisles guided prayer-hall guests to the devotional, instructional, meditational Ajanta cave wall paintings and sculptures and rear-wall stupa. The second excavation phase between the fifth and sixth, seventh or eighth centuries B.C.E. heralded monastery caves that harbored more than homely bedrooms to humble halls. Many of the second-phase monastery caves, like second-phase chaitya caves 19 and 26, included devotional, instructional, meditational Ajanta cave wall paintings and sculptures and rear-wall shrines.

The 200th anniversary year of European-accessed Ajanta cave wall paintings and sculptures judges Ajanta cave 25 less ancient-looking in juggling its enclosed courtyard and pillared veranda.

Only Ajanta cave 25 of the five monastery caverns between Ajanta chaitya caves 19 and 26 keeps to a higher excavation level and knows no shrine.

Ajanta cave 25 likewise lacks the intimate line-up of Ajanta caves 20 through 24 with the 1,968.5-foot- (600-meter-) long loop of the horseshoe-shaped, 30-cavern Ajanta Caves. Perhaps itinerant artisans and monks moved Ajanta cave 25 backward, southward and upward along the 64-foot- (19.51-meter-) high volcanic basalt rock cliffs because of geological faults. They noted geological flaws as they nudged their excavation tools through landslide-prone, near-perpendicular cliffs into which unfinished Ajanta second-phase monastery caves 4 and 5 still nestle.

Unaligned Ajanta caves 4, 5, 14, 15A/30, 25 and 29 perhaps offer the 200th anniversary year of European-accessed Ajanta cave wall paintings and sculptures geological faults.

Perhaps geological flaws put Ajanta cave 25, with 37.3- by 40.16-foot (11.37- by 12.24-meter) dimensions last in position and size to its five westerly monastery neighbors.

Itinerant artisans and monks queued two dormitory cells along the easterly, left end of the pillared veranda and the west wall of neighboring chaitya cave 26. Nothing reveals why the second-smallest, with 41.73- by 37.99-foot (12.72- by 11.58-meter) dimensions, of six monasteries between chaitya caves 19 and 26, received a sanctum sanctorum. Ajanta cave 27 serving as two-story adjunct monastery to chaitya prayer hall 26 and sheltering a sanctum sanctorum perhaps suggests why Ajanta cave 25 stayed shrineless.

Ajanta cave 25 perhaps transmits to the 200th anniversary year of European-accessed Ajanta cave wall paintings and sculptures ancient takes on economical accommodations for resource-tight travelers.

ground plan for Ajanta Cave 25 (lower); ca. 1850 pen-and-ink and wash drawing of ground plans of Ajanta caves 8 and 25 by Major Robert Gill (Sept. 26, 1804-April 10, 1879), from album of 26 ground plans and 16 folios of drawings of sculpture and architectural details in the Ajanta Caves, held at The British Library, St. Pancras, Central and North West London; Wikimedia Commons page created Sunday, Oct. 29, 2017, by Ms Sarah Welch via UploadWizard: 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:

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Earth and Space News

Friday, July 26, 2019

Ajanta Cave 25: 200th Anniversary Year of Ajanta Cave Wall Paintings

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