AJANTA & ELLORA- PAINTINGS IN CAVES

                      AJANTA AND ELORA- PAINTINGS IN CAVES

         CAVE-2 

Prof.John Kurakar

   Cave is somewhat alike in plan to cave 1. The verandah has a lovely painted ceiling. Among the excellent murals, one on the left wall of the hall near the third cell-door,dramatizes the legend of the Buddha's birth with some vivid panels. In the panel above the cell door the Bodhisattva is seen in one of the Heavens. He has already passed through a cycle of birth and rebirth on Earth and now that he will have to be born for the time he selects the place of his ultimate mission. It is to be a place in India close to the Himalayan reign, and queen Maya is to be his mother.

Prof. John Kurakar

  Maya has a strange dream,wihile she sleeps in her bed chamber, a white elephant with six tusks enters her body. Wondering, she speaks to her husband about the dream. the Brahmans at the royal court  are invited to interpret its meaning. their prediction is that the queen is about to bear a son with all the auspicious marks of greatness on his person. If he accepts a princely role, he will be a monarch of monarchies; but if he renounced the world for the ascetic life, he would become a Buddha. Maya, on her father's place with her ladies-in waiting stops awhile at the Lumbini garden and here the pains of childbirth come upon her and the nativity takes place. The new born child walks  seven steps over lotus blossoms while Indra, King of the gods, holds an umbrella over his head. And the legend goes that aqs child walks to the east he says" I shall attain the highest release" As he walks southward   he says, I shall be the first of all created beings" And finally, I shall cross the ocean of existence"

   On the rightwall of the front corrodor a painting in a bad state of preservation is recognized as a superb piece of work. It shows a king, sword in hand, about to punish a woman for some reason. The woman is on her knees begging for mercy. Her attitude is full of pathos: there is pleading in every curve of her slender body, gracefully rendered: the figures are eloquent: the clothes are dishevelled, huddled on the floor. Here is a picture rich in feeling and with great beauty of form. The chapeles on each side of the ante chamber have good murala. The one to the right has female figures which have been compared by art ceiling like Axel Jarl to Botticelli's " Primavera" No less remarkable are the ceiling decorations. those in the antechamber and the shrine are perhapes the best. One of the ceiling panels shows a procession of twenty-three geese rendered with great skill.
 Cave 4 is the largest vihara at Ajanta. the decorated main entrance leads to a hall with twenty eight pillars . Cave 10 also is a prayer hall and similar to cave9, though it is much larger Cave only few paintings are left in this cave. Cave 12  contains Hinyan Vihar, and on the three sides of the cave are living places for Buddhist Saints also beds made of stone are shown in this cave.
 Prof. John Kurakar & family visited Ajanta & Ellora on 14th&15th May,2011.

                                                                                                   Prof. John Kurakar