Ajanta, where art, nature, faith coalesced

The wellsprings of our sustenance, both physical and cultural, draw deeply from the monsoons. It is not only our staple crops, fruits, and vegetables that rely principally on the monsoons, but a large body of our cultural expression also hinges centrally on the celebration of the monsoon or the lament of its playing truant. The Raga Malhaar, with more than 30 variations from our classical music and hundreds of strains from our folk tradition like the Kajri and Sawani, live and breathe because of the monsoons. Countless texts like the Maghdootam from across the length and breadth of the subcontinent resonate with the monsoons, and yet one sees little effort to foreground the monsoons as the leitmotif and to build an exploration of our natural and cultural heritage around this recurrent theme. Take Ajanta for example. It is a UNESCO world heritage site and our promotional material about the site says that the monsoon is the best time to visit Ajanta, and yet one does not see any special effort to draw tourists and travellers to Ajanta during the rains. 

The 30 man-made caves nestle across 500 metres on a sharp rocky scarp of the Sahyadris, overlooking a 76-metre gorge, through which flows the River Waghora. The Sahyadris are not a pretty site during the summer months, the streams and waterfalls dry up, and the rocks radiate heat through the day, there is hardly any green, and little shade. Come the Monsoons, and the landscape becomes magical. This is the time to visit the caves, excavated, carved, and painted across 800 years between the 3rd century BCE and the 5th century CE.

Ajanta was designed essentially as a rainy season shelter and retreat for Buddhist monks. The rains provided an opportunity to the monks to take a break from their daily routine of preaching and begging for Alms, to meditate, study, debate, and to learn from senior monks. Each cave was originally connected to the river below through a flight of steps, now mostly missing and replaced with a wide promenade connecting all the caves
Whoever chose the site had an eye for beauty and must have known how absolutely charming the place becomes during the Monsoons. Dense forests, draped in thousands of shades of green, sheltered and concealed the caves and ensured peace and privacy for quiet contemplation and meditation. Round the curve of the gorge are several waterfalls, big and small, one can hear them splashing on the hard rocks from outside the caves at the peak of the rainy season. Where else would you find nature at its verdant best in complete harmony with the fruit of human labour — carvings, sculpture, and painting, inspired by the beauty of nature, human form, and the quest of the spiritual?

The caves, though known to the local population, had been forgotten and taken over by the Jungle. Credit goes to a shepherd boy who led John Smith, an officer of the British army, out hunting tigers in the area to one of the caves on April 28, 1819. That cave is now known as cave number 10. John Smith went to a nearby village, mobilised the villagers to cut the undergrowth and cleared a passage to the caves. John promptly scratched his name and the date on the image of a Boddhisatva.

The rediscovery of the caves and their exquisite craftsmanship took the world of art and archaeology by storm. The delicate lines of the human figures, their lifelike proportions, the ability of these sensuous works to bring to life the attires, the drapes, the jewellery, the rhythm of daily life, and the depiction of courts, homes, busy markets, birds and animals, real and mythical, and other aspects of daily life, were commented upon and documented extensively. 

Of the 30 caves, eight are incomplete; you can miss them if you are in a hurry, but do not at any cost miss caves numbered 1, 2, 9, 10, 16, 17, and 26. April 28, 2019, is the 200th year of the rediscovery of the caves. Find time after Mid-June 2019, go visit the 2,000-year-old caves in the third century of their rediscovery. Spend at least half a day wondering at the skill of those who conceptualised and created these masterpieces — the oldest surviving examples of mural art in India — the inspiration behind the revival of mural painting in India in the early 20th century and one of the major influences on the painting techniques of modern Indian masters nurtured by Shantiniketan, Gurudev, and his disciples. And don’t miss the waterfalls, the Sahyadris, and the Monsoon. 

The author is a historian and organises the Delhi Heritage Walks for children and adults.