Ajanta: The Colour and Monochrome Reproductions of the Ajanta Frescoes Based on Photography v3.c12.23

v3.c12.23

² The parapet of this design is seen freely in the Moorish buildings of Spain and North Africa, where the Arabs introduced it in the eighth century A.D. and onwards. An earlier prototype has been found recently in the excavations at Ur, and it probably came to the Deccan through Parthian or Scythian immigrants, several waves of whom moved towards India in the first millennium B.C. These foreigners after their settlement in India embraced Buddhism because it had no race prejudice. The parapet in the earliest caves is found only on their richly carved façades, as at Bhaja, Karle, and Kondane, but later it is seen in the embellishment of the interiors of the caves also, as in this *vihāra*—Cave XII, Ajanta. The absence of this parapet in the interiors of the earliest caves may indicate that the holy personages of the *Sangha* permitted the carving of only such motifs and symbols inside the temples as had a direct bearing upon the origin and growth of the tradition of the faith.