Ajanta: The Colour and Monochrome Reproductions of the Ajanta Frescoes Based on Photography v3.c12.s13: The Animal Frieze: A Mythical Herdsman

Ajanta: The Colour and Monochrome Reproductions of the Ajanta Frescoes Based on Photography v3.c12.s13

Language: English

The Animal Frieze: A Mythical Herdsman

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*NOT IDENTIFIED* *Plates XVIIb, XIXa-c and XXa*

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*The subject is painted on the frieze above the pillars of the nave on the left side in Cave IX.*

THE fresco represents the story of some mythical herdsman who possessed herculean strength and could control the movements of the wildest animals, holding them by their necks and tails. The herdsman himself is a beautiful person, and one may find in his sportive attitude some resemblance to the Brahmanical hero Kṛṣṇa, who according to the legends of his career tended the cattle in the meadows of Mathurā and Vṛndāvana. The theme represented in the fresco seems to have been popular among the Buddhist artists of the early period, for it is carved at Kuda, Nasik, and other places.³

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³ *Cave Temples of India*, by Fergusson and Burgess, Plate VIIa. At Nasik it is carved in a slightly modified form on the outer wall of Cave III, above the pillars.

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The fresco has peeled away in several places, but the portions which are intact show the elasticity of the muscles of the herdsman, and a close study by the artist of the structure of the bodies of wild animals. In this scene the herdsman appears four times, first between a lion and a beast which has the head of a bull (?). He is holding back the lion by pulling his tail, and PLATES XVb, XVIIb, XIXa-c, XXa & XXIa-b

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in the effort he has stretched backward his right leg and bent his left knee to exert himself to the full. The attitude is realistic, which, combined with the beautiful features of the herdsman and his picturesque dress, has made the subject very attractive. The herdsman is wearing a conical cap and a scarf round his arm and back, the latter being identical in style with that worn by the chevalier carved on the façade of the *chaitya* cave at Kondane.¹ The hind legs and back of the lion have been drawn with care, and in delineating the growth of hair on the legs the artist has shown fine brush-work. In the next feat he has in front of him a tiger, with the horns and head of an antelope; while in the third he is again exerting himself to the full in controlling a bull whose tail has slipped from his hand and only a hair has remained between his fingers. The bull in order to release himself from the grip of the herdsman has raised his muzzle, indicating the tension of his neck muscles. In the fourth feat the herdsman was pulling back some other beast, but as the front part of the latter is completely obliterated it cannot be identified.

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¹ *Sculpture of the Deccan, an Artistic Study*, by G. Yazdani, Silver Jubilee Vol., Bhandarkar Institute, pp. 679–80, Pl. I.

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The fresco seems to be coeval with the building of the *chaitya*, and it is interesting to note how even in the first century B.C. the artists of Ajanta could delineate figures in any pose which their artistic mind could conceive and indicate movement or physical struggle with perfect ease.