Ajanta: The Colour and Monochrome Reproductions of the Ajanta Frescoes Based on Photography v3.c12.s19.20

v3.c12.s19.20

The lake-scene is separated from the next by a sāl tree (?) which is in blossom. The sāl tree is apparently the one referred to in the Jātaka, which the Bodhisattva had shaken and from which accidentally flowers and green shoots fell over Mahā-subhaddā, and ants and dry leaves over Chulla-subhaddā. In the fresco flowers are shown falling from the tree. The Bodhisattva himself is painted standing under a large banyan tree, which according to the story was his favourite shelter during summer.⁴ He is accompanied by his herd, in which a calf-elephant may also be noticed, standing near the sāl tree at the beginning of the scene. In this subject the artist has exhibited extraordinary skill in painting the leaves and shoots of the banyan. The leaves are dark green in the original fresco, but some are reddish, showing autumnal tints. The shoots are pink-brown, and their wavy form and branching into thinner shoots in the middle or near the end are very characteristic. The attendants of the Bodhisattva stand round him between the shoots of the tree, grouped with great effect. Towards the right of the banyan tree are conventional bands, apparently representing the golden cliff of the Jātaka, from the top of which a hunter armed with a bow is looking towards the Bodhisattva. Below, in the midst of conventional bands, is a niche containing the figure of a young Buddha (Bodhisattva ?) with another figure representing a woman, lying full-stretched before him. These two figures obviously represent the death-scene of Chulla-subhaddā, wife of the Shaḍ-Danta elephant, both being shown in human form. The idea of the artist in painting these two figures below the hunter is that when the Bodhisattva noticed the hunter, Sonuttara, on the cliff, he at once detected his motive in coming there and thought of the death of Chulla-subhaddā and the malice which she had wrongly borne towards him.¹ The panel is interesting as imparting a certain vividness to the scene, but its chief importance lies in the conventional treatment of the hair of the Bodhisattva, which is dressed in small curls with a knot at the top (Plate XXXb). Figures of the Buddha or of Bodhisattvas with hair of this style are not to be found in the Deccan until the third century A.D., on the decline of the Andhra dynasty and its replacement by the Vākāṭakas.