Ajanta: The Colour and Monochrome Reproductions of the Ajanta Frescoes Based on Photography v3.c13.11

v3.c13.11

In conclusion, I would like to say a few words on the age of the caves themselves and that of the painted records found therein, as far as it can be judged from palaeographic evidence only. As regards the caves themselves, Fergusson and Burgess have classified them according to three distinct divisions. According to these scholars, whose opinion has gained acceptance, the chaitya Caves IX and X and the vihāras XII and XIII are the earliest and must have been excavated before the commencement of the Christian era. They place Cave XI at a date later than Cave X and Caves VI-VIII at an even later period, ranging in date from the fifth to the end of the sixth century A.D.¹ The palaeographical evidence, wherever any is available, also points to almost the same conclusion. The two earliest inscriptions in Brāhmī characters are found in Caves X and XII. The epigraph in Cave X is engraved on the left side of the façade and records the ‘gift of the façade by Vāsiṭhīputa Kaṭahādi’, and that in Cave XII is found on the back wall of Cave XII and records the ‘gift of a shrine (ṭhānaka) with inner chambers (uvavaraka, Pāli, ovaraka, Skt. apavaraka) and an abode (for monks) (upā[saya*], Pāli upassaya) by the merchant Ghanāmadaḍa’. Burgess and Fergusson are of opinion that of the two chaitya caves IX is earlier than X, and the two vihāras are perhaps again earlier than the two chaitya caves, as in the opinion of these scholars a vihāra, i.e. a residence for monks, should precede the construction of a chaitya.² While no palaeographic evidence is forthcoming in finding the relative antiquity of the two *chaitya* caves and the two *vihāras*, the inscription in Cave XII is decidedly of a later date than that of Cave X. Moreover, the inscription in Cave X records the gift only of the façade, which therefore presupposes the existence of the *chaitya*, while the record in Cave XII seems to indicate that the *vihāra*, as it stood at the time of the inscription, was the gift of the merchant Ghanāmadaḍa. It can therefore be stated with sufficient certainty that the *chaitya* Cave X is of an earlier date than Cave XII.