Ajanta: The Colour and Monochrome Reproductions of the Ajanta Frescoes Based on Photography v3.c13.19

v3.c13.19

Turning to the painted inscriptions in these caves, we find that so little of these is now left that it is difficult to come to a very definite conclusion regarding their age. From what is left of them and from the evidence of other engraved records found in these caves which have been noticed above, we shall not be far from the mark if we place most of these painted records, and therefore the paintings on which they are found, in the fifth and sixth centuries A.D., with the exception of a few in Caves IX and X. In the latter cave there is a painted and architectural evidence he considers Cave X to be the earlier of the two. He has placed Cave X in the second century B.C., while Cave IX in his opinion ‘cannot be earlier than the first century B.C.’