Ajanta: The Colour and Monochrome Reproductions of the Ajanta Frescoes Based on Photography v3.c13.2

v3.c13.2

IN the subjoined note the painted inscriptions¹ in Caves VI–XVII at Ajanta have been included.² Such records are now found only in Caves VI, IX, X, XVI, and XVII. In the last-mentioned cave only the inscriptions in the veranda have been included in this Part. Many of these records in Caves IX, X, XVI, and XVII have already been read by Pandit Bhagwanlal Indraji and published by Burgess in *Archaeological Survey of Western India*, Memoir No. 10, *Inscriptions from the Cave-Temples of Western India with Descriptive Notes*, &c., 1881, pp. 82–7, and illustrated with plates. The inscriptions in Caves IX, X, and XVI were again published by Burgess (revised by Bühler) in the *Archaeological Survey of Western India*, Vol. IV (*Reports on the Buddhist Cave-Temples and their Inscriptions*, being part of the results of the fourth, fifth, and sixth season’s operations of the Archaeological Survey of Western India, 1876–7, 1877–8, 1878–9) issued in 1883 as supplementary to the volume on *The Cave-Temples of India*. The inscriptions have further decayed since Indraji deciphered them, and while a few have altogether disappeared, owing to the pillars on which they were originally found being broken and lost in some cases, or the plaster on the wall on which they were written having given way, a few new ones have come to light. All these details have been noticed in connexion with the study of each individual inscription, and only a brief synopsis of the contents of these records is given below.