Ajanta: The Colour and Monochrome Reproductions of the Ajanta Frescoes Based on Photography v4.c16.30

v4.c16.30

The temple is also important architecturally because it is the first *chaitya* in which all the component parts—the ribs of the barrel-shaped roof, the umbrellas crowning the *dagoba*, and the rafters of the large window—are cut in stone, and there is no trace of any woodwork such as is to be noticed in earlier *chaityas*, IX-X of Ajanta, and those of other places. Another departure from the earlier *chaityas* in this temple is the carving of the figure of the Buddha in a richly ornamented niche cut into the front of the *dagoba*. The Buddha is represented wearing a robe more like a Roman toga than the Indian garment of a mendicant, such as he is shown wearing in the superb painting on the back wall of the antechamber in Cave XVII (Plate XLI). The figures supporting the circular divisions of the triple umbrella, and some of the little dwarfs intertwined with creeper designs,¹ painted in the ceiling of the aisles of this cave, betray the influence of Roman art, but these features are so well adapted to the general decorative scheme of this temple that neither its religious import nor its Indian character suffers from this intrusion of foreign ideas.