Ajanta: The Colour and Monochrome Reproductions of the Ajanta Frescoes Based on Photography v4.c16.s8.5

v4.c16.s8.5

To begin with the first episode, which is painted at the top left-side corner, a rānī is seen reclining on a couch placed in a pillared room. The openings of this room are richly hung with festoons. Griffiths writes that the rānī is reclining on the rājā, sitting behind him on the couch;¹ but as the painting has been blackened by the indiscriminate use of copal varnish by Griffiths’ party, who laid it on the fresco to brighten its detail without removing the layer of smoke and dirt which had gathered on it, the figure of the rājā is no longer visible in the painting, and other figures are also very indistinct. A maid with a plump face may, however, be noticed, who is looking at the rānī with anxiety. Two kneeling figures may also be remarked, who are probably hunters and are receiving instructions from the rānī regarding the abode of the Six-tusked Elephant. At the right end of the room is a male servant, who, to show respect, has crossed his arms on his chest. He is dressed in a white shirt, the sides of which are slit, and the attendant’s *dhotī* is visible from below the shirt. There is a white vessel with a conical lid, and close by a casket placed on a stand in the room. The scene represents the *Jātaka* episode in which Subhaddā feigns illness and tells her husband that until the tusks of the king elephant whom she had seen in a dream are brought to her she will not recover. The rājā has sent for the hunters, and Subhaddā is telling them where to find the Six-tusked Elephant.²