A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c21.40

c21.40

The monastic retreats of Ajanta extend in a ‘sickle-shaped curve along the face of the cliff for over a third of a mile, and overhanging the waters of a pretty stream, cascading through the ravine below’. Here are twenty-eight halls of various sizes and they have been numbered in order from west to east. Two caityas and three vihāras (Nos. 8, 9, 10, 12 and 13) had come into existence in the earlier Hinayāna period under the Andhras (200 B.C.-A.D. 200); the others were added in the two centuries that followed A.D. 450. In these later examples the imitation of wooden construction is discarded, and a distinct advance made in the handling of the rock-medium. The walls and the ceilings of these halls were covered with a large number of mural frescoes which have survived in some of them almost intact.