The Early History of the Deccan (Parts I–XI) v1.c8.s13.34

v1.c8.s13.34

The Vākāṭaka period (c. A.D. 250-550) coincides with the golden and creative period of Mahāyāna Buddhism. Not far from the boundary of the kingdom lived the famous Mahāyāna philosopher, Nāgārjuna, at Nāgārjunikoṇḍa on the bank of the Kṛṣṇā. By founding the Śūnyavada he infused new life into Indian Buddhism and helped the eventual development of the Advaita school in the Hindu Vedānta. It is no wonder that the Buddhists of the Ajanta and Ellora monasteries during this period should have been mostly Mahāyānists, and that they did not subscribe to the simpler Hīnayāna dogma of barren atheism. A record at Ajanta definitely asserts that the Buddha has not been dissolved into nothingness, but has won immortality for himself and continues to govern the world and to guide his devotees from his abode high above the universe.³ It is but natural that owing to the influence of the dogma, the Mahāyānists should have introduced the images of the Buddha at suitable places in the earlier Hīnayāna caves at Ajanta, which suggested the presence of the master only by significant symbols like the stūpa.