AJA???

Carved into a precipitous gorge in northern Maharashtra, Aja???'s thirty Buddhist cave monasteries were excavated in two phases. The three finished ??tav?hana caves (ca. first century c.e.) typify contemporaneous and earlier Western Indic cave monasteries. Aja???'s other caves all date to the V?k??aka emperor Hari?ena's reign (ca. 460–480 c.e.). The ??tav?hana and V?k??aka excavations reveal differences in donorship, layout, and design.

Containing numerous and generally terse Prakrit inscriptions, the earlier caves evidence a collective and socially eclectic pattern of patronage. Most of the Sanskrit V?k??aka donative inscriptions are later intrusions into abandoned caves. Of the four programmatic inscriptions, three are lengthy eulogies in verse. They record that individual members of the ruling elites donated one or more caves in their entirety, giving them to the Buddha as his residence rather than to the three jewels or the sa?gha as theretofore.

Differences in site layout and cave design reflect these changes. Both phases manifest two architectural types based on structural wooden prototypes. Aja???'s worship halls share apsidal plans, caitya windows, barrel-vaulted roofs, and monumental st?pas, while differing in the nature and amount of their painting and sculpture. Repeated buddha figures and joyous worshipers throng the V?k??aka st?pa halls. Most significant is the hieratically scaled buddha who, as it were, emerges from each central st?pa. Framed within an architectural structure, these active buddhas transform the later st?pa halls into gandhaku??s, the Buddha's personal residences.

Early vih?ras (residential caves) typically take the form of large flat-roofed quadrangular rooms without pillars. Doorways leading to cells punctuate their sparsely decorated interior walls. The V?k??aka donors added internal pillars, a colonnaded porch, and rich decorations in relief and paint onto this basic plan. A rear cell located immediately opposite the main doorway was expanded into an ornate pillared antechamber with a large internal cell. Tenanted by a monolithic statue of the Buddha preaching from a cosmic throne, this cell is (1) the gandhaku?? where the Buddha resides as the spiritual and administrative head of his monks, and (2) the shrine where he is worshiped.

These innovations speak to differences in Buddhist practice and belief. Vih?ras with shrines signal a departure from the earlier centralization of public worship, when the only shrines were st?pa halls. In the early phase, the most potent manifestation of the Buddha's living presence was the central st?pa that embodied his body relics (?ar?ra); at V?k??aka Aja???, the most potent manifestation was the monumental Buddha image dwelling in his gandhaku??. Profuse ornamentation transformed relatively austere monasteries into richly jeweled cave palaces atop a cosmic mountain, appropriate residences for the V?k??aka Buddha, who, as the Emperor of Ascetics, was the prime cosmic being. The belief in and practice of the bodhisattva path evidenced in caves 17 and 26 simultaneously reveal his imitable and human aspects. V?k??aka Aja???'s fabled narratives participated in these changes. Characterized by an idealized naturalism that represents beings in action, the Aja??? style "cosmologizes" landscapes and beings. It thus expresses the simultaneously transcendental and imitable nature of the Buddha performing his wondrous deeds.

See also:J?taka, Illustrations of; Relics and Relics Cults

Bibliography

Dehejia, Vidya. Discourse in Early Buddhist Art: Visual Narratives of India. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1997.

Kramrisch, Stella. "Aja???." In Exploring India's Sacred Art: Selected Writings of Stella Kramrisch, ed. Barbara Stoler Miller. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983.

Parimoo, Ratan, et al., eds. The Art of Aja???: New Perspectives. New Delhi: Books and Books, 1991.

Schlingloff, Dieter. Studies in the Aja??? Paintings: Identifications and Interpretations. Delhi: Aja??? Publications, 1987.

Schlingloff, Dieter. Guide to the Aja??? Paintings: Narrative Wall Paintings. New Delhi: Munsiram Manoharlal, 1999.

Spink, Walter. "Aja???'s Chronology: Cave 1's Patronage." In Chhavi II: Rai Krishnadasa Felicitation Volume. Benares, India: Bharat Kala Bhavan, 1981.

Spink, Walter. "The Achievement of Aja???." In The Age of the V?k??akas, ed. A. M. Shastri. New Delhi: Harman, 1992.

Spink, Walter. "The Archaeology of Aja???." Ars Orientalis 21 (1992): 67–94.

Spink, Walter. "Before the Fall: Pride and Piety at Aja???." In The Powers of Art: Patronage in Indian Culture, ed. Barbara Stoler Miller. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992.

Yazdani, Ghulam. Aja???: The Color and Monochrome Reproductions of the Aja??? Frescoes Based on Photography, 4 vols. London: Oxford University Press, 1930.

Leela Aditi Wood