Ajanta Ellora And Aurangabad Caves

The volume presents a detailed and exhaustive study of Aurangabad caves. Each sculpture in everycave has been very meticulously documented including those ones so far remained neglected. Each chapter deals with groundplan, doorjambs, window-frames, figures outside, pillars and pillars of the verandah, the details of the pillars and pilasters and he proceeds with the mainhall, antechamber an the shrine details.

Ellora is one of the great cave temple sites of India, with thirty-four major Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain monuments of the late sixth to tenth centuries A. D. This book describes the Buddhist caves at Ellora and places them in the context of Buddhist art and iconography. Ellora's twelve Buddhist cave temples, dating from the early seventh to the early eighth centuries, preserve an unparalleled one-hundred-year sequence of architectural and iconographical development. They reveal the evolution of a Buddhist mandala at sites in other regions often considered "peripheral" to the heartland of Buddhism in eastern India. At Ellora, the mandala, ordinarily conceived as a two-dimensional diagram used to focus meditation, is unfolded into the three-dimensional program of the cave temples themselves, enabling devotees to walk through the mandala during worship. The mandala's development at Ellora is explained and its significance is considered for the evolution of Buddhist art and iconography elsewhere in India.

Drawing on a large corpus of cross-disciplinary evidence, this book sheds light on the life of the Aurangabad caves and offers new interpretations on the development of Buddhist art and practice in the region, from the diffusion of early rock-cut monasteries to the advent of Mahayana and the emergence of esoteric art and rituals.

Some of the world's most beautiful frescos and sculptures- Buddhist, Hindu and Jain- are found here. Beautiful photographs capture the richness of an ancient ethos.