Ajanta : history and development. / Volume four, : Painting, sculpture, architecture year by year / / by Walter M. Spink.

• Superior document: Handbook of oriental studies. Section two, India, v. 18/4
• Author: Spink, Walter M.
• Year of Publication: 2009
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Series: Handbuch der Orientalistik. Indien ; 18. Bd., 4. Abschnitt.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (374 p.)
• Notes: Vol. 6: by Walter M. Spink (text) and Naomichi Yaguchi (photographs).

Ajanta: Year by Year is planned as a biography of this remarkable site, starting with the earliest caves, dating from some two thousand years, to its startling renaissance in the brief period between approximately 462 and 480. Concentrating on the excavations of the later period, during the reign of the Vakataka emperor Harisena, it attempts to show how, after a surprising gap of some three hundred years, Ajanta’s proud and pious courtly patrons and its increasingly committed workmen created not only the greatest but the latest monument of India’s Golden Age. Nearly three hundred illustrations, in color and black and white, reveal the exuberant flowering of Ajanta and related Vakataka monuments, as well as the manner of their sudden demise.

Table of Contents

Preliminary Material / W. Spink -- The earliest caves (c. 100 bce to c. 150 ce) / W. Spink -- 460 Ajanta’s Vakataka Renaissance conceived / W. Spink -- 461 Planning begun at the Vakataka courts and at Ajanta itself / W. Spink -- 462 Excavations begin at the site / W. Spink -- 463/464/465 Early developments and decisions / W. Spink -- 466 A signal year for innovations at the site / W. Spink -- 467 Work continues in normal course / W. Spink -- 468 Ajanta’s first Buddha images / W. Spink -- 469 (Early): The privileged Lesser caves’ shrines made (Lower 6, 7,11, 15) / W. Spink -- Prime Minister Varahadeva’s cave 16 / W. Spink -- 469–471: King Upendragupta’s caves 17, 19, 20, 29 / W. Spink -- 469–471 (+475–477): The Emperor Harisena’s cave 1 flourishes / W. Spink -- Evolution of cell doorway fittings from 468 through 471 / W. Spink -- The hiatus (472–474): the period of conflict and Asmaka takeover / W. Spink -- 475–478 Asmaka control of the site / W. Spink -- The impact of Bagh / W. Spink -- Aspects of patronage / W. Spink -- The decoration of the caves / W. Spink -- The primacy of cave 1 / W. Spink -- The cave 1 Buddha and the death of Harisena (Late 477) / W. Spink -- The traumas of 478 / W. Spink -- The period of disruption (479–480) / W. Spink -- Late 480: The end of patronage / W. Spink -- A brief appreciation / W. Spink -- Plates 1–122 / W. Spink -- Plans and charts / W. Spink.