Ajanta, History and Development: Arguments About Ajanta (Handbook of Oriental Studies/Handbuch Der Orientalistik 2, 18-2) - Hardcover

Walter M. Spink

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 9004150722 ISBN 13: 9789004150720

Publisher: Brill Academic Pub, 2006

Synopsis

Volume Two begins with writings by some of the most important critics of Walter Spink's conclusions, interspersed with his own responses, using a thorough analysis of the great Cave 26 to support his assertions. The author then turns to matters of patronage, and to the surprising fact that, unlike most other Buddhist sites, Ajanta was purely "elitist", developed by less than a dozen major patrons. Its brief heyday traumatically ended, however, with the death of the great emperor Harisena in about 477, creating political chaos. Ajanta's anxious patrons now joined in a headlong rush to get their shrines dedicated, in order to obtain the expected merit, before they fled the region, abandoning their caves to the monks and local devotees remaining at the now-doomed site. These "intrusive" new patrons now filled the caves with their own helter-skelter votive offerings, paying no heed to the well-laid plans of the years before. A similar pattern of patronage is to be found in the redecoration of the earlier Hinayana caves, where the careful planning of the work being done during Harisena's reign is suddenly interrupted by a host of individual votive donations. The volume ends with a new and useful editing of Ajanta inscriptions by Richard S. Cohen.

About this title

About the Author

Walter M. Spink, Ph.D. (1954) at Harvard is Professor Emeritus, History of Art, at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He has published widely on Indian Art in general, and Ajanta and related sites in particular.

Edition details

• Publisher: Brill Academic Pub
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 9004150722
• ISBN 13: 9789004150720
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 339