Buddhist Cave Art

Today we may think of Buddhism as an east Asian or southeast Asian religion, but of course Buddhism originated in now India, where Siddhartha Gautama received enlightenment in the 6th century BC. Buddhism spread relatively rapidly in India and became a dominant religion by the time of the Mauryan Empire of Ashoka, who reigned from 273 to 232 BC. Starting from around the time of Christ to the seventh century, Buddhism followed the Silk Road through Central Asia into China. While Buddhism has largely receded from the Indian subcontinent itself, it remains the dominant religious force in much of the rest of Asia, from the Himalayas to Japan, and from Sri Lanka to Taiwan.

The principal theme of our trip is the Islamic world, but by first visiting India and then entering China through the Silk Road we traveled on the same path as Buddhism, and I thought that a post on the marvelous Buddhist caves that we have visited was in order.

Retreat from the everyday, material world is a principal aim of Buddhism, and some of the monks of ancient India sought their refuge in a small river-cut cliff near now Aurangabad. From the second century BC to the sixth century AD, the monks of Ajanta carved small monasteries and shrines into the face of the cliff itself and decorated the rock-cut interiors with monumental sculptures and beautiful murals, creating a masterpiece of sacred art that has not been equaled many times since.

The Ajanta caves, set in a bend in the Waghur River, a day’s travel east of Bombay

The Ajanta caves are cut out of the cliff itself, with rock chiseled away to form spectacular interiors of monasteries and shrines.

Merely creating such structures into a cliff face would have been impressive, but the marvel of Ajanta is the level of ornamentation. Nearly every surface in the caves is decorated either with sculptural relief or painting.

High relief composition at Ajanta

Paintings at Ajanta

The rock-cut cave temples of Ajanta were imitated by later Buddhists as well as Hindus and Jains at a nearby site now called Ellora. The Ellora caves, dating from fifth to tenth centuries AD, are in some ways less impressive than Ajanta, but the art of rock-cut/monolithic construction reached a pinnacle with the Hindu Kailasanatha Temple, which clearly surpasses not only the caves of Ajanta but also the churches of Lalibela in Ethiopia and, although we have not yet seen them in person, the Nabatean structures of Petra in Jordan. Seen from inside the structure or from above, the massive and complex task of carving such a building from one rock is simply awesome.

Ellora Caves

Statuary, Ellora

The idea of the Buddhist cave-temple, along with the styles of art first developed at Ajanta, followed the Buddhist religion into China through the Silk Road. There are numerous such Buddhist cave complexes in China, from the Kizil Caves of Xinjiang to the Longmen Grottoes of Henan, but the most famous are the Mogao Caves of Dunhuang in Gansu Province.

The Mogao Caves were begun in the 4th century AD, well after Ajanta. While as rock-cut structures they are not comparable to the caves of Ajanta or Ellora, Mogao surpasses the Indian caves in scale, with over 400 caves (compared to around 30 at each of Ajanta and Ellora).

Paintings at Mogao. The Mogao Caves were developed into the 14th century, and so represent a wide range of styles, showing the development of Buddhism and Buddhist art in China. The styles of some of the paintings are similar to those found in India, perhaps in part because Indian artists themselves may have been imported to do some of the work.

Buddhism is no longer a significant presence in mainland South Asia, but Sri Lanka remains a majority Buddhist country. The 5th century AD ruins of Sigiriya in central Sri Lanka, which we visited in 2005, preserve a style of painting that is remarkably similar to that at both Ajanta and Mogao.