The twenty-nine Buddhist caves near Ajanta form a devotional complex which ranks as one of the world's most startling achievements, created at the very apogee of India's Golden Age. Ajanta: History and Development, appears as part of the series Handbook of Oriental Studies, present the reader with a systematic treatment of all aspects of the site, the result of forty years of painstaking research in situ by Walter M. Spink. Volume one deals with the historical context in which this dramatic burst of pious activity took place under the reign of Vakataka emperor Harisena, (c. 460...

Volume Three in the Ajanta series focuses on what the site tells us about what happened in the months following the death of emperor Harisena (478 A.D.). In that year the great "Vakataka" patrons had to flee from Ajanta as a result of the Asmakas' takeover of the site. When soon the Asmakas themselves also had to leave because of the needs of war, the great phase of patronage ended at Ajanta. But now a host of pious intruders, mostly monks and devotees still living in the region, could make their own offerings, generally violating the original patrons' programs. In this systematic cave to...

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...

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...

Walter Spink s intense concern with the development of the Ajanta caves and their architectural, sculptural and painted features finds its most insistent reflection in his present richly illustrated study. In part 1, Spink explains the many connections between the Bagh caves and its sister site, Ajanta. He particularly emphasizes the leading role that Bagh plays in establishing the short chronology and in the crucial matter of Buddhist shrine development from the aniconic to iconic forms of worship. In part 2, along with his colleague Professor Naomichi Yaguchi, who also provided the...