Ajanta Caves | Wikipedia audio article
Channel: wikipedia tts
Date: 2018-12-17

This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article:
Ajanta Caves


00:02:59 1 History
00:03:44 1.1 Caves of the first (Satavahana) period
00:05:09 1.2 Caves of the later, or Vākāṭaka, period
00:07:43 1.3 Discovery by the Western world
00:10:14 2 Architecture and sculpture
00:10:24 2.1 Site
00:12:38 2.2 Monasteries
00:14:22 2.3 Worship halls
00:16:55 3 Paintings
00:20:20 4 Spink's chronology and cave history
00:23:40 4.1 Hindu and Buddhist builders
00:25:07 5 Cave-by-cave
00:25:16 5.1 Cave 1
00:28:59 5.2 Cave 2
00:31:22 5.3 Cave 3
00:32:00 5.4 Cave 4
00:34:13 5.5 Cave 5
00:35:03 5.6 Cave 6
00:37:24 5.7 Cave 7
00:39:27 5.8 Cave 8
00:40:30 5.9 Cave 9
00:42:48 5.10 Cave 10
00:46:07 5.11 Caves 11
00:47:13 5.12 Caves 12
00:47:47 5.13 Cave 13, 14, 15, 15A
00:49:17 5.14 Cave 16
00:52:40 5.15 Cave 17
00:55:56 5.16 Cave 18
00:56:16 5.17 Cave 19 (5th century CE)
00:59:09 5.18 Cave 20
01:00:51 5.19 Caves 21, 22, 23, 24 and 25
01:04:10 5.20 Cave 26 (5th century CE)
01:07:14 5.21 Caves 27, 28 and 29
01:07:59 5.22 Cave 30
01:09:06 5.23 Other infrastructure
01:09:59 6 Copies of the paintings
01:14:04 7 Significance
01:14:13 7.1 Natives, society and culture in the arts at Ajanta
01:17:31 7.2 Foreigners in the paintings of Ajanta
01:22:10 7.3 Preservation
01:23:02 8 Impact on modern paintings
01:23:38 9 See also



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SUMMARY
=======
The Ajanta Caves are 30 (approximately) rock-cut Buddhist cave monuments which date from the 2nd century BCE to about 480 CE in Aurangabad district of Maharashtra state of India. The caves include paintings and rock-cut sculptures described as among the finest surviving examples of ancient Indian art, particularly expressive paintings that present emotion through gesture, pose and form.According to UNESCO, these are masterpieces of Buddhist religious art that influenced the Indian art that followed. The caves were built in two phases, the first phase starting around the 2nd century BCE, while the second phase was built around 400–650 CE, according to older accounts, or in a brief period of 460–480 CE according to later scholarship. The site is a protected monument in the care of the Archaeological Survey of India, and since 1983, the Ajanta Caves have been a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The Ajanta Caves constitute ancient monasteries and worship-halls of different Buddhist traditions carved into a 250-feet wall of rock. The caves also present paintings depicting the past lives and rebirths of the Buddha, pictorial tales from Aryasura's Jatakamala, and rock-cut sculptures of Buddhist deities. Textual records suggest that these caves served as a monsoon retreat for monks, as well as a resting-site for merchants and pilgrims in ancient India. While vivid colours and mural wall-painting were abundant in Indian history as evidenced by historical records, Caves 16, 17, 1 and 2 of Ajanta form the largest corpus of surviving ancient Indian wall-painting.

The Ajanta Caves are mentioned in the memoirs of several medieval-era Chinese Buddhist travellers to India and by a Mughal-era official of Akbar era in the early 17th century. They were covered by jungle until accidentally "discovered" and brought to Western attention in 1819 by a colonial British officer Captain John Smith on a tiger-hunting party. The Ajanta Caves are located on the side of a rocky cliff that is on the north side of a U-shaped gorge on the small river Waghur, in the Deccan plateau. Further round the gorge are a number of waterfalls, which, when the river is high, are audible from outside the caves.With the Ellora Caves, Ajanta is one of the major tourist attractions of Maharashtra. It is about
6 kilometres (3.7 miles) from Fardapur, 59 kilometres (37 miles) from the city of Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India,  104 kilometres (65 miles) from the city of Aurangabad, and 350 kilometres (220 miles) east-northeast from Mumbai. It is 100 kilometres (62 miles) from the Ellora Caves, which contain Hindu, Jain and Buddhist caves, the last dating from a period similar to Ajanta. The  ...