Twenty-seven of Gill’s canvases were displayed in the Indian Court of the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, south London in 1866, 23 were destroyed by fire. It stretched through Hellenistic kingdoms and trade routes from the Mediterranean to Persia, Afghanistan and India – with Ajanta along the way – to distant China and Japan. This was not coincidence, but evidence of a Greco-Indian culture that had spread from the 4th Century BC expeditions of Alexander the Great. Some of the images shocked Victorian sensibilities and are still condemned by religious zealots unable to comprehend that what these Indian artists saw was a joyous vision of natural fecundity and divine beauty.Īlong with the1st Century AD architecture, these paintings showed remarkable affinities to classical Greek art. Here, Buddhist monks had gazed on thousands of lustrous images of the lives the Buddha – Siddhartha Gautama – had lived before this 6th Century Indian prince took up teaching and inspired a way of thinking and being practiced by hundreds of millions around the world today.īetween images of the Buddha, were sensuous representations of glamorous princes and princesses, of animals, palaces, silks, jewellery, of lovemaking and life in all its mortal richness. What Gill and other visitors saw, having climbed ropes and ladders, to reach the caves – the original stone stairs had long gone – was architecture of a very high order and sculpture and paintings that took the breath away. Not only was it often unbearably hot, but this was still tiger country, and the fierce Bhil people had never come to terms with invaders, whether Hindu or Moghul emperors or 19th Century British military. Gill worked in truly difficult conditions. This was the beginning of measures to reveal and document the prayer halls ( chaityagrihas) and monasteries ( viharas) that had, it seems, been hewn from solid rock in two phases, the first – five prayer halls – between the 1st and 2nd centuries BC and, the second – 25 monasteries, or monks’ lodgings – in the 5th Century AD. In 1844, Major Robert Gill was commissioned by the Royal Asiatic Society to create reproductions on canvas of the wall paintings. Since then, thousands of people have added their names as the Ajanta caves – a gallery of the oldest and some of the finest of all Buddhist art – has gained fame and become a compelling tourist attraction.
Smith carved his name on a statue of a Bodhisattva, a figure representing one of the past lives of the Buddha before he achieved Nirvana, or union with the divine spirit. Beneath a dome, a timeless praying Buddha fronted a mound-like shrine, or stupa. Scrambling up with his party, Smith entered the cave and, branding a flaming grass torch, encountered a great vaulted and colonnaded hall, its walls covered in faded paintings. John Smith, a young British cavalry officer, was on a tiger hunt when he spotted the mouth of a cave high above the Waghora (Tiger) River that could only have been man made. In 1983 it was designated a Unesco World Heritage Site. Unknown for more than 1,000 years except to wild animals, insects, flood waters, prodigious foliage and perhaps the local Bhil people, this magnificent work of art, architecture and contemplation, was abandoned by those who created it as long ago as AD 500.
The song "Henna Henna" was used in the sixth episode of the second season of the Better Call Saul TV series.The Ajanta Caves, 30 spellbinding Buddhist prayer halls and monasteries carved, as if by sorcery, into a horseshoe-shaped rock face in a mountainous region of India’s Maharashtra state, 450km (280 miles) east of Mumbai, were ‘discovered’ by accident in 1819. Electrico is wickedly delightful combination of disco, surf and funk.” – CBC music A number of the tracks from the album are featured in the popular video game Far Cry 4, released in November 2014. The Island of Dr Electrico is the second album by The Bombay Royale released in 2014 following the success of 2012's debut You Me Bullets Love which was chosen as iTunes Breakthrough World Music Album for 2012.