In Ajanta

Early in the morning we take off for Ajanta

with our steady driver Takrit. 

Steve and Takrit talk throughout the two hour trip

and I gaze out the window, sketching details of life along the road,

feeling surprisingly relaxed for being in a car in India

(usually a terrifying experience ! )

Takrit drops us off at the parking lot and we line up to ride the buses

that take everyone to the entrance of this World Heritage site - 

twenty-six caves lining the edge of a remote gorge - 

carved and painted between 200 and 500 AD - 

most of the art created during an intense twenty year period and then abandoned

as the looming chaos of war enveloped it all. 

A flowering of painting and sculpture from long ago. 

We begin to explore . . .

The cave walls are painted exquisitely with court scenes

and stories of the Buddha's lives, 

but the spaces are so dark, the images so severely damaged,

just fragments remain. 

My eyes are straining as I try to make out the details with binoculars and a flashlight. 

Finally I settle into a corner of a deep inner chamber

that has one electric light on the large Buddha statue. 

His hands are intact, not broken or damaged, 

and powerfully expressive. 

As I sketch Indian families gather one after another to be photographed

in front of the huge sculpture . . . 

We move along through the caves, 

trying to get a sense of the spaces, and the lives lived within them. 

Did Buddhist monks practice here ? 

Who were the artists ? Who were the patrons ? 

How did it come so quickly to an end ? 

At the last cave I find a small spot to sit and gaze

on the long stretched out body of the Buddha . . .

I'm in a narrow space, with people filing by 

and a guard nearby yelling "No flash ! No flash!"

Even so I'm feeling settled and happy being with this quiet resting form. 

A man stops to tell me about his connection with vipassana meditation

and the centers worldwide. I turn to him and say, 

"Sounds like what the world needs ! " 

I move a few feet down and begin another drawing - 

 

Now the guard is telling me I have to move on - finish up quickly.

As he stands there waiting impatiently he remarks, 

"Don't you have a camera ?!" 

 

On the drive back at the end of the day . . .

Drawing in the Caves

For the last three weeks I have been in India
drawing the Hindu, Buddhist and Jain sculptures
in the caves at Ellora and Ajanta.






 


I was following in the footsteps of the Swiss artist
Alice Boner (1889-1981) who had contemplated these sculptures
and discovered the sacred geometry within the forms
(more on this later).



The thirty-four caves at Ellora were carved out of the rock
from the sixth through the ninth centuries.
They are shrines within a mountain.
Cave as womb.
Cave as heart.
I begin the process of exploring,
moving from the outer world to the inner . . .




First Day.
Wandering through the stone spaces -
listening, waiting, for the way IN . . .






The whole image of The Mighty Boar (Varaha Avatara)
is too complex for me to take on this first day.
I sit and draw the details -
his great hand, and foot, and snout,
feeling the sweetness of his contact.

Varaha is an emanation of the god Vishnu - the Preserver -
who comes to save the world when some great evil threatens.
Here he has taken the form of the Boar who has plunged into the ocean
to rescue the Goddess Earth and lift her up.

I see how trusting and relaxed she is in his hands -
raised into the clouds - victorious. . .




In the next cave I am drawn to the pillar carvings.
I'm warming up - finding relationships everywhere !






On to Ajanta - next posting coming soon . . .