The later caves of Ajanta under the Vakataka king Harishena

The earliest caves at Ajanta, in a horseshoe-shaped gorge of the Waghur river, had been cut from about the 2nd century BC. The second phase, which belonged to Mahayana Buddhism, produced the most elaborate caves of the site: monasteries (viharas) and the worship halls (chaityas) of Caves 19, 26 and 29, with sculpture and paintings in dry fresco of the Jatakas, the stories of the Buddha’s former lives. Inscriptions name the patrons. Harishena’s minister Varahadeva dedicated Cave 16, where his inscription traces the Vakataka dynasty back to its founder Vindhyashakti; Upendragupta, a local king subordinate to the Vakatakas, paid for Cave 17 and several others; and, according to Walter Spink, Harishena himself commissioned Cave 1, whose paintings dwell on the Buddha’s former lives as a king. The Vakataka patrons were Hindus who, Spink thought, probably revered the Buddha as well.

The chronology is disputed. Spink, the leading specialist on the caves, argued that nearly all the work was done in a short burst between about 460 and 480: it began around 462, was disrupted by threats from the neighbouring Ashmaka kings and stopped soon after Harishena’s death, which he dated to 477. Other scholars — among them Karl Khandalavala, Ajay Mitra Shastri, M. N. Deshpande and Hans Bakker — argue for a longer chronology reaching into the mid-6th century, and the Archaeological Survey of India places the peak of activity between the mid-5th and mid-6th centuries; many works date Harishena’s reign to about 475–500 or 480–510. The Vakataka dynasty did not long outlive him. The caves were later abandoned; local people knew them, but they became famous only after a shepherd boy showed them to a British officer, John Smith, who was hunting tigers there in 1819. They have been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1983.