IN AN ANTIQUE LAND

The artworks in the 2,000yearold Ajanta Caves are in a precarious state and can’t be fully restored. But there is an attempt to restore them digitally

Arif Khan and his wife Nazia had planned their visit to the Ajanta Caves – their first Valentine’s Day outing after their wedding in November – meticulously. They started early from their hometown, Aurangabad, 107 km from the caves, because the “history buffs” wanted to spend as much time as possible at the Unesco World Heritage site. A day before their outing, Nazia bought an old fashioned guidebook to understand the complex narratives behind Ajanta’s fabulous 2,000-year-old murals and sculptures, which depict the lives and times of Buddha and Bodhisattvas (the principal figure in the Jataka tales, which narrate the previous lives of Buddha).

“We were excited because many things about Ajanta are still a mystery: who built and funded the construction of the rock-cut caves, and the paintings, and why did the inhabitants suddenly leave the site?” said Nazia, 28, a primary school teacher, as she stood in a queue outside cave number 7. “But I am disappointed because we could not see the murals properly… it is so dark inside the caves.” Arif, 32, also a teacher, added with a disarming smile: “No clear photos for Facebook either. But how did the artists do these incredible paintings in this near-pitch darkness”?

That question has intrigued many including Nashik-based artist-photographer Prasad Pawar, who has been researching, documenting, photographing and digitally restoring the Buddhist paintings and sculptures in Ajanta for 27 years, but without touching them. “It is indeed a mystery how monks and artists produced such an array of work with minimum light. Take for example, cave number 1 (80ftx80ftx12ft). It has only one door (1x2 metres) and two windows (1x1 metre). Yet the walls and ceilings have beautiful murals, and carvings on the pillars,” said Pawar, a slim, tall man with shoulder-length salt and pepper hair. “The artists couldn’t have used mashaals because they would suck the oxygen out of the room, making it difficult to work, and also leave carbon deposits on the artwork”.

It’s not just the semi-darkness inside the caves that challenges visitors such as Nazia and Arif at Ajanta, a horseshoe-shaped site, overlooking a narrow sinuous gorge and a hilly rivulet called Waghora. There are other restrictions imposed by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), which manages the site, to ensure that these fragile murals and statues are not damaged: No camera flash or harsh light (there are soft LED lights inside the caves since stronger ones can destroy the skin of the murals); limited viewing time (10 minutes) and barriers at 8-10 feet in front the murals and Buddha statues to prevent viewers from touching the artwork. The paintings are in a fragile state, with missing portions, thanks to their antiquity, water seepage (98 per cent of the cracks in the caves have now been sealed by ASI), missteps in earlier conservation-restoration practices that began from the British era, vandalism and robbery.

“The first vandal was Captain John Smith, who discovered the caves in 1819. He etched on a Bodhisattva: ‘John Smith, 28th Cavalry, 28 April 1819,” said SC Deshmukh, a lawyer-turned guide. The site has 29 caves (including the unfinished ones). There are not just paintings on their walls but also images/sculptures of Buddha in different mudras. Despite grand exterior carvings, some of the caves are unfinished.

RESTORING AJANTA, PIXEL BY PIXEL

“If you make holes in a page of a book, will anyone manage to read the story? This is how we are viewing Ajanta now. It’s difficult to comprehend the complicated storylines in the murals, many of which use cinematic flashback style,” explained Pawar,

50, a fine arts graduate from the Maharashtra government-run Nasik Kala Niketan Chitrakala Mahavidyalaya.

This broken narrative of Ajanta’s murals had been troubling Pawar since his first year at art college when his teacher showed him one of the most famous murals – ‘Padmapani’ – in cave number 1. The mural, delicate and elegant, shows the Bodhisattva, his relatively dark-coloured body with the locks of curly hair, in a meditative state. His calm face and the shape of the body gives a three dimensional effect in the painting. In his right hand, he holds a lotus blossom, which represents spiritual awakening.

There are two missing patches in the painting. “I asked my teacher if I could restore those parts, though at that point of time, I did not know how to do it... but my teacher said that I was too young to attempt such a thing,” reminisced Pawar, who recently held an exhibition of his work – Glorious Ajanta – at the Indira Gandhi