The Ancient Abbey of Ajanta

Ajanta with its monumental architecture, vibrant sculpture, and rich array of paintings, continues to fascinate and inspire generations of archeologists, artists, art historians, and connoisseurs. Sister Nivedita visited Ajanta in 1909, and published the longish essay, adequately illustrated, that was serialized in The Modern Review in 1910. this monograph offers her portrayal of Ajanta. Nivedita commented at length, on the artistic traditions of Ajanta and its ‘marvellous cosmopolitanism’. ‘Chinese, gandharan, Persian and Ceylonese elements’, she concluded, ‘mingle with touches from every part of India itself in the complexity of this superb edifice’. She stuck to her principal agenda of a forceful contestation of the theory of Greek influence on India Art. For, her antiquity of Ajanta was as important as its artistic excellence. One cannot but marvel at Nivedita’s modernist concern with geographical and cultural setting of the neighborhood in an attempt at understanding Ajanta on a wider perspective.