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The Ajanta Chronicles

Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) launched the first ever English translation of the three-volume Ajanta: Handbook of Paintings by Dieter Schlingloff.

This collection provides detailed documentations of all recordable narrative wall paintings in the famous caves. The caves are known for their rich paintings featuring Indian and Buddhist art.

The Ajanta handbook depicts drawings of all the paintings in Ajanta caves, together with a brief description of each scene from the ancient period. Many scenes are identified and interpreted in an easy way to understand  architecture and Dieter’s work better.

The book was first published by the title Ajanta – Handbuch de Malereien in Germany, in the year 2000.
Ajanta wall paintings are made along the lines of Buddhist cave monasteries of ancient Indian cultures.
During the event panellist Mk Dhawalikar, AP Jamkedkar and Himanshu Prabha Ray spoke about paintings of Ajanta caves with changes they found between periods. They made presentations about the art and architecture of caves also throwing shadow on the narrative wall paintings.

Author Dieter Schlingloff is one of the leading experts on the paintings of Ajanta. He has been engaged with the task of identifying the subject matter of the paintings in great detail pre-requisite for further research.

His research was done over the last forty years and consists of books and articles on the paintings of Ajanta. His present work comprises of research on narrative wall paintings and the cultural background and Schlingloff’s identification and interpretation.

At the event Schlingloff’s said, ‘The narrative paintings of the ancient period of Ajanta are of no less quality than the paintings of Roman Pompeii made during the same time and like those, they are the only testimonies of the marvelous art of narrative wall-painting which is lost elsewhere. The glory of ancient Indian culture and the high standard of its morality as revealed in the paintings should become known worldwide.’
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