Ajanta Quotes

Perhaps they are not stars in the sky, but rather openings where our loved ones shine down to let us know they are happy.

Buddhism suddenly deteriorated in India sometime after the fourth century of the Christian era. It has been rightly said that Hinduism stifled it in its friendly embrace. Like Christianity and Judaism in Judea and Confucianism and Taoism in China, Buddhism had to be exiled from India for it to become a world religion. It was necessary for India to turn to a more primitive folk religion. Hinduism perfunctorily retained the name Buddha in a far corner of its pantheon, where he was preserved as the ninth of the ten avatars of Vishnu. Vishnu is believed to assume ten transfigurations: Matsya, the fish; Kurma, the land tortoise; Varha, the boar; Narasimha, the man-lion; Vamana, the dwarf; Parashurama; Rama; Krishna; the Buddha; and the Kalki. According to the Brahmans, Vishnu, assuming the form of Buddha, purposely introduced a heretical religion so that believers would be led astray, thus presenting the opportunity for the Brahmans to lead them back to their true religion -- Hinduism. Thus, along with the decline of Buddhism the cave temples at Ajanta in western India fell into ruin and became known to the world only twelve centuries later, in 1819, when a British Army corps chanced upon them.

Elephanta caves, Mumbai-- I entered a world made of shadows and sudden brightness. The play of the light, the vastness of the space and its irregular form, the figures carved on the walls: all of it gave the place a sacred character, sacred in the deepest meaning of the word. In the shadows were the powerful reliefs and statues, many of them mutilated by the fanaticism of the Portuguese and the Muslims, but all of them majestic, solid, made of a solar material. Corporeal beauty, turned into living stone. Divinities of the earth, sexual incarnations of the most abstract thought, gods that were simultaneously intellectual and carnal, terrible and peaceful. ............................................................................ Gothic architecture is the music turned to stone; one could say that Hindu architecture is sculpted dance. The Absolute, the principle in whose matrix all contradictions dissolve (Brahma), is “neither this nor this nor this.” It is the way in which the great temples at Ellora, Ajanta, Karli, and other sites were built, carved out of mountains. In Islamic architecture, nothing is sculptural—exactly the opposite of the Hindu. The Red Fort, on the bank of the wide Jamuna River, is as powerful as a fort and as graceful as a palace. It is difficult to think of another tower that combines the height, solidity, and slender elegance of the Qutab Minar. The reddish stone, contrasting with the transparency of the air and the blue of the sky, gives the monument a vertical dynamism, like a huge rocket aimed at the stars. The mausoleum is like a poem made not of words but of trees, pools, avenues of sand and flowers: strict meters that cross and recross in angles that are obvious but no less surprising rhymes. Everything has been transformed into a construction made of cubes, hemispheres, and arcs: the universe reduced to its essential geometric elements. The abolition of time turned into space, space turned into a collection of shapes that are simultaneously solid and light, creations of another space, made of air. There is nothing terrifying in these tombs: they give the sensation of infinity and pacify the soul. The simplicity and harmony of their forms satisfy one of the most profound necessities of the spirit: the longing for order, the love of proportion. At the same time they arouse our fantasies. These monuments and gardens incite us to dream and to fly. They are magic carpets. Compare Ellora with the Taj Mahal, or the frescoes of Ajanta with Mughal miniatures. These are not distinct artistic styles, but rather two different visions of the world.

The same textiles depicted in the murals of Ajanta have turned up at excavations on the Red Sea coast of Egypt.92

Indian Railways is the fourth largest rail network in the world These are the top 5 most luxurious trains which have the best beautiful views from the window of your seat and serve the best hospitality. These trains pass through beautiful places. Surely your experience will be at the next level. Maharajas' Express : It runs between October and April, covering around 12 destinations most of which lie in Rajasthan. Palace on Wheels: The train starts its journey from New Delhi and covers Jaipur, Sawai Madhopur, Chittorgarh, Udaipur, Jaisalmer, Jodhpur, Bharatpur, and Agra, before returning to Delhi. If you plan on experiencing this royal journey, make sure you have Rs. 3,63,300 to spend! The Golden Chariot : you can take a ride along the Southern State of Karnataka and explore while living like a VIP on wheels. You start from Bengaluru and then go on to visit famous tourist attractions like Hampi, Goa and Mysore to name a few. The Golden Chariot also boasts of a spa, a gym and restaurants too. The Deccan Odyssey: The Deccan Odyssey can give you tours across destinations in Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Gujarat. It starts from Mumbai, covers 10 popular tourist locations including Ratnagiri, Sindhudurg, Goa, Aurangabad, Ajanta-Ellora Nasik, Pune, returning to Mumbai. Maha Parinirvan Express / Buddha Circuit Train: The Buddha Express travels through parts of Madhya Pradesh and Bihar, where Buddism originated over 2,500 years ago. This isn’t as opulent as the other luxury Indian trains and instead drops passengers off at hotels at famous tourist destinations such as Bodhgaya, Rajgir and Nalanda.

Nevertheless, a love that is so deep, bears deeper wounds. The intangible scars on his heart pained more for he never expressed it. But repressed emotions run around as man’s unconscious decides, and since it was not being given its due, it heaved him into a deep well. Outside, it manifested as an abnormally reticent personality. - Unlettered

Neemai wasn’t sure whether it was the beautiful sunset or the liveliness of the place that was warming a little fire in his heart. He even smiled at the kids as they started a row again, only to know that it wouldn’t last more than a minute. Neemai’s smile was unfeigned, unlike the ones he faked in the office. Perhaps Lady Destiny was watching him as an irony of fate, an ice cream rickshaw selling ‘Dinkum Ice Cream’ sounded a bell. The sound of the bell took his mindfulness away from the kids. He turned and looked at the ice cream rickshaw painted in red and yellow, immediately hit with the recollection of the school days. Just like the rest of the boys, he would save the change to buy the ice cream sticks. It was cheapest on the menu and tasted little better than flavoured ice, but the excitement of slurping the cola and orange sticks and laughing as each other’s lips got washed in the colours of the flavor was incomparable. The joy was simple, and absolute. Ice creams have brought more goodwill to the world than all the peace meetings, he thought musing at the delight that the ice cream rickshaw allured among the park people. There are certain things we become unconsciously aware of even when we are not looking at it. Everybody was aware of its presence, and like the sun that was going down, the ice cream rickshaw made its presence known.

Nevertheless, a love that is so deep, bears deeper wounds. The intangible scars on his heart pained more for he never expressed it. But repressed emotions run around as man’s unconscious decides, and since it was not being given its due, it heaved him into a deep well. Outside, it manifested as an abnormally reticent personality.

The Arab shows them greater respect than we. He writes on every letter lnsha-allah, "If it please God," for only then will the letter arrive. In spite of our reluctance to admit chance, and in spite of the fact that events run true to general laws, it is undeniable that we are always and everywhere exposed to incalculable accidents. And what is more invisible and arbitrary than chance? What is more unavoidable and more annoying? - Carl Jung

Neemai sat in silence. These were plenty of delicate issues, and the tiniest careless assumption could throw him into the whirlwind of sentimentality. He had speculated an inkling of Scarlet Amorin’s fate, the experience of the world had whispered that something terrible had happened in the house. As for the culprit of the fate, he dared not to guess. Matters of the family tend to be the most frangible affairs, as he had rightly absorbed from his observations in quietude. Things would have been easier if those were in black and white, but it is rather in shades of glaucous and grey, and any reckoning is as good as guesstimate. While his brain reasoned and warned to tread carefully, his heart yearned to hold the Rosie of his imagination. Her pain was in his imagination, he knew that, and it was well past. In real life, it would have been unbearable for her.

In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order.’ Chaos has definitely been a part of Rosie’s life, Neemai brooded, and more than her share. But by that logic, he would also have to believe in an order of things. Philosophically, he knew things happen for a reason, including misfortune, but that was not the problem. He felt that things take a strange twist when we try to integrate real life into philosophy. There is a persisting truth and a gnawing cynicism lingering on the opposite ends of a seesaw, each trying to put more weight and express its existence. The seesaw is rarely in balance – it comes parallel to the ground briefly – and that is the rare moment we are truly happy and at peace. These moments of balance were like a rare phenomenon and he could almost remember those few days in his life. Recently, those days were ones spent wondering about Rosie.

He'd hooked me, I am not a man who goes gaga upon touching a rare first edition of Lady Chumley's collected couplets, say, but I was interested. As I took the manuscript from him, he was saying, “Oddly enough, perhaps my greatest interest is the art and literature of India. I have, myself, visited the overpowering caves at Ellora, Ajanta, and Elephanta.” I examined the manuscript with growing interest.

Gao Jianfu came to India at a juncture when many Indian nationalist leaders and personalities like Gandhi and Tagore were sympathetic to China under the notorious Japanese aggression. Gao was an ardent reader of Rabindranath’s poetry. However, it is hard to trace, from the available data, the extent of his exposure to contemporary art in Bengal since he did not visit Santiniketan and look up its artistic activities. But many of his drawings and sketches bore evidence of some interactions. It is interesting that while the artists of Bengal were eager to assimilate certain elements of Japanese and Chinese art, a celebrated Chinese artist and intellectual visited Bengal almost in the same trajectory, and we do not have enough record of this event. Gao Jianfu, during his long trip to India, also visited the Ajanta caves and made a large number of copies of the Ajanta murals. From these copies, he did a great many sketches and drawings as if he were putting together a visual travelogue interspersed with narratives and footnotes. Fascinatingly, some of his drawings of ruined stupas and Buddhist sites that he visited in India were evidence of their impact on him, working behind his growing inclination to Buddhism and spirituality during the later phase of his life.

the Ajanta Caves,

Unlike Alexander’s Greeks, Muslim invaders were well aware of India’s immensity, and mightily excited by its resources. As well as exotic produce like spices, peacocks, pearls, diamonds, ivory and ebony, the ‘Hindu country’ was renowned for its skilled manufactures and its bustling commerce. India’s economy was probably one of the most sophisticated in the world. Guilds regulated production and provided credit; the roads were safe, ports and markets carefully supervised, and tariffs low. Moreover capital was both plentiful and conspicuous. Since at least Roman times the subcontinent seems to have enjoyed a favourable balance of payments. Gold and silver had been accumulating long before the ‘golden Guptas’, and they continued to do so. Figures in the Mamallapuram sculptures and the Ajanta frescoes are as strung about with jewellery as those in the Sanchi and Amaravati reliefs. Divine images of solid gold are well attested and royal temples were rapidly becoming royal treasuries as successful dynasts endowed them with the fruits of their conquests. The devout Muslim, although ostensibly bent on converting the infidel, would find his zeal handsomely rewarded.