Metamorphosis of Forms in Ajanta

Dr. Mrs. Anupam Saxena

Asst. professor ( Department of Textile Design)
National Institute of Fashion Technology
Bhopal

Metamorphosis is a series of changes through which an organism goes in

developing from an early restricted stage to another meaningful, unrestricted form
generated with the given shape. In the murals of Ajanta, motifs like human being
and animals are punctuated in a manner without losing its balance or character,
however this is the most important aspect of this process to retain with the basic
form.

Ajanta-
The rock- cut caves of Ajanta are celebrated for their world famous paintings that possess perfect
specimens of skills and imagination of Indian mural artists.

Ajanta is world's greatest historical monument recognised by UNESCO located just 40kms from
Jalgaon city of Maharashtra, India. There are 30 caves in Ajanta of which 9, 10, 19, 26 and 29
are chaitya-grihas and the rest are monasteries. These caves were discovered in AD 1819 and
were built up in the earlier 2nd century BC-AD. Most of the paintings in Ajanta are right from
2nd century BC-AD and some of them about the fifth century AD and continued for the next two
centuries. All paintings show heavy religious influence and centre around Buddha, Bodhisattvas,
incidents from the life of Buddha and the Jatakas. The paintings are executed on a ground of
mud-plaster in the tempera technique.1

“Conjures before one's vision, a dream of beauty- of caves, hidden in the midst of a lonely glen
with a streamlet flowing down below, caves that were scooped out into the heart of the rock so
that the pious Buddhist monk, out on mission to spread the tenets of Buddhism could dwell and
pray, caves that the followers of Lord Buddha, embellished with architectural details with a
skilful command of the hammer over the chisel, with sculpture of highest craftsmanship and
above all, with the paintings of infinite charm. These monuments were constructed during two
different periods of time separated by a long interval of four centuries. The older ones were the
product of last to centuries before Christ and belong to Hinayana period of Buddhism in later
part of 2nd century AD when Buddhism was divided into two sections, after the conduct of the
fourth general council under another great king, Kanishka.”2

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 The canvases of the artists of Ajanta were wide open and thus these canvases became the
records of development of Buddhism from the moral and philosophical perspective to the icon
studded Mahayana Buddhism. The unrestricted painter of Ajanta executed with a variety of
arrangements inspired by nature, the Jatakas, the incidents of daily life and so on.

Throughout history, nature has been a source of inspiration for artists and designers. They used
natural forms for ornamentation and designs.

“All Indian art is a throwing out of a certain profound self vision formed by a going within
process to find out the secret significance through nature. The more the artist gives us of the
color and changing form and emotion of the life from the soul, the more his work glows with
beauty, and masters the inner aesthetic sense.”3 His art better gives the delight of the motion of
the self, out, into a spiritually sensuous joy of beautiful shapes and the colored radiances of
existence.

Morphing-

The worldly meaning of morphing is the manipulation of images to produce a sequence where by
one image changes into another.

Metamorphosis-

Metamorphosis means any complete, moderate or minute change in appearance, character,

circumstances of the given form or object. Metamorphosis is a series of changes through which
an organism goes in developing from an early restricted stage to another meaningful, interesting,
unrestricted form generated with a given shape. The most important aspect of this process is to
retain with the basic form, feel and look of the original form and to develop something very
innovative, creative and beautiful form which may be metaphysical (abstract) in its extant.

Teaching is a lifelong learning in itself. A few months before I was teaching Metamorphosis of
Form to my students in which they had to find out a form, its historical development and its
usage in contemporary designs with a changed appearance. At the same time, I was teaching the
art of Ajanta also. Both of these are totally different topics, but, I deeply felt that there is a major
correlation between the two. In the murals of Ajanta, there are numerous forms and
ornamentation executed on the walls which consist of floral arrangements, birds, animals,
gandharvas and yakshas and many more images including human and super humans. All types of
natural forms, plants and creatures are created here with a variety of emotions and rasas. That’s
why the great poet Banbhatta called the execution of Ajanta “the Tribhuvan sampunjan” or the
expression of the entire world.

“At the level of composition the “eye” of human compassion is almost universal and motifs like
human being to animal are punctuated in a manner without losing its balance or character.

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Ornamentation and hemming with flowers and foliage are depicted with rhythm.” 4 Here are
some examples given, which will positively give you an idea of these wonderful compositions of
Ajanta.

A celestial musician (kinnara), cave no. 1

Here a celestial musician is shown playing an instrument. The upper body portion is like humans and the
lower is like a rooster. This figure has wings also. Merging of the two characters is balanced remarkably.
Observe some more examples-

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 Paintings on the ceiling, cave no. 2

“There are some punctuations. But delving deep into the figures, the ‘composit’ compositions
and the posture swings with the character and theme of the frame which differed to create style
within style…..” 5

In the above ceiling decorations the bulls are punctuated with fish, birds or swan. The head and
front legs are like bull or bison but the back portion is converted into various sky and sea
animals. The morphing and the interchanging of the two creatures is so wonderful that it can be
used as truly innovative motif in contemporary design world also.6 Sometimes we may compare
these motifs of Ajanta with the Byzantine motifs, according to Shree Om D. Upadhyaya
“Tracing Prana-aesthetics as the aesthetics of inner-light coded in the creeper-motif by the artists

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of Ajanta, this work emphasizes decoding of the creeper-motif by Byzantine artists culminating
into the frescoes of Sopocani ….” 7 But they are completely Indian in there extant.

Quadripartite deer, cave no. 1

Paintings on the ceiling, cave no. 7

The Design Process-

The process of morphing is quite interesting. It requires innovative thinking, unbound

imagination and skill to execute the required thought process. The artist receives the inspiration
from the outer world around him. His keen observation helps in this process. Taking that outer
object into his innerself; and making innovative, uncommon changes to create and develop a
new, attractive, meaningful form is the objective of this Design process.

The Ajanta artists were the masters of this process. Starting the drawing as a bison and finished
in the form as if it is a mermaid – how unnatural but aesthetically appealing idea. The swans are

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beautifully, realistically drawn but their tails are somewhere lost in the ornamental decorations of
lotus creepers. The innocent deers end in the form of fishes.

The fine lines create a smooth path for over eyes to observe the beauty of two great creations of
that Supreme Power in a single execution at the same time without any obstruction or harsh
feeling. This remarkable quality of the artists of Ajanta remai8ned untouched till now. There is
an incomparable liquidity in the forms. As a viewer, we start our journey from realistic images
towards abstraction through these ornamentations by which the walls and the ceilings of Ajanta are
fully adorned.

According to Shree Rai Krishna Das-

“In transcribing these stories in color and line the artist invests animals with human feelings, in
some cases even with super human wisdom. The birds and the beasts in the murals and in the bas
relief often appear in their natural surroundings.”…8

I would like to conclude that as an art critic we should analyze the way in which abstract designs
and human and animals’ metamorphic forms were created to visualize the power of the divine
presence.

Reference-
1. Ajanta-Archeological Survey Of India
2. Ajanta caves.com
3. Sri Aurobindo, - The significance of Indian Art- Chapter IV
4. Dr. Gautam Chatterjee,- Aesthetic punctuations of Ajanta fresco- Art Times 1999,
Oct.
5. Dr. Gautam Chatterjee,- Aesthetic punctuations of Ajanta fresco- Art Times 1999,
Oct.
6. Ajanta and Ellora Caves,28.02-03.03.2008, Articles on Indian Heritage/Culture
7. Om D. Upadhya- The art of Ajanta and Sopocani
8. Rai Krishna Das. A Fable book for Akbar, The Times O India Annual, 1965, pp.
31-32.
9. Ajanta caves: Art of the Spiritual World-Atula Gupta,August 4, 2009, 4
comments.
10. -www. Saigan.com/heritage/painting/ajanta7html.
11. Wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajanta_caves
12. Ajanta and Ellora Caves,28.02-03.03.2008, Articles on Indian Heritage/Culture

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