RESEARCH

“Ajanta” is a World Heritage Site declared by “Unesco World Heritage Site ” During British era, in 1819, Ajanta was discovered. It is in the shape of “Horse Shoes”, where in God has showered the beauty of nature and we can feel it. It also adds the purity of river Waghur and its seven ponds. This holy and quiet place was surely been attraction for Buddhist Monks for their stay during monsoon. These caves are carved from a stone of around 76 meter tall. These caves are a live and precious depository of Indian Culture. This place is 104 km away from city of Aurangabad in the State of Maharashtra, India. Ajanta caves are made during 2nd to 6th century B.C. in two different times. There are 30 caves in the Ajanta area on the bank of Waghur river, from which in the caves 1, 2, 16 and 17 various paintings are painted on walls, roofs and pillars Jatak Tales of Lord Buddha are painted on the wall, in the rest of the sites flowers, geometrical designs and many others have been created from the mountain rock of Ajanta. The rocks have been carved according to the stone designs and were produced in different sizes. In the caves 1, 2, 16 and 17 the lenses of Lord Buddha’s people (The story of the birth) can be seen. During 1989, I was undergoing studies in the college of art. The famous painting of Ajanta – “The Padmapani” was the subject for studies. A large part of the painting has disappeared due to erosion from time to time. We are desperate to survey the deterioration of Ajanta paintings which are going to be destroyed. What can I do for Ajanta? These thoughts became numb. In fact, painting is a strong media of communication. But these painting have downplayed me and then I realized if this deterioration continues, what would be left for the future generations? What Ajanta they would see in the days to come?

From 1989, the mission of Restoration of Ajanta started. Activities planned and the efforts in this direction started. Till the year 2009, I spent my precious time in research and frequent visits to Ajanta because I had to wait for years to obtain permission from Archeological Survey of India. It was the real beginning of the ambitious project “Ajanta Education, Research and Restoration”. It has been easy to work on the mission because I have been God gifted with intelligence, accurate decision power, power to analyze, exact decision ability, unmatched physical ability, teamwork, technical assessment etc. And this reflected in the best performance of my own work. For photographing Ajanta, taking photos with the help of camera is hardly 1% activity but 99% activities are to understand history, relevant information, knowledge, experiences, proper analysis, paintings, sculptures, Indian traditional culture and history of Lord Buddha and the historical evidences of Buddha’s birth. I then realized that a person who is aware about Ajanta and who has that intuition can only work best on the project. The photography work was decided to start from Cave No. 1. The permission was granted to perform photography without disturbing the tourists visiting the place and not to use any halogen lights or flash lights during photography. With these restrictions the challenging work started. A lot of experiments were conducted during the exercise because the walls, roofs and pillars are painted with their best abilities. A specialty in Ajanta paintings is that the Jatak Katha of Bhagawan Buddha are painted in different pieces nearby and it was a very difficult task to study, understand and then organize all these stories in a sequence for photography. After all the photography started and The Department of Archeology offered a set of books and information available with them on “Ajanta”. They advised me to kindly refer the information provided by them. But I clearly refused. Because, the author has produced a book from the history of its context, thinking, visualization, understanding, principles, combined experience and this may dilute my way of thinking and research on the subject. Different authors have seen the painting but they have their own perception and imagination on it and has been written accordingly.

I am basically an artist and a sculptor, a photographer, a visual creator, an engineer and research fellow with attitude of practical thinking. What I expect from the painting to bring it in the practice is that the best out of the has been usually imagined in my mind and then I can put the best visualized scene and then draw it. I can put all this virtual imaginary objects practically on a table or a platform. Actually without being present in Ajanta, I virtually understand what difficulties can occur while creating this hard work. I made lot of experiments on this line of thinking for making a specific paintings. What are all the things should be done I can realize imaginary and all this I studied through at different angles. The technical experiments and equipment which are used through which the pictures can be created or the photography can be executed. Before all these experiments brought into the practice, I virtually imagine all the situations and also imagined when I saw the Ajanta at what height and altitude I have to work upon. I could assess this and 22 feet tripod was manufactured accordingly for this purpose. Also to keep the camera in a single line and move it in a single line the laser guided technology was developed and the camera was made operational. Also it was taken care that the tripod was not to be destroyed by the tourist in the dark areas of the caves, so I put small micro level lights on the tripod so that it will be seen in the dark also and not disturbed by the tourist.

A team was prepared consisting cameramen, ladder assistants, tripod assistants, coordinator, computer operator, cable technician, other operators, radio operator, Temperature meter reader, grey card, focusing card and colour card assistant. A daily schedule was prepared for review of the work done up to the stage and the activities to be planned for next day. After 2 hours we were experiencing the sickness. When we started analyzing that why the sickness is coming every after 2 hours, it is found that in the area of 35m x 28m and of the height of 2m to 3m. There were only three to four Windows and only one door from which the light was entering and having no proper ventilation. When around 2000 to 5000 tourist enter into this the low level of oxygen available in the case was bringing the sickness to us. To overcome this difficulty of every after 2 hours our team is to leave the work-spot and go out of the caves for about 20 minutes to get a fresh air, breathe it and come again with the great enthusiasm into the caves again to work for the next two hours. Every time after two hours we thought that this 20 minute should not be wasted. Therefore, I started working on clear sunlight and started first the photography on the sculptures available in the sunlight and then I found a new subject about the chisel work made on the sculpture. It attracted me and I could understand the sculpture more and more clearly and closely. Then I imagine that how the stone have been shaped and while carving the stone, how the chisel was used, what could be the size and shape of the chisel and how the original caves were made of that time. Which part could have cut first time and to proceed the work of carving the Caves. While doing this chisel work, I could understand lot of things of the creation of these caves of Ajanta.

Ajanta caves are around 350 km away from my city Nasik. My technical workshop is available in Nasik city. Therefore for any silly small matter I had to travel for 350 km back to Nasik and to avoid this technical accessories which are used for this Ajantha project to make the accessibility and demonstration of these accessories required in Ajanta caves have been experimented in the Pandav leni (Pandavas caves) available near Nasik. The demonstration was being done in Pandavas caves near Nasik and afterwards they are actually used in Ajanta caves. While making a demo at Nasik, all the difficulties which we experienced they have been overcome before going to Ajanta Caves. This trial and error method were used in the demonstration of photography and this was a scientific approach with the best of the accessories and I could get it a great success out of this. My father being a technician, this habit was inculcate in me since my childhood and my mind was set accordingly. Therefore when I had seen any of the difficulty the solution was ready with me. Many of my experiments have failed but from every experiment I could get better and better ways of going to their success. I had two options available either photograph the paintings in its original condition or reference to the paintings, identify the missing portion which later to be corrected and then restore the painting in the modified condition.

This type of plaster or the wall paintings are called Fresco in Europe, but the pictures which are drawn in Europe on these type of surfaces are drawn when the surface is wet. Therefore the pictures drawn on wet surfaces are easy to restore. The pictures in this method are drawn on a wet plaster where the paint is being soaked into the plaster and therefore it is long lasting so it is easy for Restoration of this pictures. But in Ajanta, the pictures are drawn only after drying up of this plaster therefore this paint are like cream on the milk. These layers of the paint are on dry surface and in the form of powder so it is very difficult to restore all this damaged portions on these pictures. These pictures are getting destroyed day by day. The surface where the pictures are painted in the caves are not glittering surfaces and all natural paints have been used for this purpose. Different kinds of leaves, flowers etc. have been used from the nature to create the paints, as well as the different kinds of stones available from the earth in different colors are used to create the paints. This is what is being concluded. This may be the secret of these paintings that even after 2000 years, these pictures are available for us because of these natural paints which are created from the nature. The paints which are made in today’s era are hardly available for 5 to 7 years even though they are made with the modern technologies but the paints which are made from the natural resources are available for the last 2000 years. From this evidence it is concluded that, at that time there must be a scientific method to create the paints and there must be laboratories to test this kind of paints. After the certification of these paints from those Laboratories they must be used while creating these paintings.

This type of plaster or the wall paintings are called Fresco in Europe, but the pictures which are drawn in Europe on these type of surfaces are drawn when the surface is wet. Therefore the pictures drawn on wet surfaces are easy to restore. The pictures in this method are drawn on a wet plaster where the paint is being soaked into the plaster and therefore it is long lasting so it is easy for Restoration of this pictures. But in Ajanta, the pictures are drawn only after drying up of this plaster therefore this paint are like cream on the milk. These layers of the paint are on dry surface and in the form of powder so it is very difficult to restore all this damaged portions on these pictures. These pictures are getting destroyed day by day. The surface where the pictures are painted in the caves are not glittering surfaces and all natural paints have been used for this purpose. Different kinds of leaves, flowers etc. have been used from the nature to create the paints, as well as the different kinds of stones available from the earth in different colors are used to create the paints. This is what is being concluded. This may be the secret of these paintings that even after 2000 years, these pictures are available for us because of these natural paints which are created from the nature. The paints which are made in today’s era are hardly available for 5 to 7 years even though they are made with the modern technologies but the paints which are made from the natural resources are available for the last 2000 years. From this evidence it is concluded that, at that time there must be a scientific method to create the paints and there must be laboratories to test this kind of paints. After the certification of these paints from those Laboratories they must be used while creating these paintings.

This type of plaster or the wall paintings are called Fresco in Europe, but the pictures which are drawn in Europe on these type of surfaces are drawn when the surface is wet. Therefore the pictures drawn on wet surfaces are easy to restore. The pictures in this method are drawn on a wet plaster where the paint is being soaked into the plaster and therefore it is long lasting so it is easy for Restoration of this pictures. But in Ajanta, the pictures are drawn only after drying up of this plaster therefore this paint are like cream on the milk. These layers of the paint are on dry surface and in the form of powder so it is very difficult to restore all this damaged portions on these pictures. These pictures are getting destroyed day by day. The surface where the pictures are painted in the caves are not glittering surfaces and all natural paints have been used for this purpose. Different kinds of leaves, flowers etc. have been used from the nature to create the paints, as well as the different kinds of stones available from the earth in different colors are used to create the paints. This is what is being concluded. This may be the secret of these paintings that even after 2000 years, these pictures are available for us because of these natural paints which are created from the nature. The paints which are made in today’s era are hardly available for 5 to 7 years even though they are made with the modern technologies but the paints which are made from the natural resources are available for the last 2000 years. From this evidence it is concluded that, at that time there must be a scientific method to create the paints and there must be laboratories to test this kind of paints. After the certification of these paints from those Laboratories they must be used while creating these paintings.