The Ancient Abbey of Ajanta

Contents: Prologue. Compilers\' preface. Acknowledgements. The ancient abbey of Ajanta. Notes. Compilers\' notes. Glossary. Excerpts from the letters of Sister Nivedita with special reference to Ajanta. Notes to the letters. Select bibliography. Index.

"Ajanta, with its monumental architecture, vibrant sculpture, and rich array of paintings, continues to fascinate and inspire generations of archaeologists, artists, art historians and connoisseurs. Sister Nivedita visited ajanta in 1909, and published a 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 \'marvelous 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 Indian 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 neighbourhood in an attempt at understanding ajanta on a wider perspective." (jacket)