Ajanta: Part I - My Gateway To Nirvana !

How would you feel if you go on tiger hunting and end up stumbling upon a treasure trove…
Ask John Smith, the British army officer from the Madras regiment, who first noticed a two millenia old unusual archway, that of Chaitya at Cave 10 of Ajanta, while on his tiger trail during April 1819. (Don't worry... Your Mathematics is Ok.. these caves were started 200 years before Christ..)

If the discovery of Ajanta sounded like an Indiana Jones adventure, the hazy history shrouding its establishment and existence along with the perpetual jinx on its conservation efforts, rivals an Alfred Hitchcock Mystery. The discovery of these caves did more harm than good for the paintings. Because curious tourists arriving in droves to take a peek at still fresh paintings a century ago came with large Oil lamps, emanating black soot, which started the darkening of the paintings. Efforts by one Major Robert Gill was commendable as he camped in these caves for 20 years (1844 – 63) to take hand made copies and have it sent to England. They were spoiled by a fire at the museum where they were housed. A second attempt by Mr.John Griffiths, then principal of Bombay school of Arts, spending 13 years to replicate the paintings produced no different results. The copies were destroyed in a fire, for the second time. A Japanese team from Kyoto University arrived at 1918 to try their luck. Their copies, made by pressing wet rice papers against the originals, lasted less than 2 years as they were destroyed in an Earth Quake !! Efforts by Nizam of Hyderabad, done in good intentions to restore the paintings back fired, as they injected casein to fix the peeling paintings back to their wall, except that it did the opposite. Wisdom of Griffith’s team from Bombay to shine the paintings by applying shellac, proved fatal in the long run as most of the paintings were darkened due to this. And ASI is now doing its best to restore them. Poooh...

The disadvantage I had when I visited Ajanta, (unlike my Ellora visit, where the Hindu sculptures needed no introduction to understand) is that I lacked any insight into what Buddhism is. Because each and every thing that you see in Ajanta is esoteric with the religion that I found them to be Greek and Latin (Or should I say Pali and Sanskrit :-) ). The only insight I had prior to my visit was, the basic life history of Buddha which I’ve read in my school days. For instance, why is Buddha Omni presently seated in the “Dharma Chakra Pravartana Mudra” (or the teaching position) is something you will ask yourself when you visit this place. The presence of this particular posture of Buddha is so pre-dominant that without any insight into the religion, I was a bit mischievous to think that, the task master must have given impositions to the most naughty Bikshu to carve this a thousand times all over!! Excuse me, but the real answer lies in understanding basics of Buddhism.. I am no qualified to explain you these. Its just my basic crude understanding in hindsight (by reading Wikis!) combined with my Guide for the day's explanation, that follows. My apologies if I distort the truth or made it appear too casual.

First enlightenment to hit me hard was, you and me and everyone can be a Buddha, if and when we ‘realize’ the ultimate happiness in life (aka ‘nirvana’). This ultimate enlightment cannot be taught or conveyed or explained. It has to be experienced self. It was ‘Gautama Siddhartha’ or “The” Buddha as we’ve known him, who attained the nirvana first. He wanted to share the secret of how he achieved it and hence he also defined the path which everyone could follow to achieve it. (Remember he didn’t teach about the ultimate prize, he only taught about the path to get there. i.e., No turn-key to success or shortcuts.. you have to endure the same mystic path by mastering the whole syllabus first). A more defining example of 'Bottom-up' approach could not be found elsewhere other than in the fundamentals of Buddhism. Its an approach where you start with what you have and go up the chain to find out the solution (as opposed to the 'Top-Down' approach where you know what you need to achieve and break it down further).

Siddhartha didn't have any mission in life except that he was Suffering and he wanted to get rid of it. But he didn’t know how. So he started with what he had. The only initial realization he had was ‘Life is full of sufferings’ (Can any one of you reading this, put your hand on heart and say you don’t have problems in life.?). So he pondered about the cause of all sufferings and found out its due to craving and attraction or the ‘want’ factor (I want my son to be like this, husband/ wife to be like this, Boss to be like this, house to be like this, salary to be like this, relatives to be like this, traffic to be like this); He didn’t stop his root cause analysis there and went one level up.. The Craving and wanting is due to ‘Ignorance’ (what am I chasing behind) and this ignorance can be ‘solved’ by practicing a noble eight fold path (such as right thoughts, right deeds, right speech, right livelihood etc). And you have to first become a ‘Bodhisattva’ or a state where you commit yourself totally to become a Buddha. And Buddha-hood cannot be obtained in one life and you have to reincarnate as many Bodhisattva in as many lives to finally become a Buddha.

So the chain goes like: Sufferings--> Due to Attraction-->Due to Ignorance--> Which can be solved. And he suggested a ‘Middle path’ neither too indulgent nor too ascetic, to achieve this Nirvana or Supreme Liberation or Happiness. This is what, i.e., teaching people on the path to nirvana, is what “The” Buddha did for the most part of his life. These teachings form the basics of Buddhism and the “Dharma Chakra Pravartana Mudra” is all but the symbolic representation of this philosophy, which is the corner stone in Buddhism. It made all sense to me after this... If the foundation is not reinforced, the structure cannot survive on top....