Symbols of Reverence — Ritual & Devotion : Artwork 19

The Ajanta cave paintings — produced over several centuries beginning in the second century BCE, rediscovered by a British hunting party in 1819 — are among the most important surviving records of Buddhist narrative art. Unlike the frontal iconic representations that dominated later Buddhist iconography, the Ajanta tradition shows the Buddha in the midst of the world: surrounded by animals, attended by court figures, engaged in conversation, teaching in forest clearings. The Vitarka mudra — the gesture of argumentation, fingers raised in the act of making a point — is the mudra of active transmission rather than absorbed contemplation. It belongs to the Buddha who is still in the world, still turning toward those who have not yet understood. The profile posture and the Vitarka gesture together create a figure that is directional rather than centred, oriented toward something the composition does not show: the viewer occupies the position of the one being addressed.