Category:Foreigners at Ajanta

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Depiction of foreigners at Ajanta frescoes of 5th century CE.

The skin color and dress style of some characters had led to the hypothesis that some of these characters may be foreign and related to the embassy sent from Persia; this theory was proposed in early colonial era literature in the decades after these caves were discovered and studied (see e.g., Fergusson, 1879). However, after the review of Persian records, dating when the embassy was actually sent from Persia by Khusro II Parvez to the Hindu sovereign of early Chalukya dynasty (7th-century), and the better dating of these frescoes and caves to the 5th-century by Walter Spink, this theory has largely been rejected since the Indian painters could not have forecasted who will visit nearly 200 years in future. Further, given the diversity of skin color in South Asia, different skin tones and the diversity of the culture in South Asia, along with limited evidence of these practices in pre-5th-century Greater India, the colonial era proposal that there are many foreigners in Ajanta frescoes has been by questioned and partly rejected by scholars such as Schlingloff (1988), Zin (2003) and others. There are some characters in these frescoes that are dressed in a style found in the artwork of northwest Indian subcontinent, Kushan and Saka-ruled regions. Thus, the basic hypothesis that the painters were showing a diversity of people from far away lands is valid.

Sources: [1] Dieter Schlingloff, Studies in the Ajanta Paintings: Identification and Interpretations, 1988; [2] Monika Zin, Ajanta: Handbuch der Malereien, Devotionale und ornamentale Malereien, Volume 1: Interpretation, 2003.

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