Ajanta and Ayana Sirpi

“On the best of the mountains on which hang multitudes of waterladen clouds, which is inhabited by the lords serpents … in the thickest of the slopes of which … by the lord of the goddess of heroism.

Which is adorned with windows, doors, beautiful picture galleries, ledges, statues of nymphs of Indra and the like, which is ornamented with beautiful pillars and stairs and has a temple of the Buddha inside” – Inscription on Cave 16 walls 

                              History and fiction don’t meet, but what do we do with the genre of historic fiction. Historians obviously would hate it, but to ordinary folks they can be just another story, and at times engrossing and inspiring. I might belong to the last of the generation that read Kalki Krishnamurthy’s ‘Ponniyin Selvan’ as a serial in the magazine Kalki. When Kalki, the weekly magazine was relaunched  after a gap, they ran the serial once again, and I was in high school at that time.

                              The relaunched Kalki was not content heavy, and 'Ponniyin Selvan' was the major attraction with classic illustrations by artist Maniam. The routine used to be to read the small column ‘Deivathin Kural’, a first person account of Kanchi Mahaperiyava Chandrasekharendra Saraswati’s sayings or teachings first, before settling down with 'Ponniyin Selvan'. I had company, paatti re-read the novel as a serial with me, and we used to discuss them, week after week. As was a practice long before Kindles happened, the serials used to be cut, organized and bound into large volumes to be read, and re read by the whole family. Summer holidays meant, reaching out to those volumes and reading them all over again, 

                              Compared to the voluminous ‘Ponniyin Selvan’, Kalki's ‘Sivagamiyin Sabatham’ was a cake walk. A single volume that could be finished in a few days. I had seen SS being enacted at Arcot once, and latter somewhere else, I can’t recollect. Not many would give SS the kind of status PS enjoyed as incomparable magnum opus. That didn't matter to me, short, brutal, the sweet romance of Sivagami made it attractive to me. One other reason that might seem trivial is the fact that its setting is Kanchipuram, and the epicentre Mahabalipuram or Mamallapuram. That is the region from where my ancestors come, moreover Mahabalipuram was the first ever heritage site I had visited in life, as an elementary school kid. It was unbelievably beautiful, nothing like what the town is now, ugly, noisy and robbing it of its extraordinary beauty. Overwhelming affection for Mahabalipuram made SS a favourite. 

                              I don’t remember much history from what I studied in high school, only Ashoka and Mughals stayed in mind, that too not with clear dates. So, whatever little connection I established with history were all from my travels, culminating much later into a some bits of serious reading. Inspiration, to read history and also for my travels all sprang from readings of ‘Parthiban Kanavu’, ‘Sivagamiyin Selvan’, ‘Ponniyin Selvan’, ‘Vengayin Maindhan’ etc., 

                             Last week when I went to Ajanta, my second trip which was after a gap of 20-yrs, I couldn’t help think of Ayana Sirpi, Mamallan, Chalukyan and Sabatham. Ayana Sirpi in SS was the sculptor who Mamallan hired to build grand stone sculptures on the shores of Mamallapuram, the Pandava Rathas and all the grandeur he imagined. Sirpi has had a brush with cave paintings, learning from the Jainas, but he couldn’t learn the art of rock paintings that will last 1000s of years. The monks vanished as the rulers gave up the path of Jainism to embrace Saivism, Sirpi was at a loss.

                              Sirpi then wished to know how the 500-600 year old paintings (this was Mamalla or Narasimha Pallava’s period, a contemporary of Pulikesin II) at Ajanta had survived without a blemish and he would do anything to learn the art. His obsession with Ajanta was so much that when one of his associates narrated his encounter with Pulikesin, Sirpi asks him if he asked the great Chalukya about Ajanta.

                              Kalki simply expresses his love for Ajanta through Sirpi's character, that is how I looked at it. In the middle of a war he can take us to Ajanta, not just us but Pulikesin to Ajanta. You know for what – Pulikesin takes Hieun Tsang on a tour of Ajanta personally.

                              Pullikesin is portrayed in SS, at the time of his attack on Kanchi as a man bereft of any artistic inclinations. He was a brute who didn’t care about art. But, later Kanchi transforms him. Kalki says he wanted to create rock cut art like Mamallapuram at Badami. Did he? Badami came first or Mamallapuam, I am going to leave it at that. For, a visit to Badami and Pattadakkal would leave one besotted with what Chalukyans created. I gave up my Pallava love for Chalukyas, (did I, or that was temporary?) when I decided to write an assignment for the AIC course on Early Chalukyan Temples. 

                              I had asked a couple of historians during lectures on Deccan architecture or history, who copied whom – did the Pallavas copy (no, I can’t even have a doubt like that) or the Chalukyas copy Pallavas. The reply was more matter of fact, and nothing complicated. Artists at that time worked as guilds, yes we know that don't we from the Ayaavole 500 of Aihole. When they worked as guilds it was natural they moved from one place to other and there were traces of influence from one on another naturally. 

                              I am naturally disappointed that Chalukyans are absent in the Ajanta art history today. Historians following I think Walter Spink’s work have stopped short of extending the Ajanta’s excavation and tracing any development to Chalukyans and say it was all done during the period of Satavahanas and Vakatakas.

                              Today, it doesn’t matter whose art it was, but it is a heritage that one is so proud of, that satisfaction, or the pride that one has seen Mamallapuram, Badami, Ellora and Ajanta is immense. European Renaissance is such a celebrated period, over which so much has been written, analyzed and critiqued. Why not about the Vakataka, Pallava, Chalukya period, why don’t we have many popular books about development of art in that era, the history and background.

                              Development of art in that era is breathtaking, and life is a waste if one hasn’t seen an Ellora or a Kailasanatha temple at Kanchi. Kalki in the intro to Sabatham says he made sure of a visit to Ajanta before he penned the chapters about Ajanta. Apparently, Maniam was also sent to all the locations for illustration to PS. Kalki it seems wished to add the Ajanta travelogue as an appendix to SS, but had to drop it because the book turned bulky as it was. I want to now look for a copy of that travelogue.

                              Travelogue’s of that generation  were totally different from the ones we have today. Photography was rare and expensive, and words, sentences, paragraphs filled us with those beautiful descriptions. SS may not be history, yet my obsession with it was so much, that once after a trip to Badami, read SS in one go on a Sunday, and at the next opportunity went back to Mamallapuram.

                              I might not have paid attention to our guide Saili-Palande Datar while she painstakingly explained the sculptures, the Jatakas at Ajanta, for I was lost. The breathtaking view point, the trek down the hills to see the falls, the river, had taken me to a different world. Yes, the legs were also crying in pain, the sultry weather made it unbearable inside the caves, yet the experience of being at Ajanta made everything bearable. Wish I will have the strength in my legs for yet another trip. Hopefully a trip with someone who has read SS, and who would travel with me to Badami for yet another trip.