Bodhisattva Padmapani, Mural Painting, Late Fifth Century, Ajanta Cave One, India

This extraordinary mural painting of Bodhisattva Padmapani survives from early medieval India, likely dated to 477 AD, and is preserved in the interior of the rock-cut Buddhist monastery of Ajanta. It provides the earliest visual evidence of elaborate crowns being worn as signifiers of both princely and divine status. The crowns depicted are the antecedents of those used in Buddhist ritual today by the Vajracharya priests in Nepal.

The Ajanta Caves system has been described by the government Archaeological Survey of India as “the finest surviving examples of Indian art, particularly painting,” and consists of about 30 rock-cut Buddhist cave monuments dating from approximately the 2nd century BCE to about 480 or 650 CE.

In Buddhism, Avalokiteśvara, also known as Padmapain, is the Bodhisattva who embodies the compassion of all Buddhas. He is depicted and portrayed in different cultures as either male or female. An English translation of the Bodhisattva’s name, Avalokiteśvara, means “the lord who gazes down at the world”.

This segment from Helen Gardner’s 2009 “Art Through the Ages: Non-Western Perspectives”, originally published in 1926,  describes the scene shown:

“The Bodhisattva Padmapani sits among a crowd of devotees, both princesses and commoners. With long, dark hair handing down below a jeweled crown, he stands holding his attribute, a blue lotus flower, in his right hand. […] The artist has carefully considered the placement of the painting in the cave. The bodhisattva gazes downward at worshipers passing through the entrance to the shrine on their way to the rock-cut Buddha image in a cell at the back of the cave.”

Note: There is very limited lighting done inside the caves to protect the paintings from heat and no flash allowed.