The Buddhist Caves at Aurangabad - Wat Florida Dhammaram

the aurangabad renaissance in the fifth century 97
Ajanta the Buddha is referred as munirāja or king of ascetics (Mirashi
1963b, 127, verse 24).
This tête à tête alludes to the concept that both the Buddha and
the king are cakravartins. Even if the local ruler did not fit the profile
of the greatest cakravartin of all times, Aśoka, the Buddhist literature
of this period of political fragmentation seems to contain the notion
that different gradations of cakravartins could exist, based on the size
of their kingdoms and on the means they used to expand it. In the
Abhidharmakośa by Vasubandhu, a text attributed to the late fourth
to fifth century and possibly compiled in north India (Willemen et al.
1998, 241), four kinds of cakravartins are listed: the golden, the silver,
the copper, and the iron (Vallée Poussin 1923–25, 197 and 202).
This Buddhist compendium possibly reflects the fifth century arena in
which emerging local rulers, such as the patrons of Aurangabad cave 3,
became the new Buddhist elite in need of legitimatization.
It is unclear whether the king and his entourage at Aurangabad are
depicted in the act of performing a gift-giving ceremony specifically
designated for royalty, or if they are just intent in an ordinary act of
devotion such as offering a garland to the Buddha. 61 The presence of
secular figures in the holiest of places raises an important question
about the degree of public access granted to the laity in these caves.
The prominence given to lay images inside the shrine of cave 3 and
the fact that so few monastic cells existed at Aurangabad would seem
to indicate that, much as in the earliest phase of patronage, the caves
continued to cater more to the laity than to monastic members of the
Buddhist community. Remarkably, the ritual involvement of the royal
group seem to imply the notion of darśana: the king keeps his head up,
in the direction of the Buddha, his eyes wide open to see the Buddha
and be seen. There has always been some hesitancy in recognizing that
the practice of darśana, generally associated with Hindu devotional
ritual, was widely established in the Buddhist world early on. However
the reliefs carved on the vedikā pillars of the Bharhut stūpa indicate
61 One of the main Buddhist celebrations associated with kingship that we know of
is the quinquennial festival described in the Aśokāvadāna. (Strong 1989, 265–66). The
festival became an elaborate celebration in the medieval period, with the king taking
on the appearance of a monk during the offering ceremony. This exchange of insignia
between the Buddha and the ruler is depicted at Bamiyan in the niche of the 38-metretall
Buddha (Klimburg-Salter 1989, 124). However, it is unlikely that this particular
celebration is depicted in Aurangabad cave 3, where the donors are represented in
their princely attire.