CENTER FOR ART AND ARCHAEOLOGY 
Cave 3 is an incomplete vihara (monastery) that was started in 477 CE and of which only the preliminary excavation of the pillared verandah was completed. It was probably commissioned by a patron from the Vakataka period. This cave was excavated in a stretch of rock up above the earlier Caves 2 and 4 that must have still been available at the time. In the same year, Harisena died and work on the cave had to be abandoned and only a rough entrance for the hall had been excavated by then. Cave 3 has a low ceiling probably because it was economical and would at the same time take best advantage of the cooling effect of the surrounding mountain mass.
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Cave 4 is the largest vihara (monastery) at Ajanta, planned on a large scale but never finished. It was sponsored by Mathura, one of the inaugurators of Ajanta’s renaissance in the early 460s. Between 469 and 474 CE, when the cave had been abandoned, a part of the hall ceiling collapsed due to a geological flaw and architectural adjustments to the cave had to be made. The patron, Mathura must have hurriedly finished and then inscribed his huge Buddha image by mid-478 CE. During this period the Vakataka patronage of the site ended due to the Asmaka aggression shortly after Harisena’s death. The cave’s old-fashioned porch colonnade reflects its early beginnings although the decoration of the main door is very elaborate. The excavation of the porch walls or the planned painting program was never fully finished even in the excavation’s post-475 phase.
The lintel is decorated with seated Buddhas and ganas, while the topmost band has five chaitya window motifs where three of them contain Buddha images. At the upper corners of the door frame are the bracket figures of sardulas (vyala motif) with riders. To the right of the door is a rectangular panel carved with the figure of standing Avalokitesvara at the center with worshippers praying to him for deliverance from the Eight Great Perils. The Bodhisattva holds in his jata-mukuta a Dhyani Buddha in dharma-chakra-pravartana (teaching) and not in the appropriate dhyana (meditation) attitude. Thus the iconographical canons had not yet crystalized into rigid forms. In the two top corner of the panel are two seated Buddhas, with a third one above within a chaitya window. There is a panel with a carved Buddha in teaching attitude on the other side of the door. The main Buddha image has Vajrapani, with crown and vajra, is on the right, while Avalokitesvara, with his jata headdress, his lotus, and antelope skin, is on the left. The patron however was unable to get the colossal main image finished and dedicated.
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Cave 5 and the two storied Cave 6, like most of the Vakataka caves, were begun in the early 460s and remained unfinished when Harisena died (478 CE). The identity of the patron cannot ascertained. In this cave the richly carved doorway that displays female figures standing on makaras projecting beyond the general alignment is noteworthy.
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Cave 6 is a double storied vihara that possibly begun in 460s by an unidentified donor from the Vakataka period. Cave Lower 6 is the only cave at the site ever finished while the Cave Upper 6 was left in a very rough condition, even though the patron was able to rush its fine image to completion immediately after Harisena’s death. The verandah of the lower storey has entirely disappeared. By mid-478, and continuing through 480 (the ‘Period of Disruption’), uninvited new devotees took over the latter cave, filling it with literally hundreds of intrusive Buddha images— all private votive donations.
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Cave 7 started prior to 466 CE and was sponsored by an unidentified patron. It was intended to be one of the grandest excavations at the site, when it was begun at the start of the Vakataka renaissance. However, because of many problems, it ended up as little more than a large porch opening onto a modest shrine with the residence cells being located expediently, where space allowed. The facade carvings on this cave may possibly be the earliest figural sculptures at the site. Of special interest is the motif of stupa under an umbrella and protected by a naga in the center of the porch. The stupa instead of a Buddha image used as a central figure is significant as it reminds us these shrines were probably being conceived for stupas and not Buddhas.
Cave 7’s intended interior hall were to be astylar, shrineless and without porch cells and would have housed thirty monks however it was never started. The five medallions at the center of the five forward ceiling areas were never carved even when the whole cave was being hurriedly finished before the Period of Disruption they were abruptly covered over with plastered ceiling.
Cave 7’s shrine and shrine antechamber are filled with varied Buddha images. The shrine has a seated image of Buddha with an elliptical halo caved on the back wall and has its right hand in abhaya (“do not fear”) mudra. The image is different from other Buddha images that show the dharmacakra (wheel-turning) gesture probably because the dharmacakra convention had not been fixed. There are also six standing Buddhas in varada-mudra or “Buddhas of the Past”, carved on the walls. The pedestals below them and the door-jambs and lintels are also decorated with Buddha images. The walls of the shrine’s antechamber are carved with the Miracle of Sravasti. The early shrine doorway and the shrine were remodeled in the late 470s. The ceiling was also painted with rolling sea animals and floral creepers inhabited by frolicking dwarfs but over time it has been damaged.
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Cave 8 long served as the site’s engine room. It was initially attributed to the Early Buddhist phase but it is quite possibly the earliest excavated Mahayana vihara in India, for its location and plan suggest that it was undertaken at the very start of Ajanta’s new Vakataka phase around 466 CE. The identity of the patron can be ascertained. The shrine was probably an addendum that had to be cut in a corrupted level of rock and perhaps a loose image would have used as a replacement for a rock-carved Buddha. The cave was carefully plastered and painted, but little evidence of the decoration survives.
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