CENTER FOR ART AND ARCHAEOLOGY 
Cave 13 is a small vihara (monastery) that belongs to first century CE. It must have provided accommodations for the monks who presumably would have conducted the rituals in the nearby early Buddhist chaitya halls, Caves 9 and 10. The front of this cave has perished. The hall has seven cells on three sides; each provided with two stone beds, one cell has raised stone pillows as well. The cells are so narrow that it is quite likely that they only served as dormitories (layanagriha). Cave 13, like the four other early Buddhist caves (Caves 9, 10 12, 15A), was refurbished in the Vakataka period; and the remaining traces of the notably “late” red plaster in the cells suggests that here, as in both of the other early Buddhist viharas, this was not done until 477 or later. There is no trace of the cave having ever been painted.
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Cave 14 is a large Vakataka vihara (monastery) that started around 475 CE and was sponsored by an identified patron from the Vakataka period. It is located directly above the Cave 13, the early Buddhist cave, where space was still available late in the site’s development. It is reached through an incomplete cave by an ancient staircase. Cave 14 is one of the two more ambitious Vakataka undertakings (the other one being Cave 28) started after the Asmaka feudatories took over the site a few years before Harisena’s death in 477 CE. However since it was not begun until a year or before emperor Harisena died, its development was soon aborted. The cave’s cistern chamber was one of its first features completed. The decoration of the pillars of the verandah is unique in the whole Ajanta site. The top corners of the central doorway leading up to the hall are adorned with sala-bhanjikas with attendants.
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Cave 15 was begun very early in the Vakataka phase - 463 CE. It was modeled directly on the simple astylar Early Buddhist Cave 12. Its cells, porch doorway, and even its Buddha image were well underway in 468 CE, but work on them was peremptorily interrupted by the Recession. Nearly a decade later all of these elements were reworked in a more up-to-date style. The Buddha image got rushed to completion in early 478 CE before Harisena’s death but the cave remained essentially unpainted and in fact little used.
The images on the left rear wall of the astylar hall, both once painted, are typical intrusions of 479 – 480 CE. There are eight cells on two sides of the hall. There are figures of Buddha in two panels on the back wall of the antechamber. The back wall of the shrine is carved with an image of Buddha seated on a simhasana. There are traces of painting on the roof of the antechamber and shrine.
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