CENTER FOR ART AND ARCHAEOLOGY 
Cave 11 was one of the first excavations undertaken in 462 CE during the Vakataka phase by an unidentified patron. It is squeezed between and above the Cave 10 and its associated residence, Cave 12. When the excavation for Cave 11 was started in 462 CE, there was nothing else there except for the ancient caves that were still in worship. Like all of the earlier Vakataka viharas, it was planned as a simple and functional hall to be served as a dormitory. At each end of the verandah there are two cells that approached by a flight of steps and the outer cells have collapsed. The right wall of the verandah is carved with figures of Buddha in three panels. The door is plainly molded with a lion-heads at each end of the threshold. The plinth, on which the simhasana of Buddha rests, contains the kneeling figure of a devotee. Higher up in the left wall is hewn out a secret chamber probably for storing valuables. The roof of the verandah along with its projection is covered with painted motifs including varied flora, birds, beast, geometric designs etc. The back walls of the verandah immediately to the left and right of the door are painted with large-size Boddhisattvas with attendants, large portions of the paintings being damaged, the walls of the hall are painted mostly with figures of Buddha.
The cave doesn’t have an antechamber, one can see a half-finished cell at the rear that had to be converted to satisfy the new demand for a Buddha shrine, which was not started until some seven years after the cave had been begun. The shrine has an unfinished image of Buddha seated in padmasana pose with the hands in dharmacakra mudra fronts an abandoned stupa. The Cave 11 Buddha image was probably the first to have been conceived at the site before conventions had been set. It is the only image at the site earlier than 475 CE to incorporate a standalone kneeling devotee at the base instead of conventional pairs or groups found under late carved Buddha images.
Cave 11’s planned program of painting was never completed because of the strictures of the Recession. All of the hall paintings and most of the porch paintings are intrusions dating between mid-478 and 480 CE. Like most of the other caves at the site, Cave 11 must have been abandoned shortly after 480 CE by which time any active patronage either original or intrusive had ended.
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Cave 12, an early Buddhist vihara (monastery) is one of the oldest hewn and most probably belongs to first century BCE. In its own heyday, the cave probably housed many of the monks associated with the great chaitya hall, Cave 10. An inscription on the back wall of the monastery records the gift of a cell by one merchant called Ghanamadada. The walls of the hall above the cell-doors are ornamented with chaitya window motifs connected at places by a railing motif; the right wall is decorated with stepped merlons of Assyrian pattern.
The monastery once bore paintings of which hardly anything now exists. The cave’s pillar-less hall is surrounded by carefully cut cells, each with two stone beds and that once must have housed at least twenty-four monks. The cave must have provided a ready model for the new excavators, who copied its typically astylar, shrineless plan quite directly during the first years of Vakataka.
During the time of the site’s renewal in the fifth century, this vihara must have been put to use as a residence for the craftsmen, which is suggested by the typically “late” red-brick plaster on the walls that is associated with the Vakataka building activity.
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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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