Ajanta: History and Development

Walter M. Spink's Ajanta, History and Development, published by Brill beginning in 2005 as a multi volume series, is the product of Spink's decades long chronological analysis of the Ajanta Buddhist cave complex in Maharashtra, proposing a detailed, controversial short chronology that dates almost the entire site's excavation to a compressed period in the fifth century CE under the Vakataka dynasty, against older views spreading the work across centuries. Its strength is that it rests on the most sustained single scholarly study of the site's architecture, inscriptions and iconography ever undertaken, by a specialist who worked at Ajanta for most of his career. Its limit is that Spink's short chronology, though highly influential, remains debated among specialists who favour a longer excavation period, so a precise date drawn from this source should be presented as Spink's own carefully argued but contested proposal.