The Ajanta caves, with their compelling architecture, their outstanding high-reliefs and sculptures, the remarkable richness and variety of the canopies and profusion of the shafts of their carved columns, are universally admired for the beauty of their paintings. These paintings, which decorate the walls, the columns, the door frames, the ceilings, illustrate, in a very detailed and precise fashion, about thirty avadana, or jataka extracted from the vast body of tales, poems and belleds, sanctified and edifying tales attributed to the Buddha who, it is said, narrated them to his disciples. These tales relate the history of the various incarnations of the blessed one. While being religious in nature, the Ajanta paintings-the latest and the most famous ones-express the extreme refinement of the period which gave rise to them, a period of unprecedented artistic and cultural culmination in northern India, then governed by a dynasty which was at the height of glory, political and economic power and territorial expension : the Gupta dynasty.