Ajanta cave 24 if completed would have been one of the grandest monasteries and the next largest after Ajanta Cave 4. The pillars of the verandah had mostly perished, but have how been reconstructed. The decoration on the surviving fragments and on the right pilaster displays an exuberance of details executed with a consummate skill and refined taste. In the bracket-capital for instance, though the design is quite common, yet nowhere else is the treatment so lavish and finished. Here, again, one can see the culmination of the characteristic pilaster-motif admirably loaded with details.

The lintel of the door has a beautiful frieze of flying figures, the two central ones holding a crown. The incomplete hall was designed to have twenty pillars, of which only one is somewhat finished and resembles those of Ajanta Cave 1. On the left wall outside the verandah was hewn out a chapel with a pillared porch. The back wall of the chapel has the figure of Lord Buddha seated in the pralamba-pada attitude with attendants and flying figures. Remains of an ancient staircase can be seen beyond the modern parapet. This monastery is most probably one of the latest to be excavated at Ajanta caves.

This article is a stub. You can enrich by adding more information to it. Send your Write Up to content@indianetzone.com