Thread by @DalrympleWill

"Pitalkhora, two hours’ drive to the north of Aurangabad, is believed by scholars to be the oldest Buddhist cave monastery after Bhaja. It lies in a spectacularly wild ravine."

India’s ancient cave monasteries - on.ft.com/3reozd1 via @FT

"Plunging cliffs fall to a narrow terrace where a group of chaitya halls have been burrowed into the rock face, hanging like a swallow’s nest high above an arid plateau."

"It is a fabulously resonant spot; yet as with Bedsa it was once clearly a place of great sophistication, connected to the metropolitan centres of its day. Two inscriptions record donations by merchants from Pratisthana, modern Paithan, once the great port of the west coast."

"It was these merchant patrons who paid for artists to come and paint the murals: saintly-looking orange robed monks standing, almost levitating, on pink lotuses; Bodhisattva figures of otherworldly compassion and calm attending meditating Buddhas. "

"Lying scattered around the site are sculptures of musicians, flowers and foliage, loving mithuna couples embowered in lotus and honeysuckle motifs, Persian winged gryphons and lines of stately elephants."

"Sadly, though, Pitalkhora is now in an advanced state of disintegration. In recent years several of the halls have collapsed."

Most tragic of all is the loss of one of the two star sculptures at the site, a life-size dvarapala guardian figure in the form of an Indo-Greek soldier, whose mailed Ionian fringed tunic is offset by his very Indian serpentine earrings, knotted turban and rather homely dhoti"

"The figure, one of the great masterpieces of early Buddhist sculpture, was smashed to pieces 15 years ago. As there was no custodian, the culprits were never found."