Page:Indian Shipping, a history of the sea-borne trade and maritime activity of the Indians from the earliest times.djvu/77

 we have to these caves. The Chinese pilgrim did not himself visit Ajantā, but he was at the capital of Pulakeshi II., King of Mahārāstra, where he heard that "on the eastern frontier of the country is a great mountain with towering crags and a continuous stretch of piled-up rocks and scarped precipice. In this there is a Sangharam (monastery) constructed in a dark valley. . . . On the four sides of the Vihara, on the stone walls, are painted different scenes in the life of the Tathagata's preparatory life as a Bodhisattva. . . . These scenes have been cut out with the greatest accuracy and finish."

The representations of ships and boats furnished by Ajantā paintings are mostly in Cave No. 2, of which the date is, as we have seen, placed between 525-650 A.D. These were the closing years of the age which witnessed the expansion of India and the spread of Indian thought and culture over the greater part of the Asiatic continent. The vitality and individuality of Indian civilization were already fully developed during the spacious times of Gupta imperialism, which about the end of the 7th century even transplanted itself to the farther East, aiding in the civilization of Java, Cambodia, Siam, China, and even Japan. After the passing away of the Gupta Empire, the government of India was in the