The Ajanta Caves: Artistic Wonder of Ancient Buddhist India, 1998, HC, NF.

Behl, Benoy K., et al. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1998.

English, Near Fine, HC, 4to, 12 1/4" x 10 1/4", [6] 256 pp.

ISBN: 0810919834

Green cloth over board, stamped gilt lettering to spine, light scrape to front panel, light bumps to bottom edge, a spot of foxing to top edge, otherwise, superior copy inside and out, with only the most minimal, unobtrusive wear to bindings, text-block and endpapers. Very Good orange pictorial dust jacket, featuring The Bodhisattva Vajrapani from Cave 1 to front panel, the rock-cut facade of the unfinished Cave 26 to back panel, white lettering to front panel and spine, black lettering to spine and interior flaps, minor foxing to interior, light wear to tips, otherwise, clean and intact. Protected in a paper-backed Mylar sleeve. [6] 256 pp. Includes over 200 illustrations, 189 color plates, a map, Preface and acknowledgements, text, and photographs by Benoy K. Behl, Foreword by Milo Cleveland Beach, Introduction with 11 sub-sections, Note on the Jataka stories by Sangitika Nigam, section "The Principal Painted Caves" with Descriptions and plans, Appendix, Select Bibliography, and Index. From inside the dust jacket: "Now, in The Ajanta Caves, using long exposures that pick up natural ambient light, Benoy K. Behl captures some of the finest works of Buddhist art in all their natural luminosity...Ajanta provides virtually the only evidence remaining of painting styles that first developed in India and traveled with the spread of Buddhism into the Himalayan regions, and then via the Silk Roads across Central Asia into China, and from there to Japan and Korea."