Ajanta Cave Paintings

The Ajanta caves in Maharashtra, India, painted mostly between the 2nd century BCE and 6th century CE, are the most important surviving body of ancient Buddhist mural painting anywhere in South Asia: scenes from the Jataka tales and the Buddha's life, painted in a fluid, naturalistic style with elegant, curving line and modelled form.

Ajanta is taught alongside Sigiriya specifically because the connection runs both ways - Sri Lankan mural painting, Sigiriya included, shares technical and stylistic ground with Ajanta (similar pigment preparation, similar fluid linework), so a strong Ajanta answer should draw that comparison explicitly rather than treating the two sites as unrelated.