INTRODUCTION: AN ELECTRONIC DISCUSSION ON SPIRIT CULTS AND BUDDHISM 
            Several years ago, Dr. William Bodiford sent a message to the 
            electronic discussion group Buddha-l posing the following questions: 
            "Is the worship of local spirit cults an essential part of Buddhist 
            traditions in Asia?--Or, in other words--Are there any Buddhist 
            traditions in which local spirit cults do NOT play a major role?"(1) 
            Bodiford's post generated a particularly stimulating thread of 
            discussion. Indeed, the fact that this thread continued vigorously 
            for the next month and one-half--through Christmas and the New Year, 
            as well as the start of a new semester--testifies to the salient 
            importance of Bodiford's query. The parameters of discussion were 
            quickly set; every term came under scrutiny. Did Bodiford pose one 
            question or two? Did Bodiford really intend to suggest that local 
            spirit cults are essential to Buddhist traditions? Might such cults 
            be simply normal, but contingent, parts of Buddhist traditions? What 
            did Bodiford mean by "tradition"? What defines a spirit cult? What 
            are the criteria for determining whether a spirit cult does or does 
            not play a "major role"? 
            When participants ceased problematizing the terms of Bodiford's post 
            and attempted to respond to it, they showed a striking reluctance to 
            answer him in the affirmative. A significant proportion were 
            unwilling even to entertain the notion that local spirit cults may 
            be as integral to Buddhist traditions in Asia as, for instance, the 
            four noble truths. This response surprised me, though it should not 
            have. After all, Bodiford posted his query to Buddha-l precisely 
            because, in his words, "most scholarly accounts of Buddhist life 
            seem to either ignore Buddhist worship of local deities, dismissing 
            it as `folk religion,' or treat it as an example of syncretism." 
            Presumably, they do so because they do not find such deities or 
            their cults essential. Although nearly all respondents acknowledged 
            that cults for local spirits are normal parts of Buddhist traditions 
            in Asia, there was nevertheless broad agreement that such cults are 
            contingent, cultural accretions to the religion, not necessarily 
            identifiable with "Buddhism" as such. 
            Bodiford's inquiry inspired so vibrant and sustained a discussion 
            because its ramifications spiral beyond the lack of scholarship on 
            spirit cults, folk religion, or syncretism--though these are lacunae 
            that must be filled--to issues of central import for any scholarly 
            study of Buddhism. Where do we locate Buddhism? What is normatively 
            Buddhist? Almost no participant in the discussion was comfortable 
            with Bodiford's use of the word "essential"; yet, almost every post 
            attempted to pinpoint criteria for delimiting normative Buddhism. 
            Typically, these criteria described a two-tier model, distinguishing 
            a "true" Buddhism, founded in pure philosophy, the Buddha's exact 
            attitude, or the confronting of essentialisms, from a "lesser" 
            Buddhism that involves supernatural powers, the worship of spirits 
            or deities, ordinary folk, and indigenous beliefs. Scholars who 
            divided Buddhism thus tended to represent the upper tier as 
            normative, sociologically as well as ideologically, by associating 
            it with the community of monks. 
            There also were a few discussants who problematized Bodiford's 
            suggestion that local spirit cults may be conceived as essential to 
            Buddhist traditions in Asia, while refraining from positing 
            universalized criteria for normativity. This is the position I take 
            myself. In my reading, "local," not "essential," is the most 
            important term in Bodiford's post. In seeking a universally 
            generalizable Buddhism, scholars have ignored "place." One aspiring 
            to escape from normative definitions may find, however, that place, 
            locality, provides a powerful category for analytic reconstructions 
            of Buddhism. Place sets the idiosyncratic and indigenous on par with 
            the translocal and universal, the here and there with the 
            everywhere. 
            This article will explore how a scholar of Indian Buddhism might 
            take place seriously as a ground for interpretation. How does 
            Buddhism come to be of a place? The answer that follows may be 
            understood as a play on Peter Brown's dictum that "the supernatural 
            becomes the depository of the objectified values of the group."(2) 
            That is, the "supernatural" is always emplaced for no better reason 
            than that people live, work, study, meditate, and worship in places; 
            if the term "Buddhism" is to be meaningful, it must be connected to 
            people, to Buddhists, who lived their lives as Buddhists in places. 
            In this case, the category place will be treated in terms of locale. 
            In particular, my subject is Buddhism as located at the Ajanta, 
            caves, a fifth-century C.E. rock-cut monastic "village" in western 
            India renowned for its paintings, sculptures, and inscriptions. What 
            deities lived at this locale? How were the deities emplaced within 
            Ajanta's monastic architectures? What do these deities' locations 
            tell us about the constitution of Ajanta's Buddhist community and 
            its values? How might cultic activities for the deities located at 
            Ajanta be viewed as contributing to a local Buddhism, Buddhism as a 
            religion of place? My analysis will weave together four discursive 
            threads. The first of these threads is the explication of the 
            theoretical assumptions that lead me to treat Buddhism in its local 
            formation at Ajanta. The second thread is the actual material 
            evidence from the Ajanta caves themselves, which includes paintings, 
            sculptures, architectural forms, and epigraphs. This Ajanta material 
            will be set in broader contexts through my final two threads. The 
            third is a consideration of models of patronage that had an impact 
            on local community formation; the fourth, a consideration of the 
            political pressures that fostered the development of Ajanta as a 
            site for patronage as well as for the establishment of a local 
            community. 
            The local deities to be considered below will include a naga king, 
            the yaksini Hariti, and the Buddha himself. The inclusion of the 
            Buddha on this list, as a deity of place, may be surprising. 
            However, it is a problematic conceit that the Buddha was a purely 
            translocal religious figure, whose significance may be recovered 
            exclusively through literary and doctrinal sources. For this site's 
            patrons, visitors, and community, the Buddha at Ajanta was a 
            translocal divinity with a specifically local identity, just as the 
            Great Goddess is Vaisno Devi at her temple on Mount Trikut(3) or 
            Siva is Acalesvara in his temple at Tiuvarur.(4) As I shall show, at 
            Ajanta the Buddha became of this place through his association with 
            and resolution of indigenous and uniquely local problems. Though in 
            nirvana, this Buddha was nevertheless present and active in the 
            world. As the sangha's head, this localized Buddha, in turn, 
            grounded the Buddhist sangha's participation in local social 
            relations. Social relations necessarily involve interactions among 
            human beings. Within the context of Asian Buddhism, social relations 
            almost invariably involve nagas, yaksinis, and the Buddha as well. 
            At Ajanta this was certainly the case. 
            THE DOMESTICATION OF AN "ANTISOCIAL RELIGION" 
            As I noted above, scholars who responded negatively to Bodiford's 
            queries often did so through recourse to a two-tier model, 
            distinguishing indigenous religious cultures from a translocal 
            Buddhist norm. Edward Conze, remembered as much for the strength of 
            his opinions as that of his scholarship, elucidated this model with 
            characteristic aplomb. First, Conze divided Buddhism into two 
            opposing forms: "Much of what has been handed down as `Buddhism' is 
            not due to the exercise of wisdom, but to the social conditions in 
            which the Buddhist community existed.... One must throughout 
            distinguish the exotic curiosities from the essentials of holy 
            life."(5) Second, Conze associated these two forms of "Buddhism" 
            with sociological and historical realities: "The monks are the 
            Buddhist elite. They are the only Buddhists in the proper sense of 
            the word."(6) Here, proper Buddhists are individuals who reject 
            indigenous acculturation. This transition occurs ritually when, as 
            the stock description reads, these individuals "cut off their beards 
            and hair, put on red robes, and with proper faith follow in 
            renunciation the Blessed One, who himself went forth from the home 
            to the homeless life."(7) Such Buddhists concern themselves little 
            with social relations. Separated from the pressures of family and 
            work, they devote themselves to gaining spiritual power and 
            spiritual insight leading, ultimately, to absolute social 
            transcendence, nirvana. Conversely, to the degree that an individual 
            does not segregate himself from the world, and becomes physically or 
            mentally caught up in mundane, conditional, social interests, he 
            falls away from this norm. Sherry Ortner explains the logic 
            underlying this model: "It seems fairly safe to say that orthodox, 
            canonical Buddhism was ... a religion of antisocial 
            individualism.... There is, then, an a priori logic to the argument 
            that Buddhism, given its premises, will be antagonistic to social 
            life."(8) 
            If one holds that Buddhism is a priori antisocial, it then follows 
            that social involvements are always somehow extrinsic to Buddhism 
            proper. Buddhism is not a social construction but a discursive 
            construction of and about the truth. That which is properly Buddhist 
            is universal, never local; it is preserved in texts, not 
            archaeological sites (except insofar as they reproduce textual 
            paradigms); it is realized in mental cultivation, not bodily 
            gesture. Yet, as Conze admits, "wherever the Dharma has been a 
            living, social reality, Buddhist theory has combined lofty 
            metaphysics with a willing acceptance of magical and mythological 
            beliefs."(9) Similarly, Ortner freely acknowledges that for 
            Southeast Asian Buddhism "the a priori argument, predicting conflict 
            between Buddhism and society from the antisocial premises of the 
            doctrine, simply does not hold";(10) she attributes this failure to 
            follow "logic" to "historical facts" and "social structure."(11) 
            Given Ortner's usual acumen, it is surprising that she did not see 
            the tautologous nature of this argument, which measures a 
            religion--a social and cultural formation--against the yardstick of 
            an a priori argument and then attributes a mismatch to sociocultural 
            factors. It is not Southeast Asian Buddhism that is "illogical" but 
            the model that would valorize a single strand of Buddhist doctrine, 
            normalize it, and seek a determinate logic therein. Both Ortner and 
            Conze make a "stock anthropological error," in the words of C. J. 
            Fuller, when they "convert an indigenous, ideological distinction 
            into an analytic concept, and then apply it to the empirical 
            evidence to try to divide what is actually united by common 
            underlying themes and principles."(12) 
            This, in short, is the matter at stake in Bodiford's question: How 
            ought scholars to conceive of Buddhism as a social and cultural 
            formation, a religion? Ivan Strenski offers a solution with his 
            thesis that the "domestication" of the Buddhist sangha was "a 
            fundamental internal factor propelling Theravada along the path to a 
            fully social religious status."(13) Domestication occurs, Strenski 
            writes, "whenever the sangha participates with the laity in 
            institutions" through the mechanism of gift exchange. "Above all, 
            the sangha is a ritual receiver of gifts."(14) The history of the 
            sangha's dynamic interaction with the laity suggests that these two 
            groups naturally came together to realize social goals; Buddhist 
            cultures, societies, and civilizations emerge out of this union. In 
            short, by unpacking "domestication of the sangha one can account for 
            why Ortner's a priori argument does not hold for Southeast Asian 
            Buddhism and why it makes little sense to delimit the participation 
            of Buddhist monks in society as an illegitimate violation of 
            Buddhist "premises." 
            Here is a premise or logic to counter that promoted by Ortner and 
            Conze. The logic of domestication begins with the empirical 
            observation that one always finds distinct links uniting the sangha 
            with the laity, and that this relationship is almost invariably 
            expressed through gestures of ritual giving. By subordinating 
            doctrinal apologies for gift giving to the "bare" social fact of its 
            occurrence, one is freed from Ortner's overdetermined premises; the 
            full spectrum of Buddhist history and the fluidity of its local 
            forms become available for consideration within a normalizing 
            discourse. One can take account of place. Indeed, whereas social 
            structures cannot credibly be read through the lens of doctrine, by 
            starting with this empirical social data, we can read Buddhist 
            ideologies, even those valorizing the monk as an antisocial 
            individual, through patterns of exchange. 
            How does domestication work? Following the lead of Levi-Strauss's 
            analysis of kinship, Strenski proposes that society is synthesized 
            out of exchange relationships. There are two basic patterns by which 
            individuals become bound to one another and to a society through 
            exchange: restricted exchange and generalized exchange. "Restricted 
            exchange" involves what may be called a commercial element: two 
            parties contract an equitable exchange of goods or services on a 
            reciprocal basis. We shall see such a mechanism clearly at work at 
            Ajanta in the cult of a naga with whom the monks share their 
            residence: the humans attend to his shrine/ home, and in turn he 
            does not strike them dead. Each party fulfills its part of the 
            bargain, and social harmony prevails. For Strenski, relationships of 
            reciprocity between monks and the laity (or nagas) are problematic 
            and play only a secondary role in the sangha's domestication. This 
            is because, although Strenski rejects the premise that Buddhism is 
            fundamentally antisocial, he nevertheless tentatively accepts the 
            ideological construction of the Buddhist monk as "a paradigm of 
            non-reciprocity."(15) In light of this "ideal," Strenski proposes 
            that domestication "both avoids the appearance and substance of 
            reciprocity and expresses more durable and inclusive patterns of 
            relationship."(16) Strenski's analysis went astray here, for, as I 
            shall discuss below, restricted, reciprocal relationships are 
            fundamental to Buddhism as a religion of place. 
            The second modality of exchange, "generalized exchange," is 
            domestication proper; it is not linear but complex in its 
            configuration. In Strenski's words, generalized exchange "seeks an 
            unbalanced condition between exchange partners, which requires 
            repayment at some unspecified time, typically by another group or 
            person than the original receiver of the first gift: A gives to B 
            who gives to C ... until A finally receives his due.... [Generalized 
            exchange] thus links its members in a theoretically open system of 
            indebtedness, the momentum of which tends to build up social 
            solidarity."(17) Again by reference to Ajanta, so long as the monks 
            attend to the local naga king's needs, he provides steady and 
            plentiful rains, benefiting lay society, which in turn supports the 
            monks. Accordingly, Strenski unpacks the term "domestication" as 
            "the condition of the sangha within a system of generalized 
            exchange. `Domestication' simply names a process of the sangha's 
            participation in a certain social solidarity."(18) 
            Here I lay a foundation for recovering Ajanta's local Buddhism. If, 
            as Strenski claims, "the problem of how domestication came about is 
            ... the problem of how Buddhist society was formed in the process of 
            ritual giving"(19) then "domestication" provides an analytic concept 
            of exceptional utility. The very nature of the archaeological 
            evidence from Ajanta compels this evaluation. What we know of 
            Buddhist life at Ajanta derives principally from physical remains 
            that index past acts of giving. Excavatory and decorative work at 
            the site occurred in two phases, the first of which lasted from 
            approximately 100 B.C.E. to 100 C.E., the second from circa 462 and 
            480.(20) Our knowledge of Ajanta's Buddhism is tied to gifts of 
            monasteries, the wellsprings of Buddhist culture, society, and 
            civilization. The institutionalization of a Buddhist community at 
            Ajanta through the establishment of a monastic "village" sets this 
            sangha in a network of relationships that circulated obligation as a 
            currency in the local sociopolitical economy. The monks' ritual 
            interaction with local divinities was one means by which they met 
            the obligations attached, like a hen, to their local residence in 
            magnificent caves as well to their more general residence in a 
            social system. As the mechanism of social solidarity, domestication 
            provides a basic model for reconstructing the social processes 
            involved in the foundation of a Buddhist community at Ajanta. 
            Moreover, it is possible to link this 
            generalized-versus-restricted-exchange distinction to another 
            opposition I play with in this article: translocal versus local. 
            This point can be clarified by way of an example. In the 
            Milindapanha, the first dilemma King Milinda poses to the monk 
            Nagasena bears on the matter of gifts to the Buddha after his 
            parinirvana: If the Buddha accepts gifts he cannot have passed 
            entirely away. He must still be in union with the world, having his 
            being somewhere in it, in the world, a shareholder in the things of 
            the world; and therefore any honour paid to him becomes empty and 
            vain. On the other hand if he be entirely passed away (from life), 
            unattached to the world, escaped from all existence, then honours 
            would not be offered to him. For he who is entirely set free accepts 
            no honour, and any act done to him who accepts it not becomes empty 
            and vain.(21) 
            In other words, if the Buddha is not transcendental and translocal, 
            then he lacks value as an object of worship, so why attempt to 
            engage the Buddha in an exchange relationship? Yet, if the Buddha is 
            not present and local, then he cannot enjoy offerings, so why 
            participate with the Buddha in an exchange relationship? Nagasena's 
            response takes the same normative stance as that embraced by Conze 
            and Ortner. The Buddha is in nirvana; his is the ultimate in 
            antisocial behavior; "the Blessed One accepts no gift."(22) 
            Nevertheless, Nagasena holds that offerings to the Buddha are 
            efficacious because in this case exchange does not require 
            reciprocity. The Buddha (or his commemorative caitya) provides an 
            occasion, a context, for giving.(23) In this way, the Buddha's 
            translocality does not preclude his location within a network of 
            generalized exchange, for such a network works through the 
            displacement of presence and the postponement of profits. The Buddha 
            is like Johnny Appleseed of US. folklore: both broadcast seeds over 
            fertile public land and then departed for points unknown. Even 
            though these individuals are no longer present, the community can 
            still enjoy the fruit of their labors. In fact, if Johnny Appleseed 
            or the Buddha did not travel to the beyond (obviously their actions 
            have vastly different cosmological scopes), they would not have 
            become the stuff of legends; their fruits would not be as sweet. 
            Here we see a linkage between generalized processes of exchange, the 
            foundation of generalized community and social structures, and a 
            valorization of translocality. Such a set of equations may partially 
            explain the apparent disjunction in the field of Buddhist studies 
            between a scholarly interest in Buddhist nomos and one in local 
            spirit cults. 
            As networks of generalized exchange find expression in metaphors of 
            translocality, so restricted, reciprocal relationships find 
            expression in those of place, locality, and presence. Thus, whereas 
            the Milindapanha set the Buddha's translocality as the basis for his 
            absent involvement in acts of ritual exchange, fostering 
            domestication through generalized exchange, this same text sets the 
            monks' localization as the basis for their involvement in exchange 
            relations, fostering domestication through restricted exchange. 
            Nagasena explains: although it may seem contradictory for monks to 
            accept fixed dwellings from the laity, this practice is acceptable 
            because it makes the monks accessible to the laity.(24) Whether or 
            not monks willfully intend to enter a restricted exchange 
            relationship, their presence functions as the direct reciprocation 
            for the gift of a dwelling. Similarly, the following story from the 
            Mulasarvastivada vinaya (MSV) illustrates the import of place and 
            presence for restricted exchange relationships between monks and 
            donors: "The faithful erected many monasteries, [but] few monks 
            spent the rains retreat in Sravasti. The [monasteries] stood empty. 
            The benefactors did not receive the spiritual merit that comes from 
            [the monks'] use [of their donations]. Instead, scoundrels took over 
            [the monasteries]. The Blessed One said, `Count all [the 
            monasteries]. Depending upon the calculation, every [monastery] 
            should be used personally by one, two, three, or four [monks]. [A 
            monk] should pass the morning in one [monastery], [and] should dwell 
            in a different [monastery] at mid-day, in another during the 
            afternoon, and in [still] another at night.'"(25) Certain fruits of 
            giving can only be had through monks' living presence. In order to 
            reciprocate the faithful laity for their donations, and to satisfy 
            their desire for spiritual merit, the Buddha disrupt the monks' own 
            fives, enjoining them to play "musical monasteries." Strenski 
            suggests that such a ploy had no role within orthodox Buddhist 
            giving founded in generalized exchange, which "liberates gift-giving 
            from petty calculation ... by appearing to be sacrifice."(26) 
            Sacrifice, giving without a discernible guarantee of return, is 
            precisely what the Buddha's order precludes. According to this tale, 
            donors must unequivocally know that they will receive their 
            spiritual due; monks must do what is necessary to satisfy the laity. 
            Reciprocation is a normal and proper part of the monastic life, even 
            at the monks' inconvenience. 
            In addition, despite Strenski's devaluation of spiritual merit as a 
            direct reciprocation for gifts received, one often finds that merit 
            bears a "tangible" fruit and a this-worldly benefit. The donor of a 
            set of Buddha images in Ajanta's Cave 22 expresses the immediate 
            results of giving in a verse included with this painting: "Those who 
            have an image of the Conqueror made, in this [very life] become 
            possessed of beauty, fortune, and good qualities; blazing like the 
            sun in their faculties and sense, they become a delight to the 
            eye."(27) Similarly, the Pali commentary on the Dhammapada tells 
            that when King Bimbisara made an offering of robes to the Buddha and 
            community of monks, dedicating the merit from that transaction to a 
            group of ghosts haunting him, those ghosts instantaneously and 
            visibly "were clothed in divine raiments."(28) Again, in the MSV, 
            Sariputra deliberately increases Anathapindada's joy at building the 
            Jetavana monastery by telling Anathapindada that at the same time 
            that he holds a cord to measure the monastery's foundation a golden 
            palace comes into being in Tusita heaven: the larger the monastery, 
            the larger the palace.(29) Restricted exchange, in short, works when 
            the individuals involved are mutually present and when the fruits of 
            the exchange are evident to the parties involved. At the most basic 
            level, presence--for example, the localization of a sangha in a 
            specific place--is itself the desired fruit. 
            As a social phenomenon, Buddhism cannot be understood apart from its 
            local manifestations, nor solely through its local manifestations. 
            Domestication, the creation of a Buddhist society, works through 
            both modes of exchange relationship; both are normal. Nor is this 
            the case solely for monks. If one is to avoid Fuller's "stock 
            anthropological error," one must entertain the notion that the 
            Buddha, too, might participate in restricted exchange relationships, 
            even though he is sometimes represented in doctrinal texts as 
            utterly beyond samsara. In mythological terms, to recover a local 
            Buddhism at Ajanta one has to problematize the Milindapanha's 
            pronouncement that the Buddha is absolutely translocal and does not 
            enjoy worship himself. How did Ajanta's patrons, community of monks, 
            and artisans make the Buddha present and use that presence to 
            address mundane and local concerns? How did the Buddha and his 
            community of monks gain institutional momentum in a particular 
            place--Ajanta--through restricted exchange relationships, and how 
            did they diffuse that momentum throughout the broader society (and 
            indeed the cosmos) to become domesticated through generalized 
            exchange? 
            A BRIEF DIVERSION: INTRODUCING AJANTA 
            Before I localize the Buddha at Ajanta or explore the mechanisms of 
            domestication as they pertain to patronage at the site, I will set 
            forth, very cursorily, the geophysical and historicocultural 
            environments that had an impact on Ajanta's establishment. Even 
            today the Ajanta caves are difficult to access. In 1992 a helipad 
            was cleared to expedite the visit of a Japanese prince; the rest of 
            us ride the bus from the nearest rail link, Jalgaon, ninety minutes 
            to the north, or from Aurangabad, three hours to the south. In the 
            late fifth century C.E., when the caves were excavated into a sheer 
            scarp overhanging the Waghora River (fig. 1), they were equally 
            isolated. Archaeological investigations of the district have 
            uncovered no evidence of villages or towns located in the immediate 
            vicinity of Ajanta's thirty-six monasteries, caitya halls, and 
            shrinelets. The nearest population centers to receive sustained 
            attention from Indian archaeologists would have been a strenuous 
            day's journey from Ajanta: Buldana, approximately thirty miles to 
            the east, and Bhokardan, the same distance to the south.(30) In any 
            event, no evidence links any of Ajanta's rock-cut buildings, or the 
            paintings and sculptures for which they are renowned, to either 
            Buldana or Bhokardan. Rather, epigraphs found on site associate 
            Ajanta's various patrons with an emperor of the Vakataka dynasty 
            named Harisena, who ruled from the city of Vatsagulma (now known as 
            Washim), one hundred linear miles to the east-southeast of Ajanta 
            (fig. 2). 
            [Figure 1-2 ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] 
            Ajanta's architecture, paintings, sculptures, and epigraphs are 
            representative of a complex and vibrant form of local Buddhism and 
            provide a witness to Buddhism as a constituent of Indian society in 
            the late fifth century. In actuality, Ajanta was created in two 
            phases of patronage, the first stretching from approximately 100 
            B.C.E. to 100 C.E., the second from circa 462 to 480; my sole 
            interest here ties in donors and donations belonging to the second 
            phase. All evidence points to these fifth-century patrons as being 
            closely affiliated with the Harisena. Walter Spink's chronology and 
            history of Ajanta binds the caves explicitly to the fortunes and 
            social program of the Vakataka polity. According to Spink, a 
            Vakataka ruler named Harisena inherited his father's throne in 
            approximately 460 C.E. Almost immediately thereafter "a consortium 
            of the emperor's richest and most powerful courtiers" hired 
            architects and artisans to realize this great project.(31) These 
            courtiers included Varahadeva, a minister of Harisena's, responsible 
            for Cave 16; Buddhabhadra, a noble-become-monk, who tells us that he 
            was "bound in friendship with a minister of the mighty King of 
            Asmaka over the course of many lifetimes" (elsewhere I have shown 
            this Asmakan king was likely Harisena), patronized Cave 26; and an 
            unnamed feudatory raja subordinate to Harisena was responsible for 
            Caves 17, 18, and 19.(32) Further, Spink has argued that Ajanta's 
            Cave 1 was the dedication of Harisena himself,(33) and that the 
            neighboring Cave 2 may have been patronized by a close relative, 
            perhaps one of Harisena's wives.(34) Approximately twenty years 
            after the site's efflorescence, circa 480, programmatic work at 
            Ajanta patronized by Vatsagulma's luminaries crashed to a halt with 
            the destruction of the Vakataka family. Due to the loss of 
            sustained, certain patronage, the monks soon left this narrow chasm 
            at the head of the Waghora River for points unknown.(35) 
            The following study of localization and domestication of Buddhism at 
            Ajanta will proceed through a number of case studies. First, I will 
            treat a "local" deity, by investigating the incorporation of a 
            shrine to a naga king, keeper of this Waghora chasm in Cave 16; here 
            I will set forth a general pattern for localization. The second 
            study will treat a "translocal local" deity. Moving into a more 
            "normative" Buddhist space, both physically and mythologically, I 
            will discuss a pillared chapel dedicated to Hariti--a yaksini whose 
            personal story was known to all the Buddhist world--excavated inside 
            Cave 2, in the rear wall beside the Buddha shrine. I will show how 
            the displacement of this yaksini from her original home in Rajagrha, 
            and her relocation within Cave 2, accomplished both the emplacement 
            of Vakataka society within that cave and the transformation of its 
            resident monks into priests, mediators between the lay and spirit 
            worlds. The third study will explore the Buddha as a "local 
            translocal" deity. At Ajanta, the Buddha was assimilated in body and 
            role to Harisena; as a king's principal duty is to maintain the 
            social and cosmic orders, so Ajanta's local Buddhas fulfilled this 
            task in the place of Harisena, who lived in distant Vatsagulma. In 
            this way, these Buddhas' local presence played on translocal 
            valences of Buddha as the Unexcelled King of Dharma to incorporate 
            Ajanta and its community into the Vakataka social world. For the 
            reasons explained above, these three studies will not be "completed" 
            by a fourth that treats the Buddha as a purely translocal deity: 
            such studies are plentiful. 
            Although Ajanta is the richest of India's Buddhist archaeological 
            sites for reconstructing a temporally and spatially localized 
            Buddhism, the data found therein do not speak for themselves. The 
            studies that follow are worked out through a reading of the evidence 
            local to Ajanta through broader patterns of mythology, folklore, and 
            doctrine. My principal literary source for this contextualizing 
            material will be the MSV, a patchwork of monastic regulations, 
            jataka tales, sutras, and retellings of the Buddha's life well known 
            to Ajanta's community.(36) I will supplement the MSV with other 
            literature associated with Ajanta, as well as with the eyewitness 
            accounts of Chinese pilgrims who visited India between the fifth and 
            seventh centuries. 
            NAGA: LOCALIZING BUDDHISM IN CAVE 16 
            Cave 16 at Ajanta was a monastic residence dominated by a huge, 
            monolithic representation of Buddha cut in a shrine room in the 
            back. Varahadeva's dedicatory inscription describes this cave as "a 
            splendid dwelling for the ascetic Indra (i.e., the Buddha) excavated 
            on the finest mountain, home to a naga king."(37) Here Varahadeva 
            elucidates two facts of great import: this place became the Buddha's 
            home after formerly having been the abode of a naga king. 
            Varahadeva's claims have two important ramifications for 
            interpreting the site. First, by designating Cave 16 as the Buddha's 
            dwelling, Varahadeva suggests that in some as yet unspecified way 
            the Buddha was "alive" there. Second, this mountain scarp's original 
            inhabitant, its naga king, was rendered homeless when the Vakatakas 
            began to institute a Buddhist community at the site. The naga needed 
            a new place to live. And so, in addition to creating a home for 
            Buddha, Varahadeva's dedicatory inscription tells that he also 
            excavated a new dwelling for the naga king located immediately 
            inside the cave's entrance, near river level (figs. 3. 4).(38) The 
            entryway in front of this shrine had no provision for a door: Cave 
            16's naga king sat as an unblinking guardian over the entrance to 
            this monastery and the Waghora River before it. 
            [Figure 3-4 ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] 
            Nagas play an ambiguous role in Buddhist mythology. Powerful 
            creatures who dwell in a glorious but debased existence underground 
            or in rivers, nagas control patterns of fertility and destruction 
            through their power over rains, which may be sweetly life-giving or 
            torrential and deadly. Nagas' power is distinctly localized, and in 
            Buddhist stories they protect their turf fiercely. Indeed, nagas 
            were among the Buddha's staunchest adversaries: soon after the 
            awakening, Sakyamuni proved his power to a group of ascetics by 
            spending the night in the lair of a fire-breathing naga and taming 
            the beast without causing it harm.(39) Similarly, among the tales 
            the MSV tells of the Buddha's visit to India's northwest, two 
            involve the subduing of the nagas Apalala and Gopala;(40) in both 
            cases, fierce and stormy battles precede the Buddha's inevitable 
            triumph. Once pacified, however, nagas become the staunchest 
            guardians of the Buddha and his doctrine. Naga king Mucalinda 
            provided a refuge to the Buddha, when a storm threatened his 
            blissful meditation soon after awakening.(41) The nagas in Ramagrama 
            are remembered as preserving and revering one portion of the 
            Buddha's relics.(42) In addition, the MSV tells us that the Buddha 
            established his sutras among the nagas. (43) This latter belief 
            possibly underlies the well-known story of Nagarjuna's retrieval of 
            the Perfection of Wisdom Sutras from the nagas, as well as the 
            lesser-known example of a naga who, having taken the guise of an old 
            monk, preached a "corrupt version" of the Ekottara agama, a version 
            preserved in his watery world.(44) 
            The following tale from the MSV allows a more detailed look at the 
            subduing of nagas. Here we meet Asvaka and Punarvasuka, two nagas 
            who had been Sakyamuni's disciples in their former birth. When 
            human, these two were members of the "gang of six" (sadvargika), 
            disciples who caused trouble in the sangha by violating all rules of 
            propriety. As one might expect of such students, they blame their 
            benevolent teacher for their own failings and vow revenge. 
            [The Blessed One] went to Nandivardhana. In Nandivardhana, King 
            Bhavadeva, along with his courtiers, the candali's seven sons, and 
            the earth-dwelling yaksas were well established in the Holy Truths. 
            There was a great lake in that place in which Asvaka and Punarvasuka 
            had both been reborn as nagas. Twelve years passed and [Asvaka and 
            Punarvasuka] rose to the [lake's] surface. Angrily, they said: 
            "Because the Blessed One didn't teach us the Dharma, we're now 
            debased, born as nagas. So, let's destroy his religion." The Blessed 
            One then deliberated: "Because these nagas, Asvaka and Punarvasuka, 
            are very mighty and have extraordinary powers, they certainly could 
            grind my teachings to dust after my parinirvana." After considering 
            this [point], the Blessed One went to Asvaka and Punarvasuka. Having 
            approached, he addressed them: "Asvaka and Punarvasuka, there is a 
            teaching known as `The Dharma-discourse in four lines.' Learn it 
            well!" "A reverend [monk] teaches us the Holy Dharma. Who is he?" 
            Wondering this, they sank [back into the lake]. Those two realized, 
            "The Blessed One himself taught us the Dharma, but we didn't 
            recognize him." The Blessed One then fixed his reflection on the 
            surface [of the water]. Again and again, Asvaka and Punarvasuka 
            [rise up toward the surface], gaze at the [reflection,] believe that 
            the Blessed One remains present, and sink back down.(45) 
            The Buddha subdues Asvaka and Punarvasuka in stages. First, he gives 
            them a Dharma-discourse: a waste of words considering that these two 
            failed to comprehend his teachings even when human. Second. 
            Sakyamuni establishes his definitive presence in these naga's 
            territory by fixing his image at the entrance to their lair. 
            In the end, this is not a story about the syncretic appropriation of 
            a local naga cult into Buddhism. Rather, it tells how Buddhists make 
            use of local deities in order to emplace themselves within a local 
            society. The MSV does not represent Nandivardhana's king or populace 
            as particularly concerned with Asvaka and Punarvasuka. It is the 
            Buddha who worries about them and Buddhism that needs them. The 
            Buddha enters into a restricted-exchange relationship with Asvaka 
            and Punarvasuka, a relationship based on presence. The Buddha makes 
            two offerings to these powerful creatures of dim intellect: first, 
            his teachings; second, his body. The Buddha gives the nagas these 
            things so that, as the MSV tells us, they will not destroy his 
            religion out of anger that he passed them by. Under the guise of 
            making restitution to these nagas for whatever slight they felt, the 
            Buddha fixed his presence in that very place, corporeally as well as 
            dharmically. 
            Although tantalizing, this text is incomplete: it does not tell us 
            "what happened next" to Asvaka and Punarvasuka. We do not know 
            whether, in Nandivardhana, a shrine to these nagas coexisted with 
            that of the Buddha and, if so, how Asvaka and Punarvasuka would have 
            been integrated into monastic life. At Ajanta, a shrine for the naga 
            king was placed within the precincts of Cave 16. What did the 
            institutionalized presence of that naga mean for Ajanta's community? 
            The following account from the fifth-century Chinese pilgrim Fa Hien 
            shows one pattern for a sangha's ritual interaction with a local 
            naga. Here Fa Hien describes a naga cult as it was instituted in a 
            Buddhist monastery within the town of Samkasya. This local naga, Fa 
            Men writes, "is the patron of this body of priests. He causes 
            fertilising and seasonable showers of rain to fall within their 
            country, and Preserves it from plagues and calamities, and so causes 
            the priesthood to dwell in tranquility."(46) In return for the 
            naga's good graces, Samkasya's monks provide Samkasya's naga with a 
            chapel and a seat. Every day three monks bring the naga a religious 
            offering, and once a year they "place in the midst of [the naga's] 
            lair a copper vessel full of cream; and then, from the highest to 
            the lowest, they walk past him in procession as if to pay him 
            greeting all around."(47) This may be what Conze meant by an "exotic 
            curiosity." 
            Just as the Buddha gave his presence to Asvaka and Punarvasuka, 
            similarly, in Fa Men's story about the goings-on in Samkasya, local 
            monks provide the naga a place to live and offer it worship in that 
            place. First, the naga reciprocates in two ways. The naga supports 
            them. Fa Hien uses a language of direct presence: this snake deity 
            is a patron who enables the monks to dwell in peace. Second, the 
            naga favors the monks by not harming them. The following story from 
            the MSV--in which a local monastic community shares its home with 
            several nagas, mistreats those nagas, and is terrorized by those 
            nagas--helps to clarify this dimension of the restricted, proximate, 
            nature of the relationship between monks and their coresident nagas: 
            "in this case, there is a monastery established in a place inhabited 
            by nagas. In an inappropriate spot, or dwelling, or path to a 
            dwelling, a certain foolish, stupid, undeveloped, and clumsy old 
            [monk] either shits, coughs phlegm, blows out snot, farts, or 
            scatters befouled bedding about. Enraged, the nagas stand at the 
            dwelling and at the path to the dwelling, as well as on the 
            promenade, in the courtyard, and at the doorway, and strike down the 
            monks."(48) Insofar as this relationship works at the level of 
            restricted exchange, it is primarily a matter of promoting local 
            harmony. The monks and naga are both present; the fruits of their 
            interactions are immediate and apparent. 
            In the above examples, one sees that the presence of a local naga 
            presents the Buddha and his monks with an opportunity to fix their 
            own presence in the same spot. This is what David Shulman has called 
            the "phenomenon of localization" within his study of Tamil temple 
            myths. The Buddhists enter into a restricted-exchange relationship 
            with a local naga, who is identified with the earth and with all 
            that is indigenous and unique in the site of the shrine or 
            monastery.(49) Through this relationship based on shared presence, 
            the Buddhists establish their local legitimacy. The relationship has 
            discernible local effects: nagas, who might otherwise cause harm, 
            are pacified; Buddhists, who might otherwise be strangers, are 
            neighbors. 
            At the same time, Fa Hien's characterization of the local monastic 
            cult for the naga in Samkasya reveals it to be a paradigmatic 
            example of generalized exchange. The monks propitiate the naga, who 
            in turn causes a good monsoon, enriching the local laity, which in 
            turn enriches the monks. This is a decentralized and dynamic network 
            of exchange; the circulation of benefits and obligations from agent 
            to agent constructs a working society and a domesticated sangha. 
            This is a neat, idealized example of a generalized exchange 
            relationship. Such a system would, in fact, have been open ended and 
            inclusive of, as Strenski observes, "an indefinite number of 
            members."(50) 
            If, in Strenski's words, "domestication" is "the condition of the 
            [Buddha or] sangha within a system of [generalized exchange]," then 
            "localization" is the condition of the Buddha or sangha, within a 
            system of restricted exchange.(51) And just as generalized patterns 
            of exchange do not occur apart from dyadic restricted interactions, 
            so the domestication of a sangha cannot take place unless that 
            sangha is emplaced within local society. The interaction of the 
            Buddha or his monks with local spirits is a primary means by which 
            such localization occurs. To reprise my broader programmatic agenda: 
            insofar as actual social interactions on the part of the Buddha or 
            sangha take the form of restricted as well as of generalized 
            exchange, local data is as essential (to recall Bodiford) as 
            translocal to the nuanced reconstruction of Buddhist life. An 
            interpretation of Buddhist life at Ajanta's Cave 16 necessitates 
            consideration of the naga shrine excavated at this monastery's 
            public entrance as certainly as it does consideration of the Buddha 
            deep within the cave's recess. For the Buddhism local to this spot, 
            neither can be valorized as more essential or normal. 
            We do not actually know what anybody did at Cave 16's naga shrine. 
            We do not know how the local monks may have treated this snake king. 
            And we do not know whether local rains were timely and sufficient or 
            whether floods and epidemics touched the monks' and Vakatakas's 
            lives. Yet, from these various accounts found in the MSV and Fa 
            Hien, examples that could be multiplied, we see a distinct pattern 
            of interaction that is crucial for reconstructing Buddhist life at 
            Ajanta. Nagas are ambivalent and dangerous beings, each of whom 
            haunts a specific locale. When pacified--through the continuing 
            presence of the Buddha in the form of an image, through the 
            performance of propitiatory rites by the sangha, or through some 
            other means not specified in the stories I cite--these local deities 
            become benefactors for the humans who share their locale. For the 
            Buddha or sangha to have an effective role in the control of local 
            deities, they must themselves become local as well. The same holds 
            true for Varahadeva's Buddha in Cave 16, where a dwelling for the 
            ascetic Indra was incorporated with the home of a naga king. 
            YAKSINI: DISPLACING HARITI AND EMPLACING THE LAITY IN CAVE 2 
            Nagas were not the only local deities whose pacification by the 
            Buddha and his sangha, enabled localization and domestication. The 
            following story from the MSV shows that this pattern also worked for 
            yaksas, chthonic deities typically associated with terrestrial and 
            human fertility. In this tale, Sakyamuni Buddha visits the northern 
            Indian city of Mathura at a time when a yaksa named Gardabha lives 
            as "an enemy to friends, an adversary to allies, an antagonist to 
            well-wishers, who steals children as soon as they are born."(52) 
            Mathura's faithful Brahmanas and householders implore the Buddha to 
            assist them. Sakyamuni adjudicates their grievance: if these local 
            devotees will construct a monastery for the local community of monks 
            and dedicate it in Ghardabha's honor, this local yaksa will cause no 
            more harm.(53) The MSV concludes Gardabha's story by telling that 
            the faithful of Mathura tamed a full twenty-five hundred yaksas, 
            through building twenty-five hundred Buddhist monasteries in their 
            honor. 
            The people of Mathura do not want to get rid of their yaksas; they 
            present themselves as the yaksas, friends and well-wishers. The 
            Mathurans aspire to live in harmony with their chthonic deities. The 
            Buddha fulfills these lay followers' wishes by mastering the yaksas, 
            and harnessing their power for social good. In this story, like 
            those told of nagas above, the Buddha and sangha become localized 
            insofar as they share their dwellings with the deities who are 
            indigenous and unique to the sites of the monasteries. These 
            restricted exchange relationships between Buddha, monks, and yaksas, 
            serve as the bases for the broader project of domestication, an 
            institutionalized social solidarity inclusive of, at least, monks, 
            lay folk, and local deities. 
            Worship, as performed in India with offerings of food, light, and 
            water, typically occurs somewhere. In the above story of Gardabha, 
            the monks live in the monastery, but it was constructed for the 
            yaksa it was dedicated to his worship. One may imagine that Gardabha 
            stood somewhere inside the monastic precinct receiving devotion, 
            like Cave 16's naga king. Indeed, the Milindapanha accepts the fact 
            that offerings to the Buddha will be made somewhere--at a 
            caitya--even if the Buddha is not there to receive them. The 
            creation of a specific place for the worship of local nagas or 
            yaksas or Buddhas within a Buddhist monastery is the physical means 
            through which localization occurs. The establishment of a shrine (or 
            monastery) is the precondition for a stable and predictable 
            restricted exchange relationship in which offerings are reciprocated 
            through, at the very least, the proximity and presence of the 
            worshiped. Localization contributes to domestication: the Buddha and 
            monks are meaningfully placed within a society when whatever is most 
            particular to that society is placed within their monastic space. 
            As a sangha becomes geographically localized through the 
            incorporation of a local divinity within its domicile, so a 
            divinity's actual emplacement within the monastic plan might suggest 
            its role or function in the mechanisms of domestication. 
            Varahadeva's shrine for the naga king, for instance, was excavated 
            within the precincts of his monastery, but it was placed outside the 
            living quarters, outside the veranda, and outside the courtyard, 
            down a flight of stairs, near the river, at the furthest reach from 
            the Buddha who fives inside. The placement of this naga king 
            transforms him into a guardian deity for the cave. He falls within 
            the Buddha's sphere, but his continuing significance has little to 
            do with that specific relationship. This is not to say that this 
            naga does not assist in the localization of Cave 16's Buddha or 
            sangha. Rather, this spatial dynamic suggests that additional 
            factors may have been at work in the establishment of this 
            monastery. I will explore these factors in the next section. 
            A shrine to the yaksini Hariti found inside Ajanta's Cave 2 presents 
            a very different model. Cave 2's Hariti shrine is one of two 
            subsidiary chapels cut into the back wall of the monastery, located 
            on either side of the entrance to the central Buddha shrine (fig. 
            5). To the right of the Buddha, the Hariti shrine holds monolithic 
            carved images of Hariti and her consort Pancika (fig. 6); murals 
            depicting devotees performing puja were painted on the side walls 
            (figs. 7, 8). Balancing Hariti's shrine, to the antechamber's left, 
            is a chapel holding monolithic images of Padmanidhi and Sankhanidhi, 
            embodiments of the wealth and power controlled by Pancika These are 
            the only two chapels dedicated to deities other than Buddha that 
            were excavated within an Ajanta monastery. Hariti is an insider. 
            [Figures 5-8 ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] 
            Indeed, one difference between Hariti and Cave 16's naga is 
            attributable to the fact that Hariti functioned within several 
            semantic contexts simultaneously. Hariti fits the model of an 
            ambivalent local spirit. Like Asvaka Punarvasuka, or Gardabha, her 
            conversion story ties her to a locale, Rajagrha, which she first 
            terrorizes and then protects. Yet, unlike these other figures, 
            Hariti also became a translocal deity for the Buddhists. Shrines to 
            this yaksini were not to be found in Rajagrha alone but wherever 
            Buddhist monks traveled. Hariti was an upasika, a lay devotee, who 
            according to some accounts attained the stage of srotapatti, thereby 
            entering the direct path to liberation; an early Mahayana treatise 
            even calls Hariti a "great bodhisattva."(54) Iconographically, 
            Hariti looks like any other yaksini iconologically, her identity was 
            in the eye of the beholder. The possibility that Hariti could be 
            taken prima facie for a local yaksini, a translocal Buddhist 
            protector, or even a great bodhisattva, coupled with her widespread 
            inclusion within monastic architectures, suggests that at some level 
            Mad may have served to limit local impact on Buddhist life. The 
            apologetic was always available: she looks like a local yaksini, but 
            "really" is not. Yet, at the same time that Hariti may have 
            insulated monks from local religious pressures, she also aided in 
            localizing a sangha. In a sense, Hariti was a portable local deity, 
            a ready-made, institutionalized, translocal basis for localization. 
            Cave 16's naga was truly of the place; he deserved worship even 
            though he had no direct spatial relationship with the Buddha inside 
            the cave. By contrast, Hariti was neither specifically local nor 
            specifically translocal; her presence in Buddhist monasteries was 
            required by the direct order of the Buddha, and her placement in 
            Cave 2's architecture reflects this relationship. Yet, as I shall 
            show below, Hariti's presence inside Cave 2 also brought the local 
            lay society right into this monastic home as a permanent resident. 
            The story of Hariti's taming has been recorded throughout the 
            Buddhist world.(55) Here I reproduce the version told by the 
            seventh-century Chinese pilgrim I Tsing. Although I Tsing never 
            visited Ajanta, depictions of Hariti's conversion sculpted in Cave 2 
            correspond to the story as he tells it (figs. 9, 10). 
            [Figures 9, 10 ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] 
            At the former birth of this mother, she from some cause or other, 
            made a vow to devour all babes at Rajagrha. In consequence of this 
            wicked vow, she forfeited her life, and was reborn as a Yakshi; and 
            gave birth to five hundred children. Every day she ate some babes at 
            Rajagrha, and the people informed Buddha of this fact. He took and 
            concealed one of her own children, which she called Her Beloved 
            Child. She sought it from place to place, and at last happened to 
            find it near the Buddha. "Art thou so sorry," said the 
            World-honoured One to her, "for thy lost child, thy beloved? Thou 
            lamentest for only one lost out of five hundred; how much more 
            grieved are those who have lost their only one or two children on 
            account of thy cruel vow?" Soon converted by the Buddha, she 
            received the five precepts and became an Upasika. "How shall my five 
            hundred children subsist hereafter?" the new convert asked the 
            Buddha. "In every monastery," replied the Buddha, "where Bhikshus 
            dwell, thy family shall partake of sufficient food, offered by them 
            every day." For this reason, the image of Hariti, is found either in 
            the porch or in a corner of the dining-hall of all Indian 
            monasteries depicting her as holding a babe in her arms, and round 
            her knees three or five children. Every day an abundant offering of 
            food is made before this image. Hariti is one of the subjects of the 
            four heavenly kings. She has a power of giving wealth. If those who 
            are childless on account of their bodily weakness (pray to her for 
            children), making offerings of food, their wish is always 
            fulfilled.(56) 
            According to the MSV, after Hariti converted she gave her demon 
            children to Rajagrha's sangha for safekeeping because the other 
            yaksas mocked them for their new religion.(57) 
            I Tsing traveled to India in order to observe and record the ritual 
            life of Indian monks so that he might reform the Chinese sangha. 
            This pilgrim's discussion of Hariti comes in the midst of a 
            description of the posadha, a biweekly ceremony in which a patron 
            worships the Buddha (sometimes with dancing girls), listens to the 
            Dharma, and feasts the sangha. Though scholars often have viewed the 
            posadha as a preeminently monastic occasion, a time for the sangha's 
            ritual declaration of moral purity, I Tsing presents the posadha as 
            the principal occasion at which exchange relationships were realized 
            between monks and the laity, coalescing Buddhist communities into a 
            social whole. Indeed, in I Tsing's telling, the very constitution of 
            sacred space for the posadha observance constructed a complete 
            cosmos, everyone in his or her place. At the room's front was placed 
            an offering for the arhats, and perhaps the Buddha and bodhisattvas; 
            following that, the monks were seated in a row in order of 
            seniority; and finally, in the hall's recess, at the lowest end of 
            the row, was placed an offering for the yaksini Hariti.(58) 
            One may see the posadha as a performative event that created a 
            hierarchy of the sacred, analogically expressed by the spatial 
            dynamics instituted for the rite. During the posadha ceremony, 
            Hariti was mapped as the sacred opposite of the Buddha, 
            bodhisattvas, or arhats, who were placed at the posadha, hall's 
            front. Together with these epitomes of Dharma, she functioned to 
            bracket the ritual space. Placed between these antipodes, the monks 
            were defined spatially as mediators between transcendental and 
            chthonic powers, between the Buddhist ideal and the all too socially 
            real. Like the ideal figures--arhat, bodhisattva, Buddha--who 
            received offerings at a posadha, hall's other end, Hariti's presence 
            served as the condition of possibility for the sangha's 
            domestication: one chaos that made acts of ordering, such as the 
            posadha, meal, not only possible, but also necessary. The 
            incorporation of a yaksini in the posadha, ceremony served to 
            localize the sangha. being feted; the incorporation of a yaksini 
            specifically in the guise of Hariti ensured that this chthonic 
            presence fit within a translocal Buddhist cosmos as well. In this 
            way, Hariti fulfilled the structural role played by local deities in 
            the localization of Buddhist sanghas without herself necessarily 
            being of the place at which the posadha, was held. 
            The geography of ritual in Ajanta's Cave 2 is not isomorphic with 
            that of the posadha hall. In the latter, sacrality was constructed 
            through the binary opposition of potential harm and potential 
            perfection, a space mediated by the sangha. In Cave 2, a binary 
            opposition does not obtain, but a complementarity between the 
            figures in the side chapels and the central Buddha does. Treating 
            this cave's space as a programmatic whole, one finds that no matter 
            what the order or direction of approach a devotee may have taken to 
            the various icons, the spatially central Buddha never lost its 
            ritual centrality. Here the yaksas and yaksini, in the side chapels 
            do not bracket the space so as to delimit a dualist cosmology. 
            Instead, this configuration suggests a continuous, perhaps 
            functional, hierarchy of sacrality. Granted, Hariti's occasional 
            demonic nature was recollected for the worshiper in the little 
            carvings behind her monolithic image (figs. 9, 10). Nevertheless, as 
            a presence she is regal, maternal, and eminently approachable. She 
            is in the Buddha's sphere and portrayed as if the monks living at 
            this site have maintained the diurnal duties to her and her sons set 
            on them by the Buddha: her icon is the ever-present and unchanging 
            sign of the Buddha's power and the sangha's performative success. Of 
            course, this incongruity between the certain knowledge that Hariti 
            is potentially deadly and the portrayal of her as benign is the very 
            basis of her ritual feeding. Even though Hariti's iconography 
            represents her as a sweetly maternal figure, the surmise that Cave 
            2's inhabitants would nevertheless have fed her bespeaks a concern 
            for her ever-present demonic appetites, which would return in the 
            absence of the Buddhist control mechanisms. 
            In point of fact, although Cave 2's space is configured differently 
            than that of the posadha hall, this shrine emplaces the local 
            monastic community into the role of mediator between Buddha and 
            deity, as well as between deity and laity, identical to the posadha 
            ritual described by I Tsing. Here, too, the laity is brought into 
            the picture, quite literally, through murals painted on the shrine's 
            walls. On the right (fig. 7), one finds a scene in which laywomen 
            and their children bear offerings to Hariti, place them in a pile 
            before her, and then proceed to pay homage at her feet. Although 
            there is a feeling of narrative continuity between the sculptured 
            figures and those painted next to them on the wall, there is an 
            artistic discrepancy. The sculpted figures are hard, not in 
            substance alone, but also in spirit: they maintain a 
            quasi-iconographic stoniness absent from the painted figures, which 
            are mannered, yet naturally individual. This dynamic interplay of 
            formal and informal figures within a continuing narrative sequence 
            is particularly evoked by the nonchalance with which a languid 
            painted fly-whisk bearer seems about to step into the sculpture and 
            take the place of the stolid stone attendant at Pancika's side. 
            The left wall of this chapel (fig. 8) differs from the right in that 
            there is no sense of a direct interplay between it and the sculpted 
            figures. Rather, breaking the flow of action toward the chapel's 
            rear is one disrespectful woman facing away from the sculpted image 
            of Hariti looking out from the shrine just as Hariti does. Unlike 
            the other figures in these murals, this woman's hands appear to be 
            held in positions characteristic of a divinity rather than a 
            devotee. Her right hand suggests the varadamudra, the gesture of 
            gift giving; the fact that it is also holding a child suggests the 
            giving of children. Her left hand is in the sri-mudra, signifying 
            good fortune, wealth, and royalty, formed by the joining of the ring 
            finger and thumb. The frieze's composition also sets this woman 
            apart. By placing her to the extreme right of the group of four 
            votaries--all of whom appear to be in attendance on her, though in 
            informal poses--the artist highlights her position as the focus of 
            the scene. The sense that she is the center of attention is 
            augmented by the placement of a stylized mountain scarp directly to 
            her right: she becomes impassable, the action of this scene having 
            no other direction than toward herself. Finally, she has two 
            children with her, also heading away from the sculptural group. I 
            would suggest that figure is Hariti herself, slimmed and beautified 
            in accord with the mannered naturalism of these friezes, come to 
            speak with her constant devotees. 
            If this figure is Hariti, then there is not a spatial but a temporal 
            continuity between the scenes on the right and left walls of this 
            chapel. The right wall depicts the performance of a puja; thus, the 
            painted figures proceed toward those in stone. The left wall 
            portrays the desired outcome of that puja, in which the great 
            yaksini Hariti grants her devotees darsan and satisfies their hopes 
            and desires in accord with their petitions. 
            The fact that these images of lay folk performing a ritual to Hariti 
            were painted in a place where monks would have been expected to feed 
            her encapsulates in living color the ideological tensions involved 
            in monastic localization and domestication. The sangha and the 
            yaksini have a relationship based on restricted exchange. The monks 
            live with Hariti and care for her physical needs; she not only 
            agrees to peaceably coexist with them, but even gives her children 
            to the monks for safekeeping according to the MSV. By appeasing this 
            demoness and accepting her children, the monks create a world in 
            which security, health, babies, and ample crops are the norm for 
            every member of a local society, regardless of any individual's 
            personal relationship with the sangha The sangha become domesticated 
            in a network of generalized exchange. 
            Cave 2's Hariti, shrine is a unique text in that its murals confirm 
            and problematize these exchange processes. According to the 
            paintings, it is not the monks who are in a restricted exchange 
            relationship with Hariti but the laity. Such is precisely the ideal 
            outcome of the monastic ritual. The restricted exchange relationship 
            between the monks and Hariti, should bring lay society "into the 
            picture"; the generalized exchange ramifications of this monastic 
            cult should work as if the local laity performed a successful puja 
            for Hariti, Indeed, in a sense the emplacement of this sangha within 
            local society could not have been complete were the laity not 
            explicitly implicated in the worship. Hariti, is a translocal 
            Buddhist yaksini. By placing lay society inside Hariti's chapel, 
            through the paintings of local laity performing her puja, she was 
            transformed into a particular local deity. The Buddhist monks become 
            meaningfully placed within the local society as the society becomes 
            visibly emplaced as a presence within the monastic space. Merely by 
            living in the presence of Hariti, who lived in the presence of 
            Buddha, Cave 2's monks were performatively transformed into priests, 
            intermediaries between the human and spirit worlds. 
            BUDDHA: AJANTA IN THE SOCIAL LANDSCAPE OF VAKATAKA INDIA 
            Localization is one moment in the domestication of a sangha. A 
            Buddha or community of monks becomes localized by entering into a 
            restricted exchange relationship with a divinity intimately 
            associated with a place; this relationship can be read, in part, 
            through its expression within a monastery's architectural plan. The 
            relationship works in both directions: an indigenous deity, such as 
            a naga, is pacified by the Buddha's continuing presence; for the 
            local community, the Buddha himself is bound with the identity and 
            characteristics of the naga as well. Buddhists do bring certain 
            translocal, generalizable values into a local economy of belief, but 
            those values become coin only insofar as they are converted into a 
            currency whose exchange is accepted in that locale. This process of 
            conversion, in turn, symbolically emplaces society at large within 
            the monastic precincts: this is domestication. As we have seen, Cave 
            2's Hariti chapel is a remarkable text through which to illustrate 
            the processes of localization and domestication at Ajanta. In the 
            present section, I will treat the Buddha at Ajanta. How did this 
            figure enter into a restricted exchange relationship with Ajanta's 
            patrons? What roles did Buddha play within the generalized 
            structures of Vakataka society? What was it about Ajanta's Buddhas' 
            locations and presence that induced members of the Vakataka court to 
            create magnificent homes for them, monasteries "almost measureless 
            and inconceivable to the mean-spirited," in the words of Cave 17's 
            donor?(59) 
            The model presented above suggests that the localization of Cave 2's 
            Buddha within the ideological and ritual structures of Vakataka 
            India would have been intimately associated with Hariti's specific 
            place within those same structures. Accordingly, I will return to 
            Hariti. As a translocal Buddhist divinity, Hariti performed many of 
            the roles and took on many of the symbolic values associated with 
            indigenous deities. As a typical "tooth mother," Hariti was given 
            local legitimacy at Ajanta through her spatial relationship with 
            Cave 2's Buddha and her ritual relationship with the sangha; this in 
            turn visibly brought the laity into the recesses of that Buddha's 
            home. In Vakataka India, however, Hariti had associations beyond 
            that of Buddhist divinity or chthonic divinity. Hariti had special 
            meaning for the luminaries in Vatsagulma responsible for major 
            patronage at Ajanta. Considered an ancestor of the Vakataka emperor 
            Harisena. Hariti was significant in the Vatsagulma Vakatakas' 
            conception of themselves as a royal family. 
            Harisena was the last known monarch from the Vakatakas, a lineage of 
            kings who ruled large swaths of central India following the 
            dissolution of the Satavahana empire in the mid-third century. 
            Epigraphic and puranic sources alike name Vindhyasakti as the family 
            progenitor;(60) his son, Pravarasena I, was deemed the greatest of 
            the Vakatakas. Following Pravarasena I, the Vakataka family split 
            into two collateral lines: one based in Nandivardhana;(61) the other 
            in Vatsagulma. Six generations and about two hundred years after 
            Pravarasena I, Harisena took on the Vatsagulma Vakataka mantle. As a 
            token of Pravarasena I's glory, his descendants in Vatsagulma 
            bestowed the epithet Haritiputra on him;(62) their cousins in 
            Nandivardhana did not. The association of Pravarasena I with Hariti 
            was an important symbolic means by which the Vatsagulma Vakatakas 
            distinguished themselves from the Nandivardhana Vakatakas. 
            Haritiputra translates literally as "the son of Hariti." There is no 
            certainty whether Haritiputra was intended as a matronymic, a 
            literal genealogical claim, or even an evocative epithet for 
            military prowess, since Hariti's five hundred sons form the bulwark 
            of the yaksa army. No medieval Indian king ever called himself a 
            Haritiputra. Rather, this epithet was typically given to the founder 
            of a royal dynasty or used to characterize the lineage as a whole. 
            Nevertheless, beyond being a Buddhist divinity and a local yaksini. 
            Hariti seems to have functioned for the Vatsagulma Vakatakas in 
            particular as a clan deity. Writing on village goddesses, Fuller 
            observes that a significant proportion of such figures "are tutelary 
            deities of specific social units ... whose boundaries define the 
            spatial extent of their powers."(63) Hariti's specific social unit 
            would have been the Vatsagulma Vakataka ruling family; her domain, 
            coextensive with Harisena's own. 
            Monastic rituals for Hariti at Ajanta would have introduced the 
            sangha into a generalized, structural system of exchange. Within the 
            localized context of Vakataka concerns, however, this ritual also 
            would have served as a basis for political legitimation, reinforcing 
            whatever claims Harisena's family made based on its 
            association--genealogical or metaphoric--with this yaksini. Such 
            legitimation is a matter of both restricted and generalized 
            exchange. Through the ritual appeasement of Hariti, Ajanta's sangha, 
            located near the Vakataka kingdom's geographical periphery, ritually 
            straddled the one-hundred-mile distance, in direct service to King 
            Harisena's political center; the establishment of a monastic 
            "village" at Ajanta served to legitimate and strengthen Harisena's 
            reign throughout his kingdom. 
            Given this expanded understanding of Hariti's significance at 
            Ajanta--site intimately tied to the fortunes and social plan of the 
            Vatsagulma Vakatakas--one can better grasp the Buddha's local 
            significance. Certainly as the guru of this Vakataka ancestor, 
            Buddha earned the utmost reverence. But Ajanta's Buddhas were not 
            merely figures from the past. In a remarkable study, Gregory Schopen 
            has demonstrated that stone Buddhas, such as those found in the 
            recesses of Ajanta's Caves 2 and 16, "were actually thought to live 
            in these establishments."(64) Indeed, "the Buddha was considered to 
            be the legal head of the group, and ... both the Buddha and the 
            monastic community were thought to reside in the same 
            monastery."(65) As the leader of a monastic community whose rituals 
            to Hariti legitimated Harisena's reign, the Buddha localized at 
            Ajanta can be likened to a raja whose "troops-were mustered in the 
            service of Harisena. 
            This may be more than mere metaphor. Eighty percent of the monks who 
            left literary records of their presence at Ajanta refer to 
            themselves by the epithet Sakyabhiksu.(66) I have shown elsewhere 
            that this term, in its most fundamental meaning, identifies an 
            individual as a member of Sakyamuni's own family: Sakyabhiksus are 
            bhiksus who are Sakyas.(67) And one finds within the MSV that 
            Sakyamuni's relationship with his clan members was conceptualized 
            through royal ideologies and martial metaphors. Had Siddhartha 
            become a universal emperor, it was argued, the Sakyas would have 
            been his army and followed him into war. The Sakyas' obligations to 
            and relationship with Siddhartha did not alter when he instead 
            became the Unsurpassed King of Dharma. The Sakyas were still bound 
            to follow Sakyamuni, but now as monks.(68) Indeed, the MSV's 
            ordination formula highlights the Buddha's kingship over the Sakyas: 
            "I follow in renunciation the Blessed One, Tathagata, Arhat, 
            Complete and Perfect Buddha Sakyamuni, the Lion of the Sakyas, the 
            Overlord of the Sakyas."(69) In turn, by reason of blood alone, 
            Sakyas were entitled to be ordained as monks immediately, without 
            the customary four-month probationary period.(70) Eighty percent of 
            the Ajanta monks whose identity we know represented themselves as 
            Sakyabhiksus: members of Sakyamuni's family and by extension the 
            "army" of this Dharmaking. Buddha became localized in Cave 2 through 
            his relationships with Hariti. As the head of a family association, 
            a clan, which maintained a righteous order through its interactions 
            with the Vatsagulma Vakatakas' own clan deity, this Buddha performed 
            as vital a service to Harisena as any military ally. 
            In Cave 16, as well, the Buddhas local significance was intimately 
            bound up with an attempt to legitimate Vakataka control over Ajanta 
            through a local play on Buddhahood's translocal royal valences. Here 
            the Buddha was not emplaced in the role of Harisena's family member 
            or ally. Rather, Cave 16's Buddha was a double of Harisena himself. 
            To grasp the role Cave 16's Buddha played as lord over Ajanta, one 
            must consider the historicopolitical context surrounding patronage 
            at the site. 
            Epigraphic records show that Harisena's family colonized an empire 
            that centered on Vatsagulma, but also stretched to the south, to 
            Nanded(71) and later Bidar.(72) Harisena seems to have set his 
            ambitions even wider: he created an empire stretching from the 
            Arabian Sea to the Bay of Bengal, according to one reading of 
            Varahadeva's Cave 16 inscription.(73) This hyperbole is certainly 
            suspect-Nevertheless, though the precise extent of Harisena's empire 
            cannot be certified, we do know that Harisena began to colonize new 
            lands early in his reign. A copperplate inscription found in 
            Thalner, on the north bank of the Tapti River, records that in the 
            third year of Harisena's reign he donated five villages to a number 
            of Brahmanas with the permission of Gomikaraja.(74) There are a 
            number of interesting and puzzling details to the Thalner grant, 
            none more so than the question of Gomikaraja's identity and role in 
            the Thalner region. But whoever Gomikaraja may have been, it is 
            clear that Harisena was concerned to consolidate this outlying area 
            into his, Harisena's, not Gomikaraja's, political center at 
            Vatsagulma. The granting of land and villages to Brahmana settlers 
            is a well-attested means for the cultural, ritualistic, and 
            bureaucratic incorporation of newly acquired territory into a 
            polity. Vakataka grants to Brahmanas typically fostered the 
            colonization of farmlands necessary for an agricultural surplus to 
            support the Vakataka court.(75) The names of two of the villages 
            Harisena donated, Kamsakarakagrama (village of bronze workers) and 
            Suvarnakaragrama (village of goldsmiths) suggest that artisanship 
            and trade were also crucial to Vatsagulma's prosperity. Located in 
            an area with ready access to the sea, this western colony's settlers 
            could receive and process raw materials, sending their profits back 
            to Vatsagulma in the form of taxes.(76) 
            Struck in the third year of Harisena's reign, the Thalner grant 
            dates to approximately the same year that, according to Spink's 
            chronology, members of the Vakataka court initiated patronage of the 
            caves at Ajanta, Ghatotkaca, and Banoti. In Vakataka times, Ajanta 
            lay on a route that led from Vatsagulma to Harisena's Tapti River 
            communities and out to the sea at the ancient port cities of Surat 
            and Bharuch. Ajanta was a crucial stage on this route. In Vakataka 
            times, as now, Ajanta was the pass in the Sahyadri range favored by 
            caravans, merchants, armies, and monks for crossing down from the 
            Deccan plateau to the Tapti River valley (or vice versa). In short, 
            although Ajanta was (and still is) geographically remote from major 
            population centers and seats of power, its spatial location did not 
            translate into a similarly isolated social location. Located at a 
            pass along the road from Vatsagulma to the east, Ajanta was a site 
            of crucial strategic value for Harisena's expanded realm.(77) 
            I have characterized Ajanta as a monastic "village" several times 
            because the Vakataka court's patronage of Buddhists at this site 
            served many of the same social functions for the Vatsagulma polity 
            as Harisena's granting of five Brahmana villages near Thalner. The 
            renaissance of work at Ajanta in the early years of Harisena's reign 
            fits within a broader strategic program to secure cultural, 
            economic, and administrative control over territories distant from 
            Vatsagulma. Hermann Kulke has identified three means--in addition to 
            a strong military-by which a "victorious conqueror succeeded in 
            unifying the newly conquered areas permanently with his own 
            homeland": royal patronage of important places of pilgrim-age; the 
            granting of lands to Brahmanas; and the construction of new 
            "imperial temples" within the core of region of the kingdoms.(78) 
            Ajanta can be loosely viewed as satisfying all three means. Intended 
            as a one-quarter-mile series of cave monasteries, Ajanta would have 
            been a village of sorts, albeit nonagrarian; the many shrines that 
            were excavated into the scarp outside of the monasteries and 
            accessible to the public reveal a marked concern with satisfying 
            transient pilgrims; and though not in the Vatsagulma Vakatakas' core 
            region, Varahadeva unreservedly attempted to make Cave 16 an 
            "imperial temple." 
            Vakataka support for Ajanta can be understood to fall within the 
            first of Kulke's three ritual means for a polity to establish 
            hegemony over peripheral territories: the establishing of pilgrimage 
            sites (tirtha). Indeed, Varahadeva--"intent upon his duty" as a 
            minister to Harisena--likens Ajanta to Mount Mandara, by whose foot 
            runs the Ganges, the most revered tirtha of all.(79) Varahadeva 
            thereby transmutes the Waghora River into the Ganga and the Vakataka 
            kingdom into Aryavarta, the "middle kingdom" in Brahmanic sacred 
            geography.(80) This explicit equation of Ajanta with Mount Mandara 
            fits within a larger set of rhetorical strategies for reinforcing 
            the legitimation of Harisena's royal power. Varahadeva's personal 
            endeavor to unmistakably associate Ajanta with its Vatsagulma 
            Vakataka overlord also is seen in his dedicatory inscription. 
            Although Varahadeva transferred the spiritual merit accruing from 
            his cave to his parents, Varahadeva's inscription details and 
            celebrates Harisena's imperial lineage; it all but ignores 
            Varahadeva's own family background.(81) 
            However, the piece de resistance of Varahadeva's legitimatory 
            enterprise is seen in the iconology of the Cave 16 Buddha. In Cave 
            16, the Buddha was sculpted in an iconographic form known as 
            bhadrasana, that is, seated on a royal throne, his legs pendant 
            "European style" (also called pralambapadasana). Cave 16's massive 
            central image was the very first fully plastic, sculptural rendering 
            of this iconographic form in western India. In fact, according to 
            Spink's analysis, Varahadeva originally intended to place a Buddha 
            seated in the cross-legged lotus position, not bhadrasana, in the 
            central shrine but changed his plan midway through the site's brief 
            history, in the wake of a regional war that may have placed 
            Harisena's control over Ajanta in jeopardy.(82) Stronger ritual 
            medicine was needed! Introduced to India through the tradition of 
            Kusana royal portraiture, the bhadrasana has been interpreted as 
            iconologically "imbuing sacred images with a majesty and presence 
            lacking in the rather compressed outline of the regular ascetic 
            seated pose."(83) This majestic presentation of the body is 
            bolstered by accompanying details, which also bespeak royalty: a 
            lion throne with a wheel of law at its base, attendants bearing fly 
            whisks, and so on. Moreover, this Buddha's unique placement within 
            the cave complemented the iconography. All other central Buddha 
            figures within Ajanta's viharas were carved in shrines set apart 
            from their monasteries' principal space. In some caves, the Buddha 
            was placed within a separate chamber attached to the main pavilion; 
            more typically, the Buddha was twice removed, his chapel set behind 
            a shrine antechamber. By contrast, Cave 16s' Buddha was separated 
            from this vihara's main space by only a pair of pillars. Thus, Spink 
            describes Cave 16's as "a revolutionary new Buddha, authoritatively 
            posed, and looming directly above the devotee, rather than set back 
            within a conventional shrine."(84) In Cave 16, one experiences the 
            Buddha's social presence as an awesome fact, in a way not matched 
            anywhere else at Ajanta. "Compared with the other shrine images at 
            Ajanta," Sheila Weiner observes, "there is a prepossessing and 
            overbearing majesty to this figure that sets it apart 
            conceptually."(85) 
            Cave 16's massive central Buddha image is uniquely large and 
            uniquely regal at Ajanta; seated with legs pendant, a position 
            associated with royalty and worldly action, this is a Buddha who is 
            not only operative in the world but acts therein as a king. Given 
            Varahadeva's project of glorifying Harisena through this cave, this 
            image may have functioned as something of a "portrait sculpture"; it 
            may have allegorized Harisena as Buddha, whom Varahadeva likens 
            epigraphically to an ideal king who "extinguishes the flames of 
            wickedness" and enables the world to "enter that peaceful and noble 
            state free from sorrow and disease, [attained] by eradicating the 
            many faults."(86) If so, the Cave 16 Buddha would fit into a pattern 
            observed by Kulke. As he notes, "one of the characteristic features 
            of the cults at these centers of pilgrimage [which functioned to 
            legitimize a ruler's hegemony] was an increasing process of a ritual 
            `royalization' of these deities.(87) Making such a homology 
            complete, Varahadeva's inscription likens Harisena to Indra, Lord of 
            the Gods, and also calls the Buddha the "ascetic Indra,"(88) Indeed, 
            Varahadeva carries the identification to its logical conclusion: 
            Cave 16 is characterized as the "home" of "ascetic Indra" and is 
            given the name "Vaijayanta," eponymous with Indra's divine palace in 
            the Heaven of Thirty-Three Gods.(89) 
            Above I argued that Cave 16's shrine for the naga king assisted the 
            Buddha's localization at Ajanta, and that the spatial disconnection 
            between the naga and the Buddha indexed the nature of their 
            relationship. Just as Ajanta is at a far remove from the center of 
            Vakataka power, so the naga, the chthonic embodiment of this place, 
            is at a remove from the double for Harisena inside Cave 16. 
            Buddha/Indra/ Harisena is present in this cave and this presence is 
            itself sufficient basis for a restricted exchange relationship 
            between him and the local naga. In return for its own pacified 
            presence, the naga has the privilege of having its shrine located 
            within this sacred domain. Sharing a place, Buddha/Indra/Harisena 
            and the naga become accessible to the humans of that place. Those 
            humans' ritual actions, in turn, redound throughout all Vakataka 
            society. 
            Above we saw that the murals in Cave 2's Hariti shrine gave Vakataka 
            society a symbolic presence at Ajanta; this emplacement was crucial, 
            for the mutual presence of exchange partners is a prerequisite for 
            the restricted-exchange relationships whose emergent outcome is a 
            generalized social structure. Were Cave 2's monks truly antisocial 
            individuals, they would not have entered into institutionalized 
            relationships with the members of Vakataka society; they would not 
            have become domesticated. Similarly, the local significance of Cave 
            16's Buddha is tied to his social function. For Harisena, this 
            Buddha played the role of a local deity. Varahadeva symbolically 
            placed Harisena in a restricted exchange relationship with this 
            Buddha, a relationship of shared presence, thereby legitimating the 
            Vakataka emperor's local control over the Ajanta pass. Just as the 
            establishment of Brahmana villages, pilgrimage sites, and imperial 
            temples are all ritual means for multiplying royal presence, the 
            Vakatakas' establishment of Ajanta was a means of consolidating 
            their rightful presence in this territory. Varahadeva, a minister 
            "intent upon his duty," ensured that Cave 16's Buddha played an 
            explicit role in this local process. 
            CONCLUSION 
            The monk Buddhabhadra, donor of Cave 26, proclaims that the wise 
            "perform devotion intensively to the Tathagatas," since "even a 
            single flower" offered to them causes the attainment "heaven and 
            final emancipation."(90) Applying this logic to his own involvement 
            at Ajanta, Buddhabhadra holds that "powerful and affluent 
            bodhisattvas who are desirous of mundane pleasures as well as 
            liberation," like himself, have an obligation to commission cave 
            monasteries. Worship and giving are acts of the wise that result in 
            both worldly and transcendental boons. 
            Buddhabhadra does not set the mundane and supermundane in a 
            hierarchy; he does not portray one as a precursor to the other; he 
            does not characterize one as essentially Buddhist, the other as an 
            accommodation to laity or indigenous concerns. Indeed, Buddhabhadra 
            publicly acknowledges that one of the motivations for undertaking 
            this cave was to enable his recently deceased friend, Bhavviraja, a 
            minister of the mighty king of Asmaka, to enjoy himself in heaven. 
            Nor does one have to read too closely between the lines to learn 
            that Buddhabhadra also used this donation as a means of currying 
            favor with Bhavviraja's son, Devaraja, who took his father's 
            position in the Asmaka court. The monk Buddhabhadra intended his 
            patronage of Cave 26 to meet personal and political concerns; he was 
            public and unabashed about this; he made no attempt to hide it. Yet 
            at the same time, Buddhabhadra also intended his donation to meet a 
            universalized Mahayinist concern: that all living beings might 
            attain Buddhahood. He dedicates the merit from this act accordingly. 
            In using the donation of a cave monastery to address local concerns 
            alongside the translocal, the monk Buddhabhadra does not differ from 
            Varahadeva or Cave 2's anonymous donor. If Buddhabhadra makes no 
            apology for this, why should we? 
            To gain a nuanced and dynamic grasp of Buddhism as a living religion 
            in ancient India, one must begin by considering the fives and 
            actions of Buddhists. I have attempted to do so here by exploring 
            patronage at Ajanta through a dual filter, laying Strenski's 
            treatment of exchange relationships over Peter Brown's dictum that 
            "the supernatural becomes depository of the objectified values of 
            the group." That is, I looked at how local deities' participation in 
            exchange relationships served to form, legitimate, and give meaning 
            to a local Buddhist community at Ajanta. This study led to a series 
            of conclusions. First, in existential terms, Buddhism in India was 
            as much a means for meeting personal local concerns as it was a 
            means for meeting generalized, translocal goals. Present happiness 
            was valued at least as much as ultimate perfection, with no 
            indication that the latter was deemed normative for Buddhists. 
            Second, restricted exchange works to build local systems of social 
            solidarity through a valorization of direct and present 
            participation by the exchange partners. The reciprocity of 
            restricted exchanges was a normal dimension of Buddhism as a 
            religion of place. One takes place seriously as an analytic category 
            only to the extent that one accepts reciprocity as a factor in 
            Buddhist life. Third, nagas and yaksinis--superhuman figures whose 
            principal values are associated with reciprocal relationships, 
            presence, and the immediate satisfaction of desires--do not come 
            from outside Buddhism. The reasons for the incorporation of shrines 
            to the naga king and Hariti in Ajanta's architecture are not 
            clarified through the rhetorics of syncretism, overlay, or 
            appropriation any more than such language would clarify shrines to 
            the Buddha, bodhisattvas, or arhats. Varahadeva's building of a home 
            for the naga king or Samkasya's monks' worship of a naga must be 
            viewed as properly, fully, and fundamentally Buddhist practices. 
            Fourth, worship, like politics, is a local matter, however 
            wide-ranging the consequences. As the Unexcelled King of Dharma, the 
            Buddha's reign was cosmologically limitless. One cannot know whether 
            this mattered much to Harisena or Varahadeva, except insofar as the 
            Buddha's translocal glory served Vakataka interests in governing the 
            Ajanta pass. The Buddha was at Ajanta: his presence was indexed by 
            his restricted exchange relationships with a naga, a yaksini, and a 
            king. Generalized and displaced, the dharmic harmony resulting from 
            this localized presence legitimated both the sangha's and Harisena's 
            presence at Ajanta. As a "local deity," the Buddha brought the 
            sangha and Vakatakas together in an institutional relationship, 
            domesticating Ajanta's sangha within Vakataka society. (1) Posted by 
            William Bodiford, associate professor. University of California, Los 
            Angeles, to Buddha-l@ulkyvm.louisville.edu on December 16, 1994. 
            Messages to electronic distribution lists, like Buddha-l, are an 
            informal medium of exchange between scholars. There is no 
            expectation on the part of participants in these discussions that 
            their observations and opinions are, or should be, finely crafted 
            and suitable for publication. For this reason, the following account 
            of the discussion inspired by Bodiford's post will be generalized 
            and impressionistic. I will neither name names nor cite direct 
            quotations. 
            (2) Peter Brown, "Society and the Supernatural: A Medieval Change," 
            in his Society and the Holy in Late Antiquity (Berkeley and Los 
            Angeles: University of California Press, 1992), p. 318. 
            (3) Kathleen M. Erndl, Victory to the Mother. The Hindu Goddess of 
            Northwest India in Myth, Ritual, and Symbols (New York: Oxford 
            University Press, 1993). 
            (4) David Shulman, Tamil Temple Myths: Sacrifice and Divine Marriage 
            in the South Indian Saiva Tradition (Princeton, NJ.: Princeton 
            University Press, 1980), p. 50. 
            (5) Edward Conze, Buddhism: Its Essence and Development (New York: 
            Harper Torchbooks, 1975), p. 12. 
            (6) Ibid., p. 53. 
            (7) Raniero Gnoli, ed., The Gilgit Manuscript of the Sayanasanavastu 
            and the Adhikaranayavastu, Being the Fifteenth and Sixteenth 
            Sections of the Vinaya of the Mulasaravastivadin (Rome: Instituto 
            Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente, 1978), p. 15. I have read 
            the manuscript's anagarad as agarad 
            (8) Sherry B. Ortner, Sherpas through Their Rituals (New York: 
            Cambridge University Press, 1978), p. 157. 
            (9) Conze, p. 72. 
            (10) Ortner, p. 159. 
            (11) Ibid., pp. 159-60. 
            (12) C. J. Fuller, The Camphor Flame: Popular Hinduism and Society 
            in India (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. 1992), p. 27. 
            
            (13) Ivan Strenski, "On Generalized Exchange and the Domestication 
            of the Sangha," Man 18 (September 1983): 464. 
            (14) Ibid. pp. 464-65. 
            (15) Ibid., p. 472. 
            (16) Ibid., p. 473. 
            (17) Ibid., p. 471. 
            (18) Ibid. 
            (19) Ibid., p. 470. 
            (20) For these dates, see Walter M. Spink, "The Archaeology of 
            Ajanta," Ars Orientalis 21 (1991): 67-94. I will discuss Ajanta's 
            history at greater length below. (21) T. W. Rhys-Davids, trans., The 
            Questions of King Milinda (New York: Dover, 1963). 1:144-45. 
            (22) Ibid., p. 146. 
            (23) One finds a similar question raised in Vasubandhu's 
            Abhidharmakosa: How can a gift to a caitya be meritorious if there 
            is nobody there to enjoy it? The Kosa explains that a gift may be 
            meritorious either because it is directly enjoyed by the recipient 
            or because it is abandoned with no one to receive it and no 
            expectation of recompense (Dwarika Das Shastri, ed., Abhidharmakosa 
            and Bhasya of Acarya Vasubandhu with Sphutartha Commentary of Acarya 
            Yasomitra [Varanasi: Bauddha Bharati, 1987], p. 747, verse 4.121). 
            Adrian Mayer points out a similar distinction within Vaisnava 
            devotionalism. Puja is an exchange "made in connection with benefits 
            for the worshiper," whereas seva is performed "Without thought of 
            benefit or return" (cited in Fuller [n. 12 above], p. 71). 
            (24) Strenski (n. 13 above), p. 473. 
            (25) Gnoli, ed., The Gilgit Manuscript of the Sayanasanavastu (n. 7 
            above), p. 35. 
            (26) Strenski, p. 475. 
            (27) I reedited and retranslated all Ajanta's inscriptions in my 
            "Setting the Three Jewels: The Complex Culture of Buddhism at the 
            Ajanta Caves" (doctoral diss., University of Michigan, 1995). At 
            times my readings coincide with those previously published; at times 
            I diverge widely from previous scholars. All translations here are 
            my own and are based on reconstructions of the Sanskrit that can be 
            found in appendix A to my "Setting the Three Jewels." 
            (28) John S. Strong, The Experience of Buddhism: Sources and 
            Interpretations (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1995), p. 80. 
            (29) Gnoli, ed., The Gilgit Manuscript of the Sayanasanavastu, P. 
            24. 
            (30) For a survey of the few archaeological remains from the Buldana 
            district dating to Vakataka times, see Ramesh Chandra Agrawal, 
            Archaeological Remains in Western India (Delhi: Agam Kala Prakashan, 
            1989). For a survey of the few archaeological remains from Bhokardan 
            district dating to Vakataka times, see Shantaram Bhalchandra Deo and 
            Ramesh Shankar Gupte, Excavations at Bhokardan (Bhogavardhana) 1973 
            (Nagpur and Aurangabad: Nagpur University and Marathwada University, 
            1974). 
            (31) Spink, "Archaeology of Ajanta," p. 69. 
            (32) For Varahadeva's inscription see My "Setting the Three Jewels," 
            pp. 357-62. For Buddhabhadra's inscription see my "Setting the Three 
            Jewels," pp. 378-81. On the identification of Harisena as the mighty 
            king of Asmaka referred to in Buddhabhadra's inscription, see my 
            "Setting the Three Jewels," pp. 57-62. For the Cave 17 inscription 
            see my "Setting the Three Jewels," pp. 367-71. 
            (33) Walter M. Spink, "Ajanta's Chronology: Politics and Patronage," 
            in Kaladarsana, ed. Joanna G. William (New Delhi: Oxford and IBH in 
            collaboration with the American Institute of Indian Studies, 1981), 
            pp. 119-21. 
            (34) Walter M. Spink, personal communication with author, 1989. 
            (35) Although I have accepted the general outline of Spink's 
            chronology for Ajanta's Vakataka phase, my own reconstruction of 
            Vakataka history differs radically from the one Spink proposes. See 
            my "Problems in the Writing of Ajanta's History: The Epigraphic 
            Evidence," Indo-Iranian Journal 40, no. 2 (April 1997): 125-48, for 
            a discussion of where Spink has gone wrong in his historical 
            reconstruction, and my "Setting the Three Jewels," pp. 63-77, for an 
            alternative, tentative reconstruction. 
            (36) On the pros and cons of using the MSV for discussions of 
            Ajanta, see my "Setting the Three Jewels," pp. 122-27. 
            (37) Ibid., p. 361. 
            (38) Ibid., p. 362. 
            (39) Raniero Gnoli, ed., The Gilgit Manuscript of the 
            Sanghabhedavastu, Being the Seventeenth and Last Section of the 
            Vinaya of the Mulasarvastivadin (Rome: Instituto Italiano per il 
            Medio ed Estremo Oriente, 1977), 1:217-18. 
            (40) See John S. Strong, The Legend and Cult of Upagupta: Sanskrit 
            Buddhism in North India and Southeast Asia (Princeton, NJ.: 
            Princeton University Press, 1992), pp. 26. 28. (41) Gnoli, ed., The 
            Gilgit Manuscript of the Sanghabhedavastu, p. 126. 
            (42) John S. Strong, The Legend of King Asoka (Princeton, NJ.: 
            Princeton University Press, 1983), p. 219. 
            (43) Gnoli, ed., The Gilgit Manuscript of the Sayanasanavastu (n. 7 
            above), p. 24. 
            (44) S. Bagchi, ed., Mulasarvastivadavinayavastu (Darbhanga, 
            India-Mithila Institute of Post-Graduate Studies and Research in 
            Sanskrit Learning, 1970). 2:86. The same tale is told in Edward 
            Byles Cowell and R. A. Neil, eds., The Divyavadana, A Collection of 
            Early Buddhist Legends (Delhi: Indological Book House, 1987), p. 
            329. 
            (45) Derge Kha, 120B4-121A3. I am working with the text as 
            reproduced by the Asian Classics Input Project (ACIP), catalog 
            number KD0001B. 
            (46) Samuel Beal, Si-Yu Ki: Buddhist Records of the Western World. 
            Translated from the Chinese of Hiuen Tsiang (A.D. 629) (Delhi: 
            Motilal Banarsidass, 1981), p. xli. 
            (47) Ibid., p. xlii. 
            (48) Bagchi, ed., p. 134. 
            (49) Here I paraphrase Shulman's definition of this phenomenon ([n. 
            4 above], p. 51). 
            (50) Strenski (n. 13 above), p. 471. 
            (51) Ibid. 
            (52) Bagchi, ed., p. 18. 
            (53) Ibid. 
            (54) Noel Peri, "Hariti la Mere-de-Demons," Bulletin de l'Ecole 
            Francaise d'Extreme Orient 17 (1917): 20, 23, 32. (55) For the most 
            detailed account of Hariti, see ibid., pp. 1-102. For Further 
            references, see Strong, The Legend and Cult of Upagupta (n. 40 
            above), p. 303, n. 66. 
            (56) I Tsing, A Record of the Buddhist Religion as Practiced in 
            India and the Malay Archipelago, A.D. 671-695, trans. J. Takakusu 
            (Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1982), p. 37. 
            (57) Peri, pp. 13-14. The MSV story continues, telling that when the 
            women of Rajagrha saw Hariti give her sons to the Buddhist monks 
            they did the same. Later, these women paid compensation for the 
            children's upkeep and still later "redeemed" their children and 
            brought them home. This is significant for interpreting the shrine 
            in Ajanta's Cave 2, since this story warrants the incorporation of 
            youngsters into the monastic community, without requiring that these 
            children become formally ordained. In other words, this is a myth 
            that charters Buddhist monasteries to act as schools. One sees 
            precisely this on the base of Cave 2's sculpted image of Hariti, 
            (seen at the bottom of fig. 6): a school room in which the good 
            students sit in the front of the class, paying attention to their 
            teacher, and the poor students hang to the rear of the class, 
            playing with toy rams. Indeed, I Tsing notes that in India, the 
            monks took on many students, whom they instructed in secular 
            literature, these students had to live at their own or their 
            parents' expense (p. 106). In the same vein. I Tsing presents the 
            great Buddhist monastic universities at Nalanda and Valabhi as 
            institutions that prepare young men to enter courtly life and 
            advance to a high rank through the skills they learn therein (pp. 
            177-78). 
            (58) Ibid., pp. 35-37. (59) Cohen, "Setting the Three Jewels" (n. 27 
            above), p. 371. 
            (60) For epigraphic sources, see ibid., p. 361; P. V. Parabrahma 
            Sastry, "Hyderabad Plates of Vakataka Devasena, Year 5," Journal of 
            the Epigraphical Society of India 13 (1986): 71-75; Krishna Mohan 
            Shrimali, Agrarian Structure in Central India and the Northern 
            Deccan (C. A.D. 300-500): A Study in Vakataka Inscriptions (Delhi: 
            Munshiram Manoharlal, 1987), pp. 82-83. For puranic sources, see 
            Frederick Eden Pargiter, The Purana Text of the Dynasties of the 
            Kali Age (Varanasi: Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series Office, 1962), pp. 
            48, 50, 72-73. 
            (61) This is not the Nandivardhana in which Asvaka and Punarvasuka 
            lived. 
            (62) Vasudev Vishnu Mirashi, The Inscriptions of the Vakatakas, 
            Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum, vol. 5 (Oocatamund: Government 
            Epigraphist for India, 1963), p. 96; Shrimali, p. 82; Sastry, p. 74. 
            
            (63) Fuller (n. 12 above), p. 43. 
            (64) Gregory Schopen, "The Buddha as an Owner of Property and 
            Permanent Resident in Medieval Indian Monasteries," Journal of 
            Indian Philosophy 18 (1990): 203. 
            (65) Ibid., p. 191. 
            (66) See my "Setting the Three Jewels," pp. 191-269, for a 
            discussion of the evidence concerning the use of Sakyabhiksu at 
            Ajanta and a fuller interpretation of this epithets significance. 
            (67) As is the case with the Vatsagulma Vakatakas' use of 
            Haritiputra for Pravarasena I, one cannot determine whether the use 
            of Sakyabhiksu is meant literally or metaphorically. 
            (68) Gnoli, ed., The Gilgit Manuscript of the Sanghabhedavastu (n. 
            39 above), p. 200. 
            (69) Anukul Chandra Banerjee, Buddhist Vinaya Texts in Sanskrit 
            Pratimoksa Sutra and Bhiksukarmavakya (Calcutta: World Press, 1977), 
            p. 60. 
            (70) Derge Ka I, 150B6-50B7 (ACIP catalog number KD001A; n. 45 
            above). See also I. B. Horner, trans., The Book of Discipline 
            (Vinaya-Pitaka), vol. 4, Mahavagga (London: Pali Text Society, 
            1982), pp. 85-89. 
            (71) Mirashi, The Inscriptions of the Vakatakas, pp. 94-100. 
            (72) Sastry (n. 60 above). 
            (73) Varahadeva tells that Harisena had some relationship with the 
            lands between the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea: Kuntala, 
            Avanti, Kalinga, Kosala, Trikuta, Lata, and Andhra. Unfortunately, 
            Varahadeva's inscription is damaged here, and the verb that delimits 
            this relationship has been lost. Despite this uncertainty, however, 
            it is probable that Varahadeva's verse is a digvijaya prasasti, a 
            celebration of territorial conquest. See my "Problems in the Writing 
            of Ajanta's History" (n. 35 above) for a more detailed discussion of 
            this problem. 
            (74) Vasudev Vishnu Mirashi, Indological Research Papers (Nagpur 
            Vidarbha Samshodhan Mandal, 1982), 1:78-87; Ajay Mitra Shastri, 
            "Thalner Plates of Vakataka Harishena: A Re-Appraisal," Journal of 
            the Epigraphical Society of India 11 (1984): 15-20. 
            (75) Shrimali (n. 60 above), p. 26. 
            (76) None of the villages named in Harisena's Thalner grant were 
            given any privileges, such as freedom from harassment by internal 
            security police, freedom from corvee labor, or freedom from 
            taxation. This is notable, for the majority of Vakataka land grants 
            release their grantees from these and other obligations to the 
            central polity as an inducement for individuals to settle there. 
            (77) One millennium later the Mughals built forts in precisely the 
            same locations that the Vakatakas excavated their Buddhist caves: 
            the Fardapur and Ajanta forts guard the front and back of the Ajanta 
            pass; the Abhasgash and Vetalwadi Forts protect the pass in which 
            one finds Varahadeva's Ghatotkaca cave; the same relationship holds 
            between the Sutanda fort and the Vakataka cave at Banoti. Indeed, 
            these Sahyadri forts were instrumental in preventing the British 
            from taking the Deccan plateau. This region, along with the Ajanta 
            caves, remained under the suzerainty of the Nizam of Hyderabad until 
            Man independence; Fardapur, at the head of the Ajanta pass, marked 
            the Nizam's northern border. 
            (78) Hermann Kulke, "Royal Temple Policy and the Structure of 
            Medieval Hindu Kingdoms," in his Kings and Cults: State Formation 
            and Legitimation in India and Southeast Asia (Delhi: Manohar, 1993), 
            pp. 9-10, quote on p. 9. 
            (79) My "Setting the Three Jewels" (n. 27 above), p. 362. 
            (80) For a similar strategy of geographical displacement, as used by 
            the Rashtrakutas through their construction of the Kailash temple at 
            Ellora, see Ronald Inden, Imagining India (Cambridge, Mass.: 
            Blackwell, 1990), pp. 256-62. 
            (81) Varahadeva's glorification of Vakataka accomplishments in his 
            Cave 16 dedication is especially notable in light of a second 
            inscription from Varahadeva, which dedicates a cave temple at 
            Ghatotkaca. By contrast with the Cave 16 commemoration of Harisena 
            and the Vakatakas this Ghatotkaca inscription, attached to a single 
            cave in a lonely pass, details Varahadeva's own genealogical line of 
            descent. At Ghatotkaca. Harisena receives only a brief mention. This 
            contrast between Varahadeva's Ajanta and Ghatotkaca inscriptions 
            highlights that Varahadeva's role as the good minister was central 
            to his undertaking at Ajanta. 
            (82) Walter M. Spink, "Ajanta's Chronology: The Crucial Cave," Ars 
            Orientalis 10 (1975): 143-69, pls. 1-16. 
            (83) John M. Rosenfield, The Dynastic Arts of the Kushans (Delhi: 
            Munshiram Manoharlal, 1993), p. 186. 
            (84) Walter M. Spink, "A Scholar's Guide to the Ajanta Caves" 
            (University of Michigan. Ann Arbor, typescript). 
            (85) Sheila Weiner, Ajanta: Its Place in Buddhist Art (Berkeley: 
            University of California Press, 1977), p. 98. 
            (86) My "Setting the Three Jewels," pp. 361-62. 
            (87) Kulke, p. 11. 
            (88) My "Setting the Three Jewel," p. 361. 
            (89) Ibid., p. 362. 
            (90) Ibid., p. 380.