Ajanta: Cave No. 10, interior, ceiling, Paintings of early Andhra Period, 1st Century B.C.

Certain elements in the architectural members of the chaitya halls clearly illustrate how traditional Indian architecture tends to be, As Heinrich Zimmer has pointed out, the architecture is entirely conservative of ancient prototypes, even insofar as translating into stone, verbatum [sic], the structural modes of wooden buildings, One example of this is the ribbed ceiling of the vaulted chaitya hall, which reflects the times when wooden ribs supported the overhead portion of free-standing chaitya halls, As we mentioned earlier, wooden ribs were also placed in the ceiling of cave No. 10 at its first construction, probably to assist the stone pillar in supporting the roof, They were not really necessary, obviously, for the roof was solid enough to support its own weight, In later caves, the wood is omitted entirely, Some of the earliest painted decorations are visible in this detail, These were added in the 1st century B.C. during the Andhra Period and represent the beginning of the art for which the Ajanta caves are famous, The fresco is contemporary to the art produced at Sanchi and shows a great advance over sculptural handling of pictorialism, The images are not simply outlines but modeled carefully in colors of light and shadow