Ajanta’s major second phase of excavation and painting is generally associated with the Vākāṭaka dynasty (Vatsagulma/Basim branch) and its feudatories, forming the historical setting for the late-Gupta–style murals that follow.
A major dedicatory inscription records that Varāhadeva, a minister of Vākāṭaka king Hariṣeṇa, caused the excavation and decoration of a cave dwelling (identified by scholars with Cave 16), documenting elite ministerial patronage behind Ajanta’s late 5th-century program.
Walter M. Spink’s reconstruction places an early ceremonial launch of the renewed Ajanta program soon after Varāhadeva’s rise to hereditary prime ministership, emphasizing coordinated, court-linked patronage at the start of the late 5th-century phase.
UNESCO characterizes Ajanta’s second phase as a 5th–6th century Vākāṭaka undertaking with Asmaka and R̥ṣika feudatories—context for a surge of richly painted viharas whose style is often described as “late Gupta” in broader art-historical usage.
An inscription in Cave 17 (fragmentary and difficult to decipher) is recorded as being made under the name of Ravisāmba, a vassal of Vākāṭaka king Hariṣeṇa, illustrating how subordinate rulers participated in Ajanta’s late 5th-century patronage network.
Spink’s event-sequence places the king’s own sponsorship of Cave 1 in the mid-460s, highlighting direct royal investment in a flagship vihara whose sculptural and pictorial program helped set the tone for the late 5th-century flowering at Ajanta.
In Spink’s reconstruction, mounting threats (including Asmaka pressure) triggered a slowdown and interruptions in work across the site, shaping which caves were prioritized for finishing and which remained incomplete.
Spink’s chronology identifies a period when work largely stops because of intensified aggression and instability, helping explain abrupt breaks and uneven completion visible in several late-5th-century caves and painting campaigns.
Spink’s reconstruction places an Asmaka takeover of the site’s patronage environment in the mid-470s, with renewed work patterns and emphasis on late projects—part of the context for late additions and intrusive imagery in some caves.
Cave 2—closely related in plan and decoration to Cave 1—is described as having begun in the 460s but largely carved in the later 470s, and it preserves some of Ajanta’s best-known late 5th-century paintings (often grouped stylistically with late-Gupta idioms).
An inscription in Cave 26 records that the monk Buddhabhadra and a minister serving the king of Asmaka gifted the vast chaitya hall complex, evidencing monastic-and-ministerial collaboration and linking major late works to Asmaka-associated elites.
Cave 26 is identified as among the last excavations at Ajanta, with the relevant inscription and archaeological assessments suggesting a late 5th or early 6th century horizon—consistent with a final burst of work, additions, and hurried dedications after political shocks.
On 1819-04-28, British officer John Smith (28th Cavalry) encountered the caves during a hunt and left a dated graffito; this event helped bring Ajanta to wide scholarly and public attention, spurring documentation (and, initially, damage) to paintings.
Ajanta Caves: late Gupta-phase paintings and patronage (c. 450–500 CE)
