Chapter II
The Samavasarana Ceiling
Plate 03
03 / 12
What the cave kept
four pigments, one pond ceiling, eleven centuries
I
Paint laid on rock, not canvas
Fresco-secco over lime plaster fused to weathered brown ceiling — never a clean cream ground to begin on.
fresco-secco
II
A tank alive with dancers and geese
The samavasarana lotus-pond gathers celestial beings, elephants and fish in soft ochre outline across a terre-verte ground.
samavasarana
III
Six pigments, each from the earth
Soot-black, terre-verte, red and yellow ochre, lapis ultramarine and lime white — minerals ground soft and dulled by time.
six minerals
IV
Eleven centuries held in mottle
Patches of plaster lost to damp and breath — what remains reads as fragment, never as ruin, soft against the brown rock.
9th c. → today
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