philosopher and controversialist, author of well-known books on logic, resided there. In its prime the settlement must have afforded accommodation for several hundreds, teachers and pupils combined. Very few of the frescoes have been identified, but two are illustrations of stories in Ārya Sūra’s Jātaka Mālā, as appears from verses in Buddhist Sanskrit painted beneath them.
See J. Burgess and Bhagwanlal Indraji, Inscriptions from the Cave Temples of Western India (Bombay, 1881); J. Fergusson and J. Burgess, Cave Temples of India (London, 1880); J. Griffiths, Paintings in the Buddhist Cave Temples of Ajanta (London, 2 vols., 1896–1897). (T. W. R. D.)
AJAX (Gr. Αἴας), a Greek hero, son of Oïleus, king of Locris, called the “lesser” or Locrian Ajax, to distinguish him from Ajax, son of Telamon. In spite of his small stature, he held his own amongst the other heroes before Troy; he was brave, next to Achilles in swiftness of foot and famous for throwing the spear. But he was boastful, arrogant and quarrelsome; like the Telamonian Ajax, he was the enemy of Odysseus, and in the end the victim of the vengeance of Athene, who wrecked his ship on his homeward voyage (Odyssey, iv. 499). A later story gives a more definite account of the offence of which he was guilty. It is said that, after the fall of Troy, he dragged Cassandra away by force from the statue of the goddess at which she had taken refuge as a suppliant, and even violated her (Lycophron, 360, Quintus Smyrnaeus xiii. 422). For this, his ship was wrecked in a storm on the coast of Euboea, and he himself was struck by lightning (Virgil, Aen. i. 40). He was said to have lived after his death in the island of Leukê. He was worshipped as a national hero by the Opuntian Locrians (on whose coins he appears), who always left a vacant place for him in the ranks of their army when drawn up in battle array. He was the subject of a lost tragedy by Sophocles. The rape of Cassandra by Ajax was frequently represented in Greek works of art, for instance on the chest of Cypselus described by Pausanias (v. 17) and in extant works.
AJAX, son of Telamon, king of Cyprus, a legendary hero of ancient Greece. To distinguish him from Ajax, son of Oïleus, he was called the “great” or Telamonian Ajax. In Homer’s Iliad he is described as of great stature and colossal frame, second only to Achilles in strength and bravery, and the “bulwark of the Achaeans.” He engaged Hector in single combat and, with the aid of Athene, rescued the body of Achilles from the hands of the Trojans. In the competition between him and Odysseus for the armour of Achilles, Agamemnon, at the instigation of Athene, awarded the prize to Odysseus. This so enraged Ajax that it caused his death (Odyssey, xi. 541). According to a later and more definite story, his disappointment drove him mad; he rushed out of his tent and fell upon the flocks of sheep in the camp under the impression that they were the enemy on coming to his senses, he slew himself with the sword which he had received as a present from Hector. This is the account of his death given in the Ajax of Sophocles (Pindar, Nemea, 7; Ovid, Met. xiii. 1). From his blood sprang a red flower, as at the death of Hyacinthus, which bore on its leaves the initial letters of his name AI, also expressive of lament (Pausanias i. 35. 4). His ashes were deposited in a golden urn on the Rhoetean promontory at the entrance of the Hellespont. Like Achilles, he is represented as living after his death in the island of Leukê at the mouth of the Danube (Pausanias iii. 19. 11). Ajax, who in the post-Homeric legend is described as the grandson of Aeacus and the great-grandson of Zeus, was the tutelary hero of the island of Salamis, where he had a temple and an image, and where a festival called Aianteia was celebrated in his honour (Pausanias i. 35). At this festival a couch was set up, On which the panoply of the hero was placed, a practice which recalls the Roman lectisternium. The identification of Ajax with the family of Aeacus was chiefly a matter which concerned the Athenians, after Salamis had come into their possession, on which occasion Solon is said to have inserted a line in the Iliad (ii. 557 or 558), for the purpose of supporting the Athenian claim to the island. Ajax then became an Attic hero; he was worshipped at Athens, where he had a statue in the market-place, and the tribe Aiantis was called after his name. Many illustrious Athenians—Cimon, Miltiades, Alcibiades, the historian Thucydides—traced their descent from Ajax.
See D. Bassi, La Leggenda di Aiace Telamonio (1890); P. Girard, “Ajax, fils de Télamon,” 1905, in Revue des études grecques, tome 18; J. Vürtheim, De Ajacis Origine, Cultu, Patria (Leiden, 1907), according to whom he and Ajax Oïleus, as depicted in epos, were originally one, a Locrian daemon somewhat resembling the giants. When this spirit put on human form and became known at the Saronic Gulf, he developed into the “greater” Ajax, while among the Locrians he remained the “lesser.” In the article Greek Art. fig. 13 (from a black-figured Corinthian vase) represents the suicide of Ajax.
AJMERE, or Ajmer, a city of British India in Rajputana, which gives its name to a district and also to a petty province called Ajmere-Meirwara. It is situated in 26° 27′ N. lat. and 74° 44′ E. long., on the lower slopes of Taragarh hill, in the Aravalli mountains. To the north of the city is a large artificial lake called the Anasagar, whence the water supply of the place is derived.
The chief object of interest is the darga, or tomb of a famous Mahommedan saint named Mayud-uddin. It is situated at the foot of the Taragarh mountain, and consists of a block of white marble buildings without much pretension to architectural beauty. To this place the emperor Akbar, with his empress, performed a pilgrimage on foot from Agra in accordance with the terms of a vow he had made when praying for a son. The large pillars erected at intervals of two miles the whole way, to mark the daily halting-place of the imperial pilgrim, are still extant. An ancient Jain temple, now converted into a Mahommedan mosque, is situated on the lower slope of the Taragarh hill. With the exception of that part used as a mosque, nearly the whole of the ancient temple has fallen into ruins, but the relics are not excelled in beauty of architecture and sculpture by any remains of Hindu art. Forty columns support the roof, but no two are alike, and great fertility of invention is manifested in the execution of the ornaments. The summit of Taragarh hill, overhanging Ajmere, is crowned by a fort, the lofty thick battlements of which run along its brow and enclose the table-land. The walls are 2 m. in circumference, and the fort can only be approached by steep and very roughly paved planes, commanded by the fort and the outworks, and by the hill to the west. On coming into the hands of the English, the fort was dismantled by order of Lord William Bentinck, and is now converted into a sanatorium for the troops at Nasirabad. Ajmere was founded about the year 145 A.D. by Aji, a Chauhan, who established the dynasty which continued to rule the country (with many vicissitudes of fortune) while the repeated waves of Mahommedan invasion swept over India, until it eventually became an appanage of the crown of Delhi in 1193. Its internal government, however, was handed over to its ancient rulers upon the payment of a heavy tribute to the conquerors. It then remained feudatory to Delhi till 1365, when it was captured by the ruler of Mewar. In 1509 the place became a source of contention between the chiefs of Mewar and Marwar, and was ultimately conquered in 1532 by the latter prince, who in his turn in 1559 had to give way before the emperor Akbar. It continued in the hands of the Moguls, with occasional revolts, till 1770, when it was ceded to the Mahrattas, from which time up to 1818 the unhappy district was the scene of a continual struggle, being seized at different times by the Mewar and Marwar rajas, from whom it was as often retaken by the Mahrattas. In 1818 the latter ceded it to the British in return for a payment of 50,000 rupees. Since then the country has enjoyed unbroken peace and a stable government.
The modern city is an important station on the Rajputana railway, 615 m. from Bombay and 275 m. from Delhi, with a branch running due south to the Great Indian Peninsula main line. The city is well laid out with wide streets and handsome houses. The city trade chiefly consists of salt and opium. The former is imported in large quantities from the Sambar lake and Ramsur. Oil-making is also a profitable branch of trade. Cotton cloths are manufactured to some extent, for the dyeing of which the city has attained a high reputation. The educational institutions include the Mayo Rajkumar college, opened in 1875, for training the sons of the nobles of Rajputana, on the lines of an
