the marathwada region in maharashtra not long ago was part of the erstwhile princely state of hyderabad aurangabad in marathwada and hyderabad in telangana region of andhra pradesh have a long shared history and culture truckloads of the records of mughal administration particularly of the period of shahjahan and aurangzeb found in forts and palaces of aurangabad were shifted to hyderabad during the time of the last nizam mir osman ali khan as it was the capital of the state now they form part of the state archives and research institute similarly the eye sketches of the splendid paintings of ajanta caves done by a team headed by syed ahmed were brought to hyderabad on the orders of the nizam ajanta caves and the paintings therein are considered a landmark in the history of art in india they represent a distinct dimension of buddhism paintings in the first set of caves are about 2200 years old and the second set came into being some 1500 years ago the caves because of their unique place in the history of religion and art were declared a world heritage site in 1983 there are altogether 30 caves on a range of hillocks close to waghora river they are divided into sanctuaries and a monastic complex according to unesco the wall paintings profuse and sensitive constitute the most striking artistic achievement of ajanta the caves are generally decorated with painted or sculpted figures of supple form and classic balance the refined lightness of the decoration equilibrium of the compositions marvelous beauty of the feminine figures place the paintings in the rank of masterpieces of universal pictorial art the striking beauty of the caves the paintings there and their collective importance did not escape the eyes of ghulam yazdani the first director of the department of archaeology he persuaded the nizam to allow him to document the cave paintings yazdani assigned artist syed ahmed and his team to make the canvas copies of the paintings as many of them were being damaged by the vagaries of time some 3000 paintings were drawn the next move for yazdani was to get them published they were published in four volumes from britain somewhere in the 1930s now the sad part the story half of the 3000 paintings drawn by syed ahmed mohammed jalaluddin and a few others have been on display at the state museum at public gardens for over four decades but a close look reveals that they lack in upkeep the other half are lying mostly rolled up and uncared in the stores of the museum for decades the museum officials say that in spite of their repeated requests the government has not given any money for the restoration and conservation of the paintings instead some time ago they were forced to part with several paintings which have been taken away to buddha vanam museum that is coming up in nagarjunakonda they have been told to prepare the remaining paintings for shifting to kalchakra museum