- Lived:
- reigned c. 475–500 CE by the older reckoning, c. 460–477 by Spink's — the uncertainty is part of this chapter's story · capital at Vatsagulma (Washim, Maharashtra) → but his monument is a horseshoe gorge on the Waghora stream, at Ajanta
- Field:
- emperor of the Vākāṭaka dynasty's Vatsagulma branch; presiding patron of the painted caves of Ajanta — the greatest surviving body of ancient Indian painting
- The Big Idea:
- Almost everything that survives of ancient India's painting survives on the walls of one gorge, painted by artists whose names nobody wrote down, under one emperor whose court paid for it — and when he died, the brushes stopped.
- In their words:
- Nothing of Hariṣeṇa's own survives; the voice of his mountain belongs to its donors. The monk Buddhabhadra, over the door of Cave 26: "A man continues to enjoy himself in paradise as long as his memory is green in the world. One should therefore set up a memorial on the mountains that will endure for as long as the moon and the sun continue."
- If you remember one thing:
- The names on Ajanta's walls are all patrons — an emperor, a minister, a prince, a monk. The painters, among the greatest who ever lived anywhere, are anonymous to the last brushstroke — and the last brushstroke, quite possibly, was left hanging in mid-air.