From the Ajanta Caves

A plate painted with geese round the rim, each one different, in the V&A's Lockwood Kipling exhibition (museum number 15.2855.1883; photo not available) that sent me looking for its inspiration - perhaps it was inspired by these geese in a ceiling panel -

The ceiling paintings (via) in the Ajanta Caves are amazing, but good photos of them are hard to find -

The caves, east of Mumbai, were chiselled out of the rock, starting as early as the 2nd century BC; they were abandoned by about 500AD, and rediscovered by English officers during a tiger hunt in 1819. They are over 60 miles from the nearest towns, and it wasn't until 1983 that Unesco declared them a world heritage site. A brief introduction to the painting is here.

And the wall sculptures are amazing. A good selection is here. 

This one caught my eye -

Conjoined quadruplets?

The stamp was issued in 1949 -

 (via)