111. CAVE EXPLORERS - MY 12th TRIP

The Ajanta and Ellora Caves are carved out of  solid rock. The Ajanta depicts Buddhism, The Ellora is more Hinduism. Both are UNESCO World Heritage sites. Ajanta is at least a 3 hour ride from Aurangabad the closest city. Ellora is closer to town, under an hour's drive.

The Ajanta series of caves are on a cliff. The road leading to it is quite an uphill climb. Mercifully, the weather was a dry heat and inside each cave, it was cool and so dark in some - we needed a torch - it's amazing how the artisans did their work with limited lighting and still produced realistic images...

The Caves were excavated between the 2nd and 6th C.AD...Ellora has 9 caves to explore, many were never completed. 
They were used as viharas (monasteries) all are vacant now and are major tourist attractions.








 

 

A good many rock figures are gargantuan ones... I always enjoy my field trips to India's ancient heritage sites. Most are temples or caves like these...these are museums...

As they are usually carved from rock, it's hard to fix those that are broken or incomplete as the cement will show. And being rock, they're never painted and what's left is genuine, unlike some places elsewhere in Asia which look fake and brand new after they've been tampered with.

When you've seem Ajanta and Ellora, Elephanta Island pales by comparison. This is about a 45min boat ride from Mumbai's well-known landmark The Gateway, by the Arabian Sea.

It's not worth the crush with hordes of local tourists who elbow you out of the way. The ferries were dangerously overcrowded - there are accidents waiting to happen...

Daulatabad Fort is a medieval structure built on a hill, where else? So more climbing and walking to get into the interior of this sprawling complex.

The area sits in the middle of scrubland, part of the Deccan Plateau. It's arid and terribly hot in Summer.
The entire place reeked of bat guano - the wind carrying it over a wide area.

Ellora Caves - more pics...

Similar 3 and 4 headed carvings can be seen in Angkor (post 92). It's quite wonderful that the Ancients produced similar artwork in areas separated by many thousands of miles of mountain ranges and water at a period where there was no quick nor easy communication. It's almost as if the wonderful artisans and craftspeople were the same folks who travelled those vast distances to carve out of solid rock, more dedications to their scriptures...

A huge lotus carved into the ceiling of this cave...most other caves I've seen are huge cavernous openings filled with Mother's artwork - crystalised fossilised mineralised stonework - no less beautiful...with Ellora and Ajanta - it's creativity of the human species painstaking and patient work with limited tools and poor lighting. Some places have caves with nothing worth looking at so the enterprising humans install figures and turn them into places of worship and pligrimage with donation boxes

At this cave entrance, some painting work was being carried out to restore some paintings on old plaster which had fallen off one can see the cement work and fresh paint...

The Taj Hotel in Mumbai - a place some would rather forget. Security into it is now very tight but I walked in and took a look around the huge lobby and shopping arcade. I've been in here 3 times now and its splendor is still there...it's wonderful bookshop is still there...