Ajanta and Ellora Caves

The rain gods have played spoilsport this season and it has become really difficult to get out during the weekends. This weekend, instead of sitting at home and staring at the dark clouds I had decided to get out of Mumbai along with my roommates Shyam and Naveen.The Ajanta and Ellora Caves seemed to be an ideal option and we started planning for the trip a week in advance. Jalgaon and Aurangabad are the nearest cities/stations to Ajanta. Although Jalgaon is closer to Ajanta, we decided to go to Aurangabad since the city itself has a lot of places of historical significance.

The train tickets were not available for the journey from Mumbai and bus is the next best option. We reached the bus stop just in time and were eager to get on board and sleep peacefully till next day morning.

We reached Aurangabad by 630 in the morning and felt a chill in the air. Aurangabad is a very well planned and developed city with wide roads and somehow reminded of the good old days in Delhi. We directly headed towards Ravi Kiran Hotel where we had booked a room over a week back on phone. It turned out that the room had been given to someone else and we decided to look around for a place to live for a day. Aurangabad offers a lot of budget and luxury hotels.The rickshaw fellow helped us check out a few hotels before we checked into Hotel Royal Palace. Having rested for a while and eaten the quintessential breakfast - Poha we started out for Ajanta which is 120 kms away from Aurangabad. We had hired a taxi for the day and were quite excited to visit the magnificent sculptures and paintings at Ajanta.

The rain gods had taken the day off for a change and it offered me a great chance to click pictures freely.We reached Ajanta by 12 noon and were surrounded by locals trying to sell stones, jewels etc. I was awe struck by the expanse of the caves and the beautiful waterfall behind the caves.

Ajanta has chaitayas (place of worship) and vihara's (place where the monks lived) from 2 different eras - Hinayanas and Mahayanas. The Hinayanas didnt believe in idol worship but made exquisite paintings depicting the life of Buddha. The paintings depict the lavish lifestyle and fashionable clothes which were prevalant during King Suddhodana's reign. The blue colour in the paintings stands out and was specially brought from Persia for the paintings. The vivid colours and intricate details in the paintings are still visible despite the wear and tear over the past 2000 years. Cave 1 depicts the most popular paintings of the disciples of Buddha.

The rest of the caves portray important events from Buddha's life like renunciation of kingdom, dedicating life to alleviate poverty etc. There is one painting where Buddha's brother is alluring him with the luxury of the kingdom and Buddha appeals to him to renounce kingdom and live a life of austerity to meet apsaras in heaven. Another painting depicts Buddha's return to his kingdom and his wife pulling back his child so that does not get influenced by his father.

The caves from the Mahayana era contain sculptures which were built in 6th century AD. The sculpture is in the form of a stupa or a statue of buddha with the hands in various formations depicting sacrifice, pain etc.

Cave 26 is one of the most beautiful caves in Ajanta and it contains a sculpture where Buddha is lying down depicting a state of Nirvana. This is one of the very such sculptures still present in the world. Another beautiful sculpture depicts Buddha being enticed by angels from the heaven and the devil from hell but Buddha is at peace with himself and does not get distracted.

We were quite tired and hungry by evening and feasted on kakdi. We reached our hotel by 8 in the evening and decided to go out for a drink. The food in Aurangabad is very spicy and oily for my taste. After eating chicken wings when I had ordered Chicken Barbeque, I realised that Dal tadka and rice is the best possible option here.

We left early next morning and took a rickshaw to take us to Ellora and other near by places. We stopped at Daulatabad fort on our way and had breakfast. We decided not to climb a million stairs at the fort and head directly to the Ellora caves. Ellora caves are spread across 30 caves with sculptures built by Hindu, Jains and Buddhists. The Hindu cave 16 has the world's largest monolithic sculpture of Shiva. The Kailash temple in Cave 16 has sculptures depicting stories from the Mahabharat and Ramayan.

The other cave in Ellora worth visiting is a Hindu Cave - Cave 26 which has some very beautiful and interesting sculptures depicting moments from Shiv and Parvati's marriage . Another sculpture shows Shiva crushing Ravana with his foot and children teasing Ravana after his loss.

The Ellora caves offers a wonderful spectacle during the monsoons with a huge waterfall amidst green surroundings.

We had to catch the Tapovan express back to Mumbai at 230 PM and hence decided to rush and catch a glimpse of Biwi Ka Maqbara - a replica of the Taj Mahal built by Aurangzeb. We stopped at the poor man's Taj for around 10 minutes and headed to the station to catch a train back to Mumbai.

This was a very short trip but I thoroughly enjoyed it and would certainly like to visit Aurangabad again when I have more time to explore.