Ajanta & Ellora
Faith carved in stone

The caves at Ajanta and Ellora, located 70 kilometers apart in Mahara-shtra State, are within half a day's reach of Mumbai (Bombay). They are two of India's most rewarding places, guaranteed to etch memories much as these ancient monasteries, celestial figures, and sleeping quarters are hewn from the living rock.

I came to these UNESCO World Heritage Sites on advice of a colleague. It wasn't so much what he said about them as how he said it: His eyes brightened, his mouth curved upwards, and his head swayed from side to side. That was all the incentive I needed to include them on my itinerary.

The Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain caves at Ajanta and Ellora are not true caves, of course, because they are manmade. More than the centuries and the thousands of workers it took to create these places, more than the tons of displaced rock, the mere notion to build them in the first place was audacious. They are sprawling, deep, intricate, and remote.

I first visited Ajanta. At the top of a steep staircase leading to the gate, a grin as big as Ajanta's hairpin curved my lips. This response, I was sure, mimicked that of my colleague's.

The 27 Buddhist caves date from 200BC to AD650. Cleaved from volcanic rock, they swing numerically, though not chronologically, round the horseshoe gorge of the Waghora River. I followed the descriptions in the brochure included in the entry fee.

Cave number one is arguably Ajanta's finest monastery. Some visitors start at the gorge's far end so to end their visits here. Either way, it's stunning: vibrant fifth-century murals, twenty adorned pillars, five monks' cells, and a large shrine of Buddha in teaching position.

I dawdled for thirty minutes over the portraits of lotus and thunder-bolt-bearing Bodhisattvas. These ushers to Nirvana had almost guided me there when I realized that at such a snail's pace I would require fourteen hours to see all the caves.

Sixth-century cave number two was no less enthralling: more monks' cells, chapels, and a shrine room. The ceiling, supported by a dozen intricately garnished pillars, is painted with a garden of lotus flowers, medallions, and abstract geometrical patterns. I was drawn to a wall mural depicting the birth of Buddha and ano-ther representing the Miracle of Shravasti, when Buddha incarnated himself in a thous-and forms to befuddle a schismatic.

I was confounded myself. The deeper I explored, the more the dates, names, and religious significance took a backseat to simple admiration. I climbed up and down one set of steps after another, gladdened by the beauty of complete and utter devotion.

Cave 10, the oldest, dating to the second century BC, is the largest chaitya, or Buddhist temple. It has a high, ribbed ceiling, which mimics the belly of a wooden boat turned upside down. Coupled with a corridor of columns and a stupa (a Buddha-decorated pagoda) this cave is architecturally pleasing.

By the time I reached cave 27 many sweaty hours after starting out, I was drained. In the panorama, all I could see was the up and down of the kilometer walk back. I looked on with envy at elderly tourists who sat like royalty in dhoolies, chairs with long handles carried by four skinny men.

As I rested, I pondered the remarkable architecture before me. I tho- ught it astounding that it was all abruptly abandoned some 1500 years ago, left to ravaging vegetation until, in 1819, British army officers happened on them. The world hasn't stopped 'happening on them' since.

The next morning, I bumbled onto a public bus for the three-hour ride south to Aurangabad, from where I made the easy daytrip to Ellora the following day.

I set out early, wanting to make full use of my one-day visit. Forty-five minutes after depart-ing the central bus station, I was exploring cave one, a simple vihara, or monastery. Plain it is, hardly worth the glimpse really, but significant because it marks the humble beginnings of ambitious projects far grander than anything at Ajanta.

Ellora's caves are quite unlike those at Ajanta not only for their ample size or because they are free to enter (except cave 16, $10), but for their superior workmanship and the fact that three religious orders made their marks here: Buddhist (AD600-800, caves 1-12), Hindu (AD600-900, caves 13-29), and Jain (AD800-1000, caves 30-34).

The atmosphere here is different too: less hurried, more open, easier to negotiate. I put it down to the natural layout of the caves, which are dug out of a two-kilometer long north-south escarpment. Many of the caves have courtyards that on the whole make Ellora cozier and more visitor-friendly. While there is no sweeping view of all the caves as in Ajanta, there is a wonderful vista across the plains to the west.

Ellora is situated on an ancient trade route between east and west India and the caves are thought to be the work of pilgrims and priests who traveled its length. The three groups of caves are distinct. The Buddhist caves are the simplest: modest in size, design, and detail. The Hindu caves are high energy, grandiose, ostentatious. The Jain caves have exceptional detail and harmony, tempered by an overall simplicity.

Each cave is unique. Cave five, for instance, is the largest single-storied monastery in the group. It stretches 18 by 36 meters, with two rows of 10 columns, and benches or tables
that suggest the cave was used as a dining hall. Cave 10 is the only chapel in the group. It features galleries, sleeping quarters, and shrines all neatly decorated around a main hall measuring 26 by 13 meters. Cave 21 is small but boasts superb amorous sculptures in its verandah.

What a treat to ferret through the nooks and crannies of these timeless structures, a sort of stone jungle gym. I couldn't wrap my brain around the enormity and dedication of it all.

Cave 16 is quite simply one of mankind's most inspired and imaginative architectural endeavors ... ever! The magnificent Kailasanatha Temple is the world's largest monolithic sculpt-ure, hewn from the top down out of 85,000 cubic meters of rock. From the surrounding hill-side, I looked upon the astounding dimensions floodlit in the afternoon sun: 50 by 33 meters, 29 meters in height, in a courtyard 81 by 47 meters. Before sights such as this, you are shrunk by humility. A believer or not, the commit- ment commands admiration.

The temple was built over an estimated 150-year period under the orders of King Krishna I in around AD760 to represent Mount Kailasa, Shiva's Himalaya home, an actual place religiou- sly significant to both Hindus and Buddhists. It is filled with chambers and shrines with no end of details.

For many, Ajanta and Ellora's remoteness is reason enough to visit. Perhaps the pilgrims and priests who hammered out these religious houses of stone knew that one day the noise, filth, and chaos of modern India would creep up on them. But certainly, they could not have anticipated that so many visitors would one day come away from the caves with indelible grins on their faces.

Text and Photos: Jono David