We set off in style for the two hour beautiful drive from Aurangabad to Ajanta. As you wind down through the hills there is a terrible carparking area which is carefully designed so you have to walk through the 'shopping complex'/hassle city in order to get to toilets and bus which takes everyone the last four kilometres. Then the wiry men with cushioned chairs on bamboo poles approached us eagerly, pointing to the steep steps, and mum was persuaded to be carried up and along past the twenty plus caves. I had a brief ride and it was pretty bumpy and made all the Indians laugh. Up the steps and 200 rupees later we entered the main complex where you get the overview of how the whole place was carved above a bend in the river. You can imagine the British tiger hunting party coming across it, glimpsing one of the massive carved enclosures from the hilltop opposite and then beating through the jungle to discover the rest. The guide even shows the signature left by John Smith at the time.
Each cave has its own character and distinctive features, a few traces of exquisite painting remaining in the later ones, the earlier ones only carved but no less massive. And towards the end of the site there were a few unfinished caves, one with a half-hewn bodhisattva, which gave a sense of how they were constructed from the top down. Apparently the lucrative trade route which had supported the monks and the craftsmen from 2nd cenury BC to 6th century AD was no longer safe and everyone suddenly relocated to Ellora. I found a quiet place to do some chanting and felt the history of practice there, which was refreshing after the overload of information and noisy school parties. We only saw one pilgrim group, looked Tibetan but were from Ladakh and very devout.
The next day took us to Ellora to see the development of carving skills from 6th-13th century AD and the shift in religion from Buddhist to Hindu to Jain, but with a sense of them all co-existing. Our guide took us to the Jain side first, saving the central Hindu sites until later in the day when the sun would be on them for better viewing. A lot of similarity in the iconography between Buddhism and Jain: central images flanked by two supporters, with familiar mudras and animals below the throne. I disappeared into the simpler Buddhist cells to do some chanting and listen to the echoes, then emerged prepared for the glorious Kailash temple which took 1500 workers seven working generations to complete. It was jawdropping to realise that the whole place had been carved out of the basalt with hammer and chisel. An entire temple at least three storeys high, surrounded by cloisters depicting scenes from the Ramayana and Mahabharat. More overload of information and the place was hugely crowded on a Sunday, but we made it to the central linga to receive the blessings of the place.
