Jeremy Lim Wen Jie.
26th April 1986
and blah blah.
cowfun@gmail.com
Some Background Info:
Ellora (Marathi: वेरूळ) is an archaeological site, 30 km (19 mi) from the city of Aurangabad in the Indian state of Maharashtra built by the Rashtrakuta Dynasty. Famous for its monumental caves, Ellora is a World Heritage Site.
Ellora represents the epitome of Indian rock-cut architecture. The 34 "caves" – actually structures excavated out of the vertical face of the Charanandri hills – being Buddhist, Hindu and Jain cave temples and monasteries, were built between the 5th century and 10th century. The 12 Buddhist (caves 1–12), 17 Hindu (caves 13–29) and 5 Jain caves (caves 30–34), built in proximity, demonstrate the religious harmony prevalent during this period of Indian history.
Early on the Saturday morning, we made our way down to the yellow school bus. I was still feeling very tired from the late night as we wanted to complete our assignments before the trip so we could enjoy ourselves on trip, free of any unfinished work. We reached the hotel at about noon. I felt that the hotel rooms were quite good. I immediately went to freshen up, had lunch at the restaurant at the hotel and we were all set for our visit to the caves.
Our destination for the day would be the caves at Ellora. So far I had only saw pictures of the insides of the cave from the lecture the day before and so when I had a first look at the mountain structure as a whole with the caves located all around, I thought it looked really scenic.
We started of by going to visit the Buddhist Caves. Due to the shortage of time, we decided to only go into the important caves. Some of the caves that we visited were cave 5, 10 and 16.
Cave 5
What I liked about the caves was the structure of the pillars. They were all carved out of the rock with precision and each one looked very alike to each other. It was quite amazing.Next we went to cave 10. This is supposedly the most famous of the Buddhist caves there. It’s a double story chaitya hall and the main carving would be the a huge statue of Buddha seated in the middle. I enjoyed looking at the cave as a whole and was impressed at the great detail that was done. Even the roof was craved to give an impression that you were actually inside a Buddhist monastery.
From there we moved on to see the Hindu caves. The one that I was really impressed with would be cave 16. This was actually a temple that was carved out of a single rock from the top to the bottom. It was very amazing to see how symmetrical and well defined the temple was. We started off from the bottom of the temple. I liked how each of the pillars and the walls were actually sculptures of animals which actually represented them holding up the pillars. We took some photos at the bottom and slowly made our way up to the second story. The second story was filled with Hindu carvings depicting some of the mythologies and significant events. The one that left the deepest impression on me was the carving of the Lord Shiva and his wife Parvati. The carving was supposed to be about their wedding and what struck me was how the sculptor was so detailed that he was able to portray Parvati’s shyness through her feet. Following that we went up to the second story. The second story was more of a temple with a shrine. There we had to take off our shoes to enter a dark room where we observed some of the people making prayers there. It was at this cave that we spent the most time because it was truly a magnificent feat that was performed so long ago.
The last part of the day was spent visiting the Jain Temples, which was at a different part Ellora so we took a bus there. There were not so many sculptures at the Jain temple. However what differed was the detailed artwork which we did not really observe in the other caves.
The second destination of this trip would be the Ajanta Caves located just outside the village of Ajantha in the district of Aurangabad. These caves were also identified as a world heritage site.
The View From Opposite the Hill
We were first brought to a hill opposite the Ajanta caves. From the edge of the hills we could see the whole stretch of caves which were cut out from the mountain and yet seem to still blend in with the mountain. Standing on that point, we were told that it was here that a British officer, while hunting a tiger had rediscovered the caves in 1819. I felt that the view from the opposite of the mountain was really breathtaking. From there we took a hike down by the mountain path towards the caves.
We started off by visiting the cave right at the end first before making our way out. The first cave we entered, there was a carving of Gautama Buddha lying on his side. This was one of the larger sculptures that we saw throughout because the rest of the caves were focused more on the paintings instead of sculptures.
We went through the rest of the caves until we reach caves number 1 and 2 that I felt were the 2 most well decorated caves there. Both of which had very elaborate sculptures on the outside and an interior with preserved paintings depicting some of the ancient themes of stories from Gautama Buddha’s existence.
After spending nearly two whole days at this two very scenic monuments in the state of Maharashtra, one cannot help but feel overwhelmed by its rich culture and heritage. There is so much history and Indian mythology which can be depicted from the pieces of art which were displayed in the caves or was actually the cave itself. Looking at how exquisite and elaborate each of the sculptures and painting were done, I would still feel amazed and admiration for the high quality of art that can be produced on those rocks without today’s technology.
posted by Jeremy | 5:58 PM