Aurangabad (Ellora and Ajanta)

Slowly working our way north, we arrived in Aurangabad after a night tossing and turning on the train. The principal reason for being in Aurangabad is that it makes an excellendt base for visiting the world heritage sights of Ellora and Ajanta. Our three-night stay extended in to five due to some sickness. Our bodies are taking a real beating whilst here. Thankfully the hotel was comfortable enough for us to rest up in.

On the third day we woke first thing and made the one hour journey to Ellora. Ellora is home to thirty-four caves comprising of Buddhist, Hindu and Jain. The caves were chipped right out of the mountain in labour spanning five centuries. It is believe that their coexistence signals a time of relogious tolerance.

Cave 10

We started our tour at the Buddhist caves. There were twelve in total, most were simple but the more ambitious caves were impressive. By far our favourite, so much so it is our favorite sight in India so far, was cave number 10. It was the only Chaitya (temple) in the Buddhist group and is considered one of the finest in India. It's arched ceiling once held wooden panels where now there are only grooves. It had two side isles lined with pillars and a central nave where a gigantic Buddha sat. Although relitively simplistic in comparison to other temples, the Chaitya instantly drew us in and we sat in its cool, calm sanctuary for a while. One of the incredible aspects of the temple was its acoustics, sound reverberated in the most beautiful way. We tried to imagine how incredible sermons would have sounded. Once we left the temple, we tried to describe how it had made us feel. Words included; safe, calm, small (but in a good way) and humble. The temple was such an unexected treasure, it really impacted on us both and we feel honoured to have seen it.

For us, there is less to say with regards to the other caves. We enjoyed exploring them, they are magnificent achievments, but none grabbed us like the Buddhist temple. The Hidu caves are described as dramatic and exxciting in contrast to the calm, contemplation of the Buddhist.

The grandest of them all is called the Kailasa Temple. It is the worlds largest monolithic sculpture and it took 7,000 labourers over 150 years to complete. As the numbers would suggest, the Kailase is very impressive. It is both enormous and detailed, with a level of drama which is grandeous enought to hold its own anywhere. But ask us to describe its detail more closely and we cannot, ask us to describe how it felt to enter the temple and the mind goes blank. The Kailase although impressive, as were all of the temples at Ellora, for us was not a spiritual experence. For whatever reason we are not connecting with the Hindu religion on a spirital level. This is perhaps due to a lack of understanding, some confusion with regards to their Gods, or just that it is so far removed from what we have been brought up to believe.

The folloiwing day we visited Ajanta. The journey is a somewhat grueling 3 hours by bus. Ajanta is much older than Ellora, its caves date back to 2nd Century BC. The 30 caves which make up Ajanta are all Buddhist and so, given our experience the day before, we were really looking forward to seeing them.

Again the caves were beautiful, lining a horse-shoe shaped gorge and carved directly in to the rock face, Ajanta is really something to behold. However, and rather unfortunately, the large crouds of noisy sight-seers did ot allow for the quiet connections of the day before. The caves were impressive but we were not spellbound. During the visit we became a little confused about the principles of Buddhism. Many of the temples refered to various Gods and we saw lots of depictions, that reminded us of Hinduism.

We are looking forward to learning more about Indian religions and gaining a greater understanding of their principles, practices and people.