Had a 4am wake-up call in order to leave the hotel at 5am for an hour drive to the airport. Departed at 7am and arrived in Aurangabad at 8:15. Transferred to our beautiful hotel, the Taj Residency. This hotel is so tranquil that I’d love to stay here for several days although there’s no reason to be in Aurangabad other than use it as a launching pad for day trips to Ellora and Ajanta, which is why we’re here. Our rooms are down a long open corridor with bougainvilleas on one side and a huge beautiful pool on the other (our room looks out at the pool), very reminiscent of the Caribbean, and they are so far from the lobby that it seems like a 15 minute walk to reach them.
After check in we returned excitedly to the van for our afternoon at Ellora. Ellora is 18 miles from Aurangabad. Getting to Ellora and Ajanta has been a dream for me (as was getting to Borodudur in Indonesia) since taking a class on Buddhist Art several years ago. When I heard the explanation of how they were created I was simply amazed. I never thought I’d ever see them.
But suddenly there I was at one of the world’s most spectacular places – the “caves” of Ellora, a misnomer because many are not caves at all. They are either “cut-out monoliths” or “cut-in monoliths”. The first means that temples were cut down from above into the rock, the second mean that temples were cut in from the front of the rock.
The “cut out monoliths” are completely amazing feats of human imagination and engineering. Someone conceived a temple in three-dimensions and then figured out how cut down into rock so that the temple was created in one piece without mistake. Our guide, Mamoud, was very effective in describing how the temples were created, the meaning of the carvings, the various religions represented (Jainism, Brahmanism and Buddhism) and informing us about the history of Ellora.
Our first visit was to Cave #32, known as Indra Sabha, Assembly Hall of Indra, king of the gods - what Mamod affectionately termed as our “appetizer”. This Jain monastery was built in 10-11th century AD. Jain priests cannot eat meat. They can’t eat anything grown in (under) the ground. They cannot do anything that might kill a living being. They cannot walk outside after sunset for fear of accidentally killing a life.
Then on to our “main course” – the spectacular cave #16 - Shiva Temple Kailash. Mt. Kailash in the Himalayas is the mythical abode of Shiva. This is one of India’s most famous monuments. This vast temple is formed from one piece of rock and 3,000,000 cubic feet of rock were quarried to create it. The temple actually consists of three building connected by an overhead bridge. We walked around the lower level which is ringed by elephant carvings, then climbed inside one of the chambers to see beautiful elephant painted overhead (our day of paintings will be tomorrow at Ajanta). The entire structure reminded me of wedding cake because it was so richly carved on the sides and on top and I was eager to climb up on the hillside to get an overhead view. While we were touring we met a group of Indians, mostly women and children, who were eager to have their pictures taken with us. As coincidences will have it, we learned that they were tourists from Orissa (near Puri) and our guide explained that we had just returned from there. We took lots of pictures together, occasionally the women would hug one of us which was very sweet, and then waved to each other until parting.
For dessert, we entered the Buddhist chaitya, cave #10, from approx. 7th c AD. I thought the following was interesting so I will quote from my guidebook: “This cave temple is dedicated to Vishwarkarma, the architect of the gods and the patron saint of many Indian artisans even today, but having no connection with the Buddhist pantheon. This commingling of concepts, which the Mahayana system initiated, resulted finally in the absorption of Buddhism in the current of Hindu thought and its virtual extinction in the land of its birth.” I quote this because we spent a lot of time discussing religion with Mamod and one of the puzzles is why did Buddhism, which arose in India, eventually disappear from India, and Hinduism, which preceded Buddhism, continue to flourish?
Mamod had us sit quietly at the base of the pillars, as Buddhist monks would have done. Be began to chant, sing really in a basso voice, and his voice reverberated beautifully throughout the chaitya. I can’t describe how beautiful it was; he went on for quite some time and I think all of us left having had a very special experience.
As we walked back toward our van I noticed the beginning of the pathway leading up above the Kailash temple. Cliff was game to go, so we climbed to the top with Mamod who knew exactly the right spots to stop along the way for photos.
The views were extraordinary. In fact this has to be my favorite memory of the trip. Seeing Kailash from above – the beauty of the carvings – the size and scale of it all – and marveling at how this temple could be formed by digging downward from the spot where we were standing.
We returned to the hotel and headed straight for the bar. We could see a beautiful buffet set up on the lawn outside and decided to try it. It turns out we were the only people having dinner that night and there must have been four dinner buffet tables set up. We were given a menu with 25 items on it and were told we should select the dishes we wanted and the food would be brought to us. I jokingly said “we’ll have one of each” and somehow this became a reality. A taste of each and every dish on the menu was bought over, one by one, for what seemed like hours. It was the meal that never ended. Every dish was wonderful. We staggered back to our rooms after a wonderful day of exploring and eating.
