This weekend we took a roadtrip to see the caves at Ellora and Ajanta. These are rock-cut caves, cut right of a cliff face at two sites about 200 kms away from Pune. The caves are incredible, even after hearing about them, and reading about them, we had no idea of the scale, detail, and absolute impressiveness. Behind me you can see some of the cave faces in the cliffs. This is the coolest man-made thing I have seen in India. There is really just too much to say about the caves, so I will just do a few brief highlights, with lots of pictures.
Ellora There are about 30 caves at each site. Andy kept making me pose with the pictures so you could tell the scale of things. Most of the temples at Ellora are 2-3 stories, and they are all filled with sculpture and detail everywhere, and you can see that many of them used to be painted as well. Ellora is also a World Heritage site, and there are always rumors that it will be closed to the public for preservation.
Every wall, column, nook, or available piece of anything is decorated. The imagery here is Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain. Different religions used the area in different times, and each made their own caves. I read the originally the caves probably started out as a temporary home for monks who were passing through, and then became permanent homes and temples.
Some are smaller, just fairly modest carved out chambers, and then there is the main temple pictured here, which is free-standing, carved right out of the cliffs, and took lifetimes to finish.
Ajanta The caves at Ajanta are known more for their paintings, which have been preserved wonderfully, I think mostly because the caves were "lost" in the jungle for about a thousand years until the British re-discovered them.
But the sculpture and architecture there are just as amazing as at Ellora, there is just as much detail in everything, and the site is right over a river, and much more naturally spectacular.
We spent about 5 hours at Ellora, and were literally kicked out 15 minutes after closing. The next day at Ajanta we shared a taxi with a couple of guys and had to leave after about 4 hours. We could have easily spent the entire day at each of these sites. We just sort of got the main overview and feel for the place.
This weekend we took a roadtrip to see the caves at Ellora and Ajanta. These are rock-cut caves, cut right of a cliff face at two sites about 200 kms away from Pune. The caves are incredible, even after hearing about them, and reading about them, we had no idea of the scale, detail, and absolute impressiveness. Behind me you can see some of the cave faces in the cliffs. This is the coolest man-made thing I have seen in India. There is really just too much to say about the caves, so I will just do a few brief highlights, with lots of pictures.
Ellora There are about 30 caves at each site. Andy kept making me pose with the pictures so you could tell the scale of things. Most of the temples at Ellora are 2-3 stories, and they are all filled with sculpture and detail everywhere, and you can see that many of them used to be painted as well. Ellora is also a World Heritage site, and there are always rumors that it will be closed to the public for preservation.
Every wall, column, nook, or available piece of anything is decorated. The imagery here is Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain. Different religions used the area in different times, and each made their own caves. I read the originally the caves probably started out as a temporary home for monks who were passing through, and then became permanent homes and temples.
Some are smaller, just fairly modest carved out chambers, and then there is the main temple pictured here, which is free-standing, carved right out of the cliffs, and took lifetimes to finish.
Ajanta The caves at Ajanta are known more for their paintings, which have been preserved wonderfully, I think mostly because the caves were "lost" in the jungle for about a thousand years until the British re-discovered them.
But the sculpture and architecture there are just as amazing as at Ellora, there is just as much detail in everything, and the site is right over a river, and much more naturally spectacular.
We spent about 5 hours at Ellora, and were literally kicked out 15 minutes after closing. The next day at Ajanta we shared a taxi with a couple of guys and had to leave after about 4 hours. We could have easily spent the entire day at each of these sites. We just sort of got the main overview and feel for the place.
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