Home | About Us | Contact Us | Reservation| Email

Tourism of India

India is a vast country and its physical boundries are spread far and wide. This mystic land is blessed with diverse climatic conditions and varied geographical patterns. India is mainly talked in terms of North India and South India as there are marked differences between South and North.
India Tour Packages
Rajasthan Tour Packages
Indian Wildlife Tours
Kerala Tour Packages
Goa Tour Packages
Taj Mahal Tour Packages
Indian Pilgrimage Tours
Short Tour Packages
Tourism of Indias
Indian Wildlife Resorts
Indian Wildlife Parks
Luxury Hotels in India
Indian Adventures
Indian Monuments
Indian Festivals
Indian Luxury Trains
Taj Mahal Agra
Tourism of India —› Monuments in India —› Ajanta Ellora Caves

Monuments in India

Ajanta Ellora Caves

Way back in1819, a party of British army officers on a tiger hunt in the forest of western Deccan, suddenly spotted their prey, on the far side of a loop in the Waghora river. High up on the horseshoe- shaped cliff, the hunting party saw the tiger, silhouetted against the carved façade of a cave.

On investigating, the officers discovered a series of carved caves, each more dramatic than the other. Hewn painstakingly as monsoon retreats or varshavasas for Buddhist monks, the cave complex was continuously lived in from 200 BC to about AD650. There are thirty caves, including some unfinished ones. Of the Ajanta caves, five are chaityas or prayer halls and the rest are viharas or monasteries.

Hinayana and Mahayana

The Ajanta caves resolve themselves into two phases, separated from each other by a good four hundred years. These architectural phases coincide with the two schools of Buddhist thought, the older Hinayana school where the Buddha was represented only in symbols like the stupa, a set of footprints or a throne, and the later Mahayana sect which did not shy away from giving the Lord a human form.

Hinayana

Among the more prominent Hinayana caves are those numbered 9, 10 (both chaityas), 8, 12, 13 and 15 (all viharas). The sculpted figures in these caves are dressed and coiffed in a manner reminiscent of the stupas at Sanchi and Barhut, indicating that they date back to the first or second century BC.

Mahayana

The Mahayana monasteries include 1, 2, 16 and 17, while the chaityas are in caves 19 and 26. The caves, incidentally, are not numbered chronologically but in terms of access from the entrance. A terrqaced path of modern construction connects the caves, but in ancients times, each cave was accessed from the riverfront by individual staircases.

The sculptures and paintings in the caves detail the Buddha's life as well as the lives of the Buddha in his previous births, as related in the allegorical Jataka tales. You will also find in the caves a sort of illuminated history of the times - court scenes, street scenes, cameos of domestic life and even animal and bird studies come alive on these unlit walls.

The caves including the unfinished ones are thirty in number, of which five (9, 10, 19, 26 and 29) are chaitya-grihas and the rest are sangharamas or viharas (monasteries). After centuries of oblivion, these caves were discovered in AD 1819.

They fall into two distinct phases with a break of nearly four centuries between them. All the caves of the earlier phase date between 2nd century BC-AD.

The caves of the second phase were excavated during the supremacy of the Vakatakas and Guptas. According to inscriptions, Varahadeva, the minister of the Vakataka king, Harishena (c. 475-500 AD), dedicated Cave 16 to the Buddhist sangha while Cave 17 was the gift of the prince, a feudatory.

An inscription records that- Buddha image in Cave 4 was the gift of some Abhayanandi who hailed from Mathura.

A few paintings which survive on the walls of Caves 9 and 10 go back to the 2nd century BC-AD. The second group of the paintings started in about the fifth century AD and continued for the next two centuries as, noticeable in later caves.

The themes are intensely religious in tone and centre round Buddha, Bodhisattvas, incidents from the life of Buddha and the Jatakas. The paintings are executed on a ground of mud-plaster in the tempera technique.

About 107 kms. from the city of Aurangabad, the rock-cut caves of Ajanta nestle in a panoramic gorge, in the form of a gigantic horseshoe. Among the finest examples of some of the earliest Buddhist architecture, caves-paintings and sculptures, these caves comprise Chaitya Halls, or shrines, dedicated to Lord Buddha and Viharas, or monasteries, used by Buddhist monks for meditation and the study of Buddhist teachings.

The paintings that adorn the walls and ceilings of the caves depict incidents from the life of the Buddha and various Buddhist divinities. Among the more interesting paintings are the Jataka tales, illustrating diverse stories relating to the previous incarnations of the Buddha as Bodhisattva, a saintly being who is destined to become the Buddha.

Ajanta has two kinds of Caves:

» Finished Caves

» Unfinished Caves


··» Monuments in India —› Humayun's Tomb, Delhi —› India Gate, Delhi —› Khajuraho Temples —› Konark Temple —› Lake Palace, Udaipur —› Qutub Minar, Delhi —› Taj Mahal, Agra —› Umaid Bhawan Palace, Jodhpur —› Ajanta Ellora —› Charminar, Hyderabad —› Fatehpur Sikri, Agra —› Gateway of India, Mumbai


Rajasthan Tourism IndiaKerala Tourism IndiaTribals IndiaHoneymoon in IndiaTrains in India
India Tour Packages Rajasthan Tour Packages Indian Wildlife Tours Kerala Tour Packages
More Indian Tour Packages.. More Rajasthan Tour Packages.. More Wildlife Tour Packages.. More Kerala Tour Packages..
Goa Tour Packages Taj Mahal Tour Packages Indian Pilgrimage Tours Short Tour Packages
More Goa Tour Packages.. More Taj Mahal Tour Packages.. More Pilgrimage Tour Packages.. More Short Tour Packages..
Indian Wildlife Resorts Indian Wildlife Parks Luxury Hotels in India Indian Adventures
Indian Monuments Indian Festivals Indian Luxury Trains Taj Mahal Agra
North India Travel Guide South India Travel Guide East India Travel Guide West India Travel Guide
Home | About Us | Contact Us | Reservation| Email
 Copyright © Tourism of India. All Rights Reserved
 
Web Site Designed by -----------------------
Rate Our Site (10 is the Best, 0 the Worst)