The Caves of Ellora are located outside the city of Aurangabad (or A-grunge-abad as Jeff called it). There are a total of 34 caves located here by three different religions: Buddhism, Brahmanism (Hindu), and Jainism. The caves have been carved into the side of a hill and span about 2km.
The focal point of the caves is Cave 16 called Kailasha, a Hindu cave worked on in the 8th century. Unfortunately while we were there we were sharing the space with what felt to be 1.5 million Indian school children, so some of the grandeur was lost while we fielded questions on “What country?” “What is your name?” and queries for photos.
Caves 1-10 are Buddhist.
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| Here is Jeff in front of the first few caves, which are also the oldest. |
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| Buddha statue |
Caves 11-29 are Hindu.
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| This is from Cave 15. |
Caves 30-34 are Jain, but unfortunately the path was closed off to these caves, and the only access was by car, which we did not have. So we have no photos of the last caves. I would have liked to see the different style from that religion. Jains represent about 0.4% of the population, but Jeff and I have been surprised by how many markers of Jainism we've seen.
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| This is us before realizing we couldn't see the Jain caves. |
These monkeys were trying to catch a ride back into town. (Just kidding.)
Up next: Caves of Ajanta.
I totally know what you mean about the school kids. The Borghese Palace in Rome was one of the sites I was most looking forward to. When we finally got in, we found ourselves sharing the art experience with a ton of squealing grade schoolers : ) Was a bit distracting to say the least.
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