Ajanta Caves

A couple of years ago, Laura and I attended an art history lecture on the Ajanta caves. Though the lecture was not stellar, the images were burned into my brain. Thus, the Ajanta caves made it onto our top ten list. India was difficult, Aurangabad (where the caves are located) was double so, but the visit to the Ajanta and Ellora caves was worth it.

The Ajanta Caves are a complex of Buddhist rock-cut viharas and chaityas, with the earliest dated to the 2nd century BC. Over the next 900 years, some thirty caves were cut into the cliffs above a horseshoe bend in the river. Most of the caves are monasteries, viharas, which were used during the rainy season. The windowless cells for the monks are accessed through small doorways in the wall (you can see one at the end of the row of columns in this image). Even with artificial lights, a cave monastery seems a rather dark and dank place.

A few are chaityas, temples with stupas inside and without the living spaces for monks.

The caves, carved directly out of the rock, are richly decorated with sculptures but Ajanta is particularly known for its paintings. The caves are sparsely lit to protect the paintings and flash cameras are not allowed so our pictures do not do the images justice. The lapus lazuli remains particularly vibrant after all of this time.

This sculpture of the Buddha at the moment of his parinirvana is the one that stuck with me after the lecture. It is in the very last cave; finding it felt like finding an old friend.

One of the most fascinating things to me about the Ajanta caves was the sheer number of scantily clad women adorning the monastic walls. Buddhism is a religion that rejects sensual pleasures, especially for monks. It seems particularly mean to surround celibate monks with such images. As latter day visitors, we enjoyed pointing out each well-endowed figure.

We had a great time touring Ajanta and other heritage sites in India but there were a few frustrating elements. Foreigners have to pay 25 to 30 times the rate that Indians pay. As someone who doesn't pay taxes to support the sites, I don't mind paying a higher fee. Such a large discrepancy did get annoying though. We were also approached in almost every cave by someone offering to be our tour guide. Saying "no, thank you" did little to dissuade them. Repeatedly saying no would often result in them telling us how little we would enjoy the caves without their expertise. In some instances, they were likely right but we enjoy meandering slowly through a site, picking out images we know, and referring to books for those we don't. We overheard one foreigner telling a would-be guide that his visit was being ruined by the pestering, not the lack of knoweldge. This was a sentiment that we agreed with. Finally, a few sites were well sign-posted but, for the most part, it was not readily evident what our higher fee was paying for. These were small frustrations in view of the granduer of the sites but they did detract from the overall experience.