Ajanta caves are one of the masterpieces created by the Buddhists in the 5th century. Here, the caves are painted in rich hues and colours. After they were created, they were abandoned as there was decline of Buddhism and discovered accidentally in 1819 after almost 1000 years. What can happen in 1000 years is anyone’ guess. Whatever is remaining is sufficient to give an idea of the richness of expressions and culture and prosperity at that time.
There have been two sects in Buddhism, Heenyana and Mahayana. In the times of Heenyana, the Stupas were worshiped. In the time of Mahayana, Buddha’ image has been worshiped. In Ajanta caves, one can find both. In some of the caves, there are sculptures of Buddha in the teaching pose and paintings all around, on the walls and on the ceilings. The paintings depict the stories covering the life of Buddha, the Jataka tales which tell the stories of the previous lives of Buddha. Because of the time involved and the fact that they were discovered after 1000 years, there are very few paintings which can be comprehended completely, and they are magical! The expressions of Bodhisattva’s, the queen , the Buddha , all seem so real. One feels one is reading a book of the stories of Buddha. The sad part is there is not sufficient light in the caves to really be able to see them. One needs a guide, they know in detail, and they carry a battery which helps to really see the details. Hiring a guide really helps, but if you don’t intend to, do take a battery with you to be able to make the most of it.
The Ajanta caves are a world heritage site. So, the treatment is really good. The place is very well maintained, proper pathways are there, it is clean, the guides are available at standard rates etc. There is a restaurant run by the tourism department of Maharashtra state. The caves are very much inside from the parking place, there are buses; AC as well as non AC bringing the tourists at the entrance and taking back to the parking lot. Buses are frequent. Everything is properly planned. So much so that even if you go on a holiday when the caves are closed, the buses will take you inside. You can move around, there is a beautiful waterfall, plenty of trees and variety of birds except that the restaurant is also closed. So if you happen to go there on a Monday, which is a official holiday, do pack your food as there are very few restaurants close to the place.
And one can do shopping for some exquisite stones here. There are plenty of shops near the parking area selling wares made in stone and stones obtained from nearby mining places. Everyone seems to be an expert in that. And their formula for attracting customers is very interesting. When you come first time unaware of what is there, they will give you a small stone with shining crystals inside. You are quite happy to see that and return with thanks, they will say keep it mam, its a present but do come to my shop when you come back and in their shop there are plenty of these in many more colours and sizes and if you love this stuff, you will end up spending money and time here. They will tell astronomically high price and you have to shamelessly tell them the real price by removing many zeroes from the figure they quote 
.
Unknowingly, we landed there on a Monday, a holiday. The place was deserted but buses were running, so we spent some time seeing other things. There are two routes one can take to reach the caves. The road is same, but some 8-10 km before reaching what they call the T Junction, there is a road on your left going to View Point. One gets a very good view of the whole area where the caves are. There are steps to climb down and reach the caves from this point. If one is on private vehicle with a driver, they can send the driver to come to the parking lot near the T-Junction. The steps down are all surrounded by greenery so it is a good adventurous route by itself. We came to know of this option only later.
By afternoon we came back and found to our surprise that the resort run by Tourism department near the parking lot does not have a restaurant and one has to go make some other arrangements. But surprisingly, there was another resort of the government just half a kilometer away, where one could get meals. The rooms were much cheaper there. On enquiring, we found there is yet another one again at a distance of half a km from this one. So, there are three resorts in the distance of one and a half kilometer only run by the government. I could not get the logic right. Ajanta caves are around 110 kms from Aurangabad city. Going back and coming next day was one option but we chose to stay back to save time. Choosing from one of three resorts was easy as only one of them had the TV facility with the cable connection showing India Pakistan final match of the T20 world cup. This resort is the one nearest to the caves. We packed the food stuff for the night and landed in the otherwise deserted resort, only one more room was occupied and people living there did not choose this resort for the match.
Next day, the caves were waiting to be explored. I am glad we took a guide. Some of the caves are really big ones, 50ft deep and 10ft high. No doubt, it took so many years to construct these. Unbelievably beautiful paintings adorn the walls and ceilings of these caves. Whatever paintings are remaining (most of them have simply disappeared), they are very rich story tellers. Of-course, the guide knew the story and had the battery to focus on the different aspects like the expressions, the jewelry, the kind of clothes people wore at that time, how the palaces were constructed, the two storey complexes in the palaces etc. The finest example is one of the paintings of the Bodhisattva. It is so vivid in expression and perfection, that is difficult to imagine it was done so early in time with no great tools.
Some of the caves are in the form of Viharas where there is a huge area in the centre, there is a sculpture of Buddha in teaching posture at the centre end of the cave. All around on the walls and the ceilings, there are beautiful paintings. There are small rooms lining the left and right walls of the caves. They have stone beds. These were for the monks to meditate.( I was reminded of the Vipasana center in Igatpuri where in the dormitory meant for the meditators, they have similar setup, but in the open and not closed small rooms and with a comfortable bedding over it.) The paintings on the ceiling were mainly in small regular square shapes depicting floral patterns, fruits and some geometric patterns. The pillars of the Viharas were also very beautifully done. They had very proper geometric pattern, eight faces at the lowest, then 32 faces and then more at the top. And on the top of the pillars were carvings of human figures or animal figures.
Other caves are in the form of Stupas, where there is a pillar in the center and the walls around are again done in rich paintings. These caves are normally smaller compared to the Viharas.
The tourism department has come up with a plan to make the replica of these paintings and display them at an alternate site which is getting developed very close to where Ajanta caves are. The project has just started and hopefully this will attract many more tourists to this place. When there are many tourists, the caves are really not comfortable as it becomes very claustophobic and one can not even breathe easily. So they leave people in batches. But with alternate site, this problem will be taken care of.
Near Aurangabad, there are also Ellora caves which we could not explore as we could not plan properly. So next time we should do Ellora along with some other places in the city like Bibi Ka Makbara, a Taj Mahal lookalike, Pavanchakki and few more.
Some pictures of this trip are Here
