We spent a couple of days in Aurangabad in Maharashtra (about a 30-minute plane ride from Bombay). The reason was that we wanted to visit the Ajanta & Ellora caves... It was quite a fantastic place - yet another nomination for the greatest wonders of the world!
A very sad piece of news, though, was the earthquake in Sumatra and the resulting tidal wave (tsunami) that has killed over 24,000 people in South and South-east Asia. India has been badly affected (over 7000 dead) and the country is in mourning. We are going to Goa next and will try and stay away from the water as much as possible. One of our next stops in January is Thailand which has been badly affected as well - we're currently keeping tabs on the situation to figure out whether we should just go to Bangkok or venture to southern Thailand (Ko Tao on the Gulf of Thailand is/was our destination).
Aurangabad itself has quite a history. It was founded by Aurangzeb, one of the last Mughal emperors, as a base for his Deccan war campaigns. Mohammed bin Tughlaq decided (for some reason) to move his capital from Delhi to Aurangabad (thanks to my dad for the correction!). So he marched several hundreds of thousands of people 1400 kilometers (900 miles) from Delhi to Aurangabad - they dropped like flies along the way. 17 years later, he realized his mistake and marched the survivors back to Delhi! Right now, it draws a large horde of tourists intent on seeing Ajanta & Ellora. It also draws a large number of manufacturing companies (both Indian and multi-national). Over the last decade, Aurangabad has become a hub for industrial activity, with factories from Bajaj and many other manufacturing companies. Above, you see a photo of dawn breaking (literally) over Aurangabad. All the dawns we've seen around the world (so far) have been completely different from each other and quite fantastic.
On the way to Ellora, we stopped at Daulatabad fort, built by Mohammad bin Tughlaq in the 10th/11th century (I think). Nice fort with a steep climb to the top. There were several dark passageways with lots of bats hanging from the ceiling and some even flying by. These passages also smelt of bat guano... quite revolting! One of the photos on the left shows the bridge over the moat around the fort.
On the first day, we visited Ellora. Ellora has a series of 32 Buddhist, Jain & Hindu caves which have been carved out of a mountainside.
These were built from AD800 to AD1100 under the patronage of various kings of these 3 faiths. The most impressive is the Kailash temple which took 150 years and 7000 people to build. Kailash was literally cut-out of the mountain - the artistes started at the top of the mountain and carved their way in - they therefore did not need any scaffolding - the way they put it, they "freed" the temple from the mountain! Just imagine starting with the side of a mountain and ending up with what you see in the photos above. Many of the other temples were cut-in i.e. the workers started cutting in from the side (not from the top).
On the second day, we visited Ajanta. The Ajanta caves are all Buddhist and were built from AD300 to AD900. As opposed to carvings, Ajanta is knows for its intricate wall paintings depicting the Buddha and his Boddhisattvas (or previous incarnations), including Padmapani and others. The caves were discovered by a solder in 1858 who was tiger hunting around the Waghuri river and happened to chance upon a large doorway to one of the caves. The paintings show how the artists of that time had proper knowledge of lighting and 3-D perspectivie in their paintings. The insides of the caves have been carved out into chambers which hold rooms for Buddhist monks to meditate in (chaityas) and rooms for the monks to live in (viharas). With its The intricate paintings, great colours and patterned pillars, Ajanta was even more impressive than Ellora!
While in Aurangabad, we also saw Aurangzeb's wife's tomb - Bibi ka maqbara. It looks like a mini Taj Mahal! Quite cool.
Anyway, this was a great visit. On to Goa now for New Year's festivities!
-Dev
it was not aurangzeb but mohammed bin tughlaq who changed his capital to daulatabad.aurangzeb lived here because he got bogged down in the deccan campaigns for a long time.
Posted by: santosh kumar | Thursday, December 30, 2004 at 02:33 AM