Ajanta's fame and Ellora's eminence

To visit some of India's most famous sights, one is sometimes forced to sojourn in the most polluted, dull towns. This is true of Agra where one must be to see the Taj Mahal. It is even more true of Aurangabad where my partner and I had to put up for a few nights to see the Ajanta and Ellora Caves.

Aurangabad gets its name from the Moghul ruler Aurangzeb who used it as a base at the end of the 17th century to subdue his enemies. The city is supposed to be on the march forward, considered India's fastest growing commercial and industrial centre, but where all this "progress" is leading to, remains an interesting question. For, south of the old ruined city, is nothing but a treeless, dusty urban sprawl with wide streets, roaring traffic and ugly concrete buildings.

The far-right Shiv Sena Party controls the local council and we felt the effect of that on our first night there. Tired and thirsty, we tried to order a beer in a restaurant and found ourselves directed to a 'permit room' at the back. It turned out to be a dark, windowless cell lit by a red light, looking for all the world what it was expected to signify in this rigid city, a den of iniquity for us sinners after the pleasures of a beer. 

The tour of the Ajanta Caves, offered by the Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation, set out at an ungodly early hour the next morning. The caves, when you first see them, lie along the sides of a horseshoe-shaped ravine surrounded by arid hills. Excavation on the 28 caves began about the 2nd century B.C, spearheaded by wealthy merchants for whom the new casteless religion offered an alluring alternative to the old hierarchical order. Once the Emperor Ashoka embraced Buddhism, other local dynasties followed suit and, in the process, Ajanta reached its heyday.

Right away, even before we entered the first cave, we saw that the tour was going to be a complete disaster. Some woman insisted that this English tour be conducted in Hindi as well and so the cowed guide tried for a compromise - half a sentence in English, half in Hindi. After a couple of caves, we decided to leave the tour altogether and go on our own. Yet, we didn't do much better this way. Ajanta is one of the most visited sites in India and there was very little leisure to study the paintings, as we were constantly jostled by the crowds.

What we did see, however, was breathtaking. As we passed through the caves, I thought of just how they had been fashioned. An army of stonemasons, with mere hand tools, had hacked through solid rock, creating a cave where none had been before. Then there was the work of the artists. They had laboured using mere oil lamps and metal mirrors, which reflected sunlight into the caves. Now seeing the paintings under electrical lights I was astounded by the sheer variety of facial features and expressions, the postures and gestures that told a story, the minute details of nature and architecture in the paintings. All this had been achieved under such difficult circumstances. 

My awe over the effort and artistry that had gone into excavating these caves rose to a new level when we visited the Ellora Caves the next day. Like Ajanta, Ellora came into being to take advantage of the busy caravan route that connected the western ports to the northern cities. Profits from this overland trade helped fuel a 500-year frenzy of artistic activity beginning midway through the 6th century A.D and continuing all the way to the end of the first millennium. While Ajanta remains famous principally for its paintings, Ellora's eminence lies in its sculpture. 

Learning from our experience at Ajanta we went on our own. We had also seen Ajanta with the heat of the noon sun, glaring off the rock, so we decided to go early in the morning. (It has always been my experience that sites are best seen in soft morning or evening light, when nature conspires to ameliorate the pleasures man has wrought). While most tourists make their way to the central Kailash temple first and then see the rest of the caves, we chose wisely to start at the first cave and proceed from there. This way as we moved from cave to cave, we saw before us the marching forward of history.

The initial cave we entered was simple, a plain, bare vihara with eight small cells and very little sculpture. The ascetic Hinayana school of Buddhism. Then as we passed into the next few caves and Mahayana Buddhism began to take over, the caves grew more elaborate- massive pillars lined with seated Buddhas, Padmapani the lotus-holding Bodhisattva, a grandly bejewelled Maitreya the Buddha-to-come and, inside the sanctum, stately Buddhas seated on thrones. As we came towards the end of the Buddhist caves, the competition with the increasing popularity of Hinduism began to make itself manifest in figures like Mahamayuri, Buddhist goddess of learning looking for all the world like Saraswathy, even seated on a peacock. 

When we stood in front of the first of the Hindu caves we breathed out in wonder. For suddenly after the serenity and sedateness of the Buddhist caves, here before us was throbbing, vital life -Durga slaying the demon buffalo, Lakshmi sitting on a lotus, her elephant attendants showering her with water, Vishnu saving the earth goddess Prithvi from the primordial flood and Shiva, Shiva everywhere -playing dice with Parvati, doing the dance of death as Nataraja, thwarting with a single toe the demon Ravana's futile attempt to shake him and his consort off their heavenly abode, Mount Kailash. 

As we moved from cave to cave it felt like a piece of music, gathering instrument after instrument as it headed towards its crescendo, which was reached when we entered the magnificent Kailash Temple. 

The first thing that struck me as I stood in the courtyard of the temple was that I would have been deeply impressed if the edifice had been constructed with bricks and mortar; but this temple, which in its entirety had been hewn from a solid rock, without any margin for error, was truly breathtaking. One hundred years and four generations of kings, craftsmen and architects had come and gone before it was completed. Most of the highlights of the temple were along its outer walls, lively panels depicting scenes from the Mahabaratha, episodes from the lives of Krishna, battle scenes from the Ramayana and, since the temple was devoted to Shiva, the same episodes from his life that I had seen before but now refined to their most exquisite.

After the dynamism of the Hindu caves, the Jain caves, which had come into being as a result of the local rulers switching from Hinduism to a sect of the Jain faith, were an anticlimax. Their quiet interiors and small scale were really Ellora's swansong and we passed quickly through them.

Back in Aurangabad, I leaned on the balcony outside my hotel room, my hands clasped, lost in contemplation at what artistry I had seen in the last two days. The sun was setting and a big neon sign came on across the street. It was for a brand new strip mall. Cosmos Avenue. 

There it lay before me squat and ugly, its pink tiled floors caked with dust. The design motif running through it was portentous, the American flag, its star and stripes repeated in endless proliferation. By the end of the last millennium, the fruits of rapid commercial expansion had produced Ajanta and Ellora; at the beginning of this new millennium they produce Cosmos Avenue.

Living in the times we do, it is sometimes hard to remember the sheer beauty and grace the human race is capable of achieving.

- Final part next week

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