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“Us and a wedding party and some Buddhist walk into a bar...” |
Us and a wedding party and some Buddhist monks walk into a bar...well, maybe just a restaurant. We based ourselves in Aurangabad to visit ancient temples carved into rock ledges at Ellora and Ajanta. Aurangabad itself is a very gritty city, and we gave in to wearing bandanas over our mouths to keep out some of the diesel fumes and dust. As we strolled down the dusty roads, with wide brimmed sunhats and bandanas, dodging cows, I imagined we were fitting someone's vision of cowboys just arrived from the U.S.
Because most of the caves are Buddhist (even though Buddhism, founded in India, is rarely practiced here now) there are many monks visiting Aurangabad on pilgrimage. Boy are they cute! They are really buff (I cant imagine a monk pumping iron so how does that happen?), wear skimpy cloths draped over their bodies, and are always smiling. And they aren't allowed to touch women. The definition of irony. I also find the cows extremely cute. You can start to piece together my singular tastes...
Our first night we found large tents going up in front of our hotel--and found that a multi day wedding ceremony was starting the next day. Indian weddings typically involve loud singing, dancing, chanting, and merry making at all hours--we debated moving hotels but for the very same reason decided to stay--why should we miss out on the fun? We lucked out that the wedding goers were in fact merry and also very nice, and they made our night by shooting off fireworks from the front lawn that we watched along side the monks in the restaurant across the street.
And the whole point was to see these wonderful caves! They were incredible--both beautiful to behold and amazing to contemplate the sheer enormity of the task of removing all that rock from solid cliffs to carve out these huge temples. The biggest involved removing 200,000 tons of rock. In addition there is intricate carving on every surface and most of the temples were originally elaborately painted from top to bottom--we got an idea of what it might have looked like at some preserved parts of the Ajanta site. At the Ellora site, there were first Buddhist caves, then Hindhus and Jains carved their own beside, each becoming bigger and more elaborate--finally something good from competition among religions! It was a good introduction to the gods, godesses, and symbols of the various religions. Check out the pictures for an idea of what we saw. We were particularly awed in the presence of people of every age and ilk fervently worshipping in the buddhist and hindu cave-temples. These were not museums or curiosities, they were alive with meaning and energy.
previous travel blog entry
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