It was a long office trip to Ahmadnagar (in Maharashtra) in the month of Nov-2015. Winter had just started establishing its feet.
It was an off day from the official works, so we decided to have a trip to some nearby places.
I had read about Ellora caves on internet and had seen pictures of the place. Apart from pilgrimage trip, I decided to have trip to Ellora caves for little adventure and history.
As I had guessed that most of the excursion was going to be on foot and under sky, hence better to plan such a way that sun does not become our enemy in the trip.
So we started early in the morning.
We left hotel at Ahmadnagar at sharp 6.00AM in the car. We started on SH60 from Ahmadnagar to Aurangabad. Aurangabad is almost 100KM from Ahmadnagar and Ellora caves are 30KM from Aurangabad.
Our driver took 2.5 hrs to reach the place. Before taking us straight to caves, he took us to Bhadra Hanuman Mandir, on the way before Ellora caves.
Temple is not so huge, but the campus of temple is large. Generally, we would have seen Hanuman statue as standing with “Himalaya Parvat”, but here idol of Hanuman is in lay down position, holding the same Himalaya.
The Pujari of temple told on our asking that, this is the second such idol of Hanuman, out of only two such temples.
He also narrated the story of the idol that, when Hanuman was flying to Lanka taking the Himalaya along with sanjeevani, he flew over this place. A popular king of this region and also a devotee of Shree Ram, was singing the Bhajan in praise ofLord Ram. Hanuman listened to the Bhajan sung by king and came down. The voice of king and feeling of Bhajan was so mesmerizing to hanuman that he got lost in bhakti of his master Shree Ram and unconsciously came into the resting position listening to kings Bhajan. When Bhajan ended, the King saw hanumanji and requested that he should stay here forever and bless the people of this area. But as Hanumanji
was on the way to Lanka to deliver Sanjeevani to save Laxman, he denied kings request. However, Hanuman blessed the king and his people that his presence will always be here in the form the idol. And since the laying down idol of Hanumanji is worshiped here.
After having the darshan and Prasad, we headed forward. Just near the caves, there is Jyotirlinga (12th) named as Ghrishnehwar Mahadev. We visited the Temple and prayed to Lord Shiva.
Now it was a time to enter caves.
Our driver took us till the parking area near the ticket counter at caves and guided us to visit caves on our own.
If you are taking your own car, the same can be used to visit caves, as the caves are spread over a stretch of some 2 KM, hence if you want to avoid a lot of walk, you can bring your vehicle near the caves. You will be allowed to take your vehicles at three locations, as these three locations have set of caves which can be visited together on foot.
Other option, if you have come in bus or hired cars, there are auto rickshaws available to hire. They will take you to the points and wait at each point till you go and visit the set of caves.
Rates are negotiable from 300 to 150rs. Per auto.
We hired an auto and bargained with him and finalized from 300rs. to down to 175rs.
Out of 34 caves, the biggest/glorious cave is cave 16, which is also known as “Kailasha Temple”. This cave is right in front of you near the ticket window and a beautiful garden developed by ASI department. Place is well maintained by government.
However, our auto driver (and also guide—free service) took us first to cave 29. When you first see the caves entrance, many questions will start haunting you. Why these were made, how these were made, how without any mega machinery and technology these were created out of single rocks.
The architecture and carving of caves will make you think on your proud of achievements of modern technology.
The work of architecture is so grand and so accurate that you will be forced to take out your camera and click this magnificent art work. Creators have taken all planning in their design and making that many of architecture of today’s world have learnt with great efforts.
You will find that caves are carved such a way to take care of maximum utilization of natural day light, water resource management, water bodies, path to drain water from place of cave and lot many more, just like a best design of a huge building.
You will feel divine inside the cave as the ambience is so calm and cool. You will forget the city life and have willing to stay here forever. This is the time when you realize, that this is the reason these caves would have been created here so that monks can take their spiritual practices to all new heights in the lap of pure nature, away from all life’s manufactured means.
Carving of lord Shiva and his family and kingdom on the walls of caves are so beautifully casted that it feels real and grand. In today’s time it would have taken a lot of design paper work, calculations, software and tools to create such work out of stone and rock. Just imagine “HOW” they did a long years ago?
Many symbols and carvings on walls, floors and roofs of caves will make you guess that they would be using this are for this purpose and that purpose. But that’s all our imagination.
I would recommend one to take a good camera with good flash light, if you want to capture good images of this holy huge work of spiritual devotees, as there will be all darkness in the caves after entrance. Place your foot carefully in the dark areas and avoid wearing tight clothes and high heals. Sports shoe are best recommended for the trip.
Most of the caves are depicting life cycle of Lord Shiva and Budhha. A lot has been written about the caves on internet and is readily available. However, I have put my words here to guide individual visiting the caves. The caves are very will described on http://elloracaves.org/
Here you can have a feel of walk through the caves and location of various wall carvings.
Y ou will be surprised to see that caves are not only caves, but they have multistory construction also along with approach staircase. Well planned architecture. There are huge halls, beautifully carved columns, designer ceiling and well leveled floors. How did they do it?
Caves 1 to 16 can be visited on foot starting from cave 1. There is a beautiful water fall at caves 4 to 6 and a pond.
Cave 16 is really huge and grand. It not basically a cave but a real art of work is exhibited by creators here. Huge life size elephant of rock carved and huge pillar representing the Kailasha Parvat will attract you on first sight itself. Many carvings representing Ramayana/Mahabharata can be found on walls and pillars.
Take your full time is finding the events of epic by your own. You will be amazed by your findings and the master mind of artist who made these.
It took us around 4 hours to visit all caves together and by 12.30 we had visited all the caves. After that the sun takes on and makes us little tired. Hence plan to grasp the beauty in your eyes well before time.
Taking the magnificent images in our eyes, a piece devotion and calmness in heart and a lot of questions and praise of architecture in our minds, we started back to Ahmadnagar.
One can also visit nearby mogul garden (Banu begum garden, but not well maintained), Sai Baba caves and Daulatabad fort.
You can also imagine that in that small area, there a Muslim gardens, forts, Lord Shiva Caves, Buddha Caves, all together, all religion together. Isn’t it amazing?
Thanks for reading...
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