A Trip to the Caves

Getting out of Pune to the Ellora Caves

This past weekend, I took an excursion outside of Pune with four other women to visit the ancient caves of Ellora.   These Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain caves are World Heritage sites and are an unbelievable representation of the tenacity, creativity, perseverance, and sheer strength of human beings.  In total there are about 33 caves.  Some are simple rock-cut meditation rooms carved into the side of a cliff.  But the most fantastic and complex cave we saw was a large, decorated cathedral-sized temple named after Mount Kailash in Tibet, that was whittled from the top down into the earth, creating a 3-dimensional complex of wondrous intricacy and scale.

To get there from Pune, we hired a car (and driver, a nice man named Jusef) and drove northeast into Maharastra (the state we’re in) toward the old Mogul capital of Aurangabad.  The city of Aurangabad itself was not particularly interesting but the drive there and back gave us a better sense of non-urban India.  The highway between Pune and Aurangabad crosses the flat and arid Deccan plateau, a geographical element covering most of Maharastra, and passes through parched farmland and many small, rural towns.  Right now (June) is the end of the hot season in India and just before the monsoons, so the land is dusty, the air is hot, and the sun is unforgiving.  But, as we drove the rain came down, settling the dust and greening up the farm fields.  We passed many river beds, some dry, some wet, and in the occasional pool of water were many people congregated, washing or bathing.  The  farms were tilled and looked very fertile.  We saw some people crouched in their fields, preparing rows for planting, or harvesting small plants.  The farmhouses were simple and functional, close the fields, and in some cases were as basic as a thatched roof huts or tents.  Near Aurangabad, there were many brick manufacturing areas. You could tell by the mounds of red dirt clay and the brick ovens, made of bricks themselves.

The towns were busy epicenters.  Tea shacks lined the road, vegetable vendors stood beside their rickety carts, and convenience stores advertised Coke or Airtel (the Indian cell phone company).  Though active community centers, these towns appear bleak. In all cities, large and small, trash lines the road. In Pune,  women gather at a particular spot on the sidewalk (on the way to the Institute) where there is a gated driveway. That gate is opened and there is a lot of trash. The women are sorting the trash, removing the compostable waste and paper waste. These people are poor, reserved, and do not speak English. It is a very humbling job.

In Pune, it is still possible to see oxen pulling a wheeled cart driven by a farmer. There are cows that roam freely in some parts of the city, belonging to nobody, but fed by villagers peddling vegetables. In the countryside and smaller villages, farm animals use the roads to get to fields where they graze. Goats are allowed to nibble on trash piles. Whatever the goats do not eat remains. Little foil wrappers, plastics, and other bits.  The businesses are rundown, and there are loads of people milling around every shop and vendor, visiting, watching tourists, or having tea. It is not usuaual at all to see a family of 3 on one motorcycle. The father drives, the toddler is right in front near the handlebars, and the mother rides side-saddle on the back, sari flapping in the breeze. Two men often ride together on a single motorcycle. The priority is getting where you have to go and nobody thinks twice about.

We arrived in Aurangabad on Saturday evening and checked  into a four or five star hotel, brand new and still under construction. This hotel had new everything, A/C and cable television, internet, and a pool.  Of course there is a great disparity between wealthy and poor in India – we tourists are on the luxury side of things, but certainly not like the wealthy in India who are extremely wealthy.

 The next day, Sunday, we went to Ellora.   Ellora has over 30 caves constructed over the period from 400 to 1100 A.D. The oldest caves are Hindu, built from 400-600; the next were Buddhist, from 600-800; the Jain were constructed bewtween 800-1000 A.D.

Our tour guide was excellent. He had a B.A. in History and a Master’s in Tourism, and was qualified to lead tours in any part of Maharashtra (the state we are in), and some other parts of India. He knew about all the religions and answered all of our questions about Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. He expalined the meanings of the carvings. In the Hindu temples, the carvings are largely Ganesh (the elephant symbolizing success, wisdom, and good beginnings), Shiva (the destroyer) and Parvati (Goddess of strength and power) in marriage; and Vishnu and Brahma.

 Monolithic architecture differs from our architecture in that buildings are literally carved out of ONE STONE. The stone is a mountain of basalt. The carving takes place from top to bottom, front to back. There are 3 classes of artisans: unskilled laborers, skilled artisans, and master artisans. The unskilled lift and carry debris out of the caves; the skilled did the rough cuts, the masters did the intricate and final carvings. 

The masterpiece of Ellora (and the most fantastic of all the caves between both sites) is the Kailasanatha Temple.  Kailash is made up of two central buildings, surrounded by a courtyard and a three-storied building along the perimeter.  The entire complex is huge – our guidebook says it is twice the size of the Parthenon in Athens and 1.5 times as high – and to construct it, they dug three huge trenches into the cliff face and the shape was ‘released’ with tools, removing 200,000 tons of rock!  The temple in the center of the complex is an active Hindu temple.  The back of that temple held an alter to Shiva. The altar is a huge lingham (phallas) surrounded by a circular “moat,” with a trench leading into another room. The lingham was decorated with flower garlands and incense, where many visitors paid their respects.  By touching the stone lingham, then touching their forhead and then their heart.  Some people left rupee notes stuck to the wet lingham. We were encouraged to touch the lingham for power and strength by an Indian tourist. 

In this Hindu section of  caves, the grand structure was that of a chariot. I mean the bridges, buildings, windows and temples formed a chariot and a yoke for the horses. We were shown walls with many lines of story, one depecting the Ramayana, the other the Mahabharata (of which the Bhagavad Gita is a part). These are the two greatest epics of what is now called Hinduism. By the way, Hindu is a British word to describe the peoples of the Indus Valleys, beneath the Himalyas. The indigineous people called the area Bharat. ”Maha” means great. So “Mahabharata” is the Great Bharat or Great India, and is a set of mythical stories about the origin of India.

The different temples and caves were not built by separate religious groups. The skill sets of artisans came from all different religious groups. So whatever your relgion, if you lived in the period 400 Ad to 500AD, and were a skilled Artisan, you would have been working on the Hindu section. If you were born later, you would be working on the Buddhist section. They finished one section before starting the next. Plans went from one person in a generation to another person who oversaw them. There was great cooperation from everyone to get these plans fulfilled.  

The  Hindu cave was a two-storied temple, where the second story was a large hall dedicated to Lord Shiva with 56 decoratively carved pillars (Nadja counted).  There were also at least relief sculptures carved into the perimeter depicting Shiva and other gods in the Hindu pantheon.  By comparison, the Jain caves were more intricate, because the technology of the tools had evolved over the centuries; yet, the iconography was more calm and peaceful, because like Buddhism, Jainism dipicts a seated meditator. (The jain meditator is always naked, and the buddhist icon is always clothed).  This group of Jain caves is set atop a hill and has a remarkable view of the surrounding valley. 

My favorite temple was the Big Buddhist sanctuary. It was a two-storied temple with ribs carved into the vaulted roof in imitation of wooden beams, and acoustics as fine as any modern music hall. I had the feeling tha I was in Notre Dame, by the accoustics. But it was all dark grey stone inside. Whatever paintings were on the ceiling had long ago worn down. But you can see remnants of paintings of horses.  The huge Buddha in the back of the sancutary was sitting on a stool or bench, with legs on a smaller stool, just like Geeta Iyengar sits when she teaches. Other buddhas do sit in Padmasana or swastikasana. And in the  Jain caves, the figure of their main guy (forgot his name) is seated in siddhasana.

These monlithic temples are architectural masterpieces, engineering feats, sociological wonders of inter-religious cooperataion, and incredibly peaceful spiritual sites.  Though we were only able to spend one day exploring them, we saw a lot and got a strong impression of the GREAT old cultural heritage of India.  When we were lucky enough to be alone in a cave or temple, it was lovely to sit and bask in tranquility and to feel the contemplative power inherent in this sacred place.

There are 900 such caves in India; 500 of them are  in the state of Maharashtra; 80 % of those are in Pune.  So we will probably visit more of these monlithic temples in the city before we leave.

 Written by Carin Allen, Nadja Rafaie, and Pauline Schloesser