Ajanta Caves
Today, I woke up giddy. We were going to the Ajanta Caves! It's a World Heritage Site and the reason we decided to visit India. Last August, Fierce had been listening to The Story of the World: History for the Classical Child and he asked me if we could go to India to see the Ajanta Caves. Two WWII soldiers had discovered this 2200 year old site in 1918 on accident while hiking. Fierce thought it would be cool to go check it out. I have always wanted to see India so it didn’t take much to get me intrigued. I decided to look into the process. Flights were a decent price in March, but every time I looked, there were less and less weeks available. I decided to apply for visas and when they came back two days later, I was able to book the trip! This is the first time that Fierce has led the inspiration for a trip, so I was pretty excited to try to make it happen.
We hired a taxi and a couple of hours later, we were at the Overlook and taking in the beautiful view. Unfortunately, a man followed us the entire way down trying to sell us items and just endlessly harassed us. This was mentally taxing, because the stone steps down required you to be careful where you placed your foot and there were not always railings. That aside, we eventually made it to the bridge leading to the ticket counter and we could start to take in the history we came to explore.
The Ajanta Caves are carved out of the Sayhyadri Hills in a series of rooms. Several are Buddhist Temples. The earliest one dates back to 2nd century BC. One cave was excavated with a single pillar that had been carved with detail, but the rest was still unfinished, rough stone. I really liked this for a reference to see the progress from start to finish, because when you see the finished cave carvings, it's such a work of art it's hard to imagine what it took to make them. This one was also really fun to climb around, it had a more playful vibe. It was also really interesting to see some caves where the paintings are just barely there like a hint to the past and others very well preserved showing off all of the bright colors, patterns and story telling. One of the more simple caves had little rooms along it's walls and one looked to have two stone beds and pillows, so we tried them out. It was a lot of fun climbing stone stairs to see what might be in the next one. The monks who built these caves were so creative.
As I was walking through I thought about how God is the creator and blesses us with creative abilities. The song lyrics, "My heart and flesh cry out to you, the living God, your spirit is water to my soul. I've tasted and I've seen, come once again to me, I will draw near to you..." came to mind. I am grateful to see and feel history, a culture, art, and yet serve and love the living God, Jesus Christ.
The skill and time it must have taken to complete the more elaborate temples is just amazing. A very large Buddha sits in the center all the way in the back with elaborate carvings across all of the walls as well as the pillars. Even the ceilings were painted and the floors are perfect, like walking into a throne room. We went into every single cave. We explored them a little out of order, so one of the first (our last) caves had a narrow and steep staircase with several Indian women dressed in colorful sarees coming down. I told Fierce we had to check out what was up there. When the last woman came down, they all wanted photos with us so we took a few pictures and waved goodbye. Upstairs, there was a whole new temple area. It felt like we found a secret, expansive room. It was a really lovely way to end our time at Ajanta.
Exiting the caves, we walked by a tree full of monkeys. Then you are directed through a dome of tented vendors all lobbying intensely for you to buy a souvenir. It's so loud, Fierce grabbed my hand and we walked in the center as much as possible. Then I saw the parking lot to my left and started to move towards it, but a guard barked at me and said I had to continue down the market until it was completed. I was a little shocked, but thankfully the vendors at the very end were quiet and in the calm atmosphere, I was able to actually look at what was for sale. I even bought a little beaded lamp shade that has a Turkish look, but hand made in India. We were both really happy we had come to see the Ajanta Caves. I have definitely never seen anything like it before.
On our way back, our taxi driver surprised us with a stop at one of the cane sugar juice stalls. The machine is fully mechanical and presto!..delicious juice :) What a fun and memorable day.
