Wednesday, December 27, 2006

The road to time immemorial -- My Ajanta Ellora Visit

I am not a great fan of bacchanalia so this weekend i decided to go for a spiritual quest to the Ancient Indian Civilsation to get a shade under the rubble and wreckage of the caves carved into the great mountain range of Sahyadri in Aurangabad ( A city that is around 220 km from
Pune and 410 km from mumbai).
I took a seat in a bus from Pune and reached Aurangabad at around 5 in the morning. So immediately i decided to go Ellora as this is very near to Aurangabad (some 35 kms). I first gave my religious bow to the one of the 12 Jyortilinga in Shri Ghrishneshwar (1 km from Ellora). After that i started for Ellora. Well words are not enough to describe the greatness of the architecture that was at its peak at around 2000 years from now. Ellora has around 34 caves sheltering the statues of God Shiva, God Vishnu, Lord Buddha and many other deities of Hinduism.
The most majestic cave belong to the most potent God of the mother of all religion. This cave is known as Great Kailash cave. Apart from this cave there are other caves belonging to Lord Buddha and major figures from Jainism.
The raw cemetery of "Great Mughal Aurangzeb the Austere" also lies near Ellora caves (some 5-6 kms from Ellora).
The trip to Ellora was followed by a trip to "Biwi Ka Maqwara" that was able to ignite some ephemeral feelings. This is an exact replica of the so called Paragon of all modern indian monument (TajMahal) and it reserves the same very cause in its foundation.

The next day i took a Tourist bus to Ajanta caves to satisfy my alacrity. The Ajanta caves are around 110 kms from Aurangabad and bus takes around 3 hours to reach there. All buses have to stop at T-Junction. From there one has to pick a Pollution free bus in order to reach Ajanta caves (around 4 kms from T-Junction). Ajanta caves have paitings that are in a very pathetic situation. These paintings albeit in bits and pieces but they can allure any persom by just a gaze. These murals tell us how great our painters were in those days! All these frescos give a detailed representation of the various frames of Lord Buddha as well as Bodhisatva life. I was totally agaped by the magnificient aesthetic art of great painters who thrived in that region and in that epic time.
After covering and enriching myself with this experience i started for Pune. This weekend reserves a highest place in all the weekend i had till time memorial.

Interested people can take a view of some snaps from here.
They can also download pics from here.



Merry Christmas and a very happy new year to all my well wishers as well as to others.

1 comment:

Yours'Truly said...

A very well-written piece. Not many ppl of our age like to travel to these places. Must congratulate Neeraj for his enthu and zeal to visit these places.Keep up the good work buddy !!