200,000 tons of Rock

I have been humbled by the richness of history that is easily accessible in Chennai and all over India, and my recent trip to another set of World Heritage sites was no exception.

The weekend before (U.S.) President's Day, some friends and I traveled to Ajanta and Ellora in the inner parts of the Indian state of Maharashtra see some really old caves. I mean OLD, as in, 2000 years ago, contemporaries of the Babylonians, Roman Senators, and the like. While Rome's armies were conquering various parts of Europe and the Mediterranean, an unknown benefactor was hiring armies of artists and stone carvers--generations of them, apparently--to hack away at the solid stone banks of a trickling river near the village of Ajanta in India to carve about half a dozen temples straight back into the rock, using pick-axes and hammer and chisels. As if that weren't enough of a technical feat in itself, in came the painters to coat the walls with stories from the life and times of Buddha, already elevated to god status, for the Buddhist monks to contemplate in meditation. About 500 years later, another frenzy of temple carving raised the number of temples to about 30.

For something carved out of solid stone, "cave" is a little misleading, since there was no natural structure to modify. During the time period of the second wave, another 7000 artisans spent 150 years creating straight out of solid rock the massive three-story Kailash Temple and another 20 or so smaller temples near Ellora. As you view these photos, impressed or not by the creativity of the sculptors, just remember: by hand. From a solid rock. With pick axe and hammer and chisel. In devotion to an idea. And these temples, incorporating architectural styles from both northern and southern India, predate the ones at Mahabalipuram by several centuries.

As if the cave temples weren't enough, in between we also visited a Mogul tomb modeled after the Taj Mahal in the 1600s, and a fort used by countless successive armies and northern invaders swooping down on the southern parts of India, again, over a period of several centuries.