Cliffside Caves

Leaving behind the roads of Rajasthan, we flew south to the city of Aurangabad, named after the last Mughal ruler Aurangazeb whose strict policy of religious intolerance led the empire into decline. Yet, long before the mongols came south, another dynasty ruled here. they were a powerful nation of traders who controlled commerce along the silk road as traders brought silk from China and spices from the south and east of Hindustan. Along this thriving trade route lived a series of monks, first Buddhists, then Hindus and even some Jains (a religion similar to Buddhism). These rulers held kingdoms along the border of the Deccan plateau, a large basalt formation that stretches across the southern half of India. Basalt is a particularly strong rock and the Deccan rises in a series of high flat steps marked by cliffs of sheer black rock frosted in jungle. The monks, seeking shelter in the cliffsides of the plateau, alms from the traders and patronage from the kings, began to build temples (chaityas) and monasteries (viharas) into the cliffs marking the edge of the plateau steps.

In the 1850s, a British army officer named John Smith was out tiger hunting and saw an animal disappear into the rock. Astonished he approached the rock wall and discovered the Ajanta caves which had been hidden for centuries and has thus survived Aurangazebs religious purge and countless other invasions and pier struggles in the region. what he discovered was extraordinary. There are sixteen caves at Ajanta carved down out of the basalt cliffs and they are lined with five hundred year old tempera paintings and crisscrossed with carvings telling the life of the lord Buddha. Monasteries carved into the rock. Contain dozens of cells where monks would spend a night on during their wanderings. Because Buddhism teaches the denial of all material comforts a monk was not allowed to keep a proper home but instead moved from cave to cave taking only his clothes and his begging bowls. Jain monks took this denial of the material a stepfather further and wandered naked. as we wandered through the caves it was hRd to remember that the entire structure true was carved from only one piece of rock, no stones, no inlaid slabs, no statuary. We will try to let these picture give the effect.

For all the simplicity of the monastic lifestyle the caves are richly decorated and ornately carved. The paintings are reminiscent of Italian frescoes because they use the same mineral paint colors but they were painted when Europe was in its dark ages, well before the Renaissance. Indeed, a look at any of the paintings reveals the use of perspective in composition long before any of Italy's masters employed the technique.

A sculptured wall of one of the Ajanta caves

A stupa inside the cave with walls carved to mimic wooden bracing and beams

Mom standing in the outer temple
of the Ellora Hindu complex

An elephant guarding the cave entrance

After visiting the caves at Ajanta and Ellora we drove back through the countryside to visit one more fort. The drive was beautiful. We passed a number of local people preparing for the festival of the elephant headed god Ganseha and at every farm house spotted a pair of bulls with brightly painted horns. Our guide explained that painting the bulls' horns was a painless way of branding them. Once a year the people celebrate and give thanks to the bulls and repaint the horns. This is the one day of rest from the fields the animals get all year.

Taking a statute of the elephant-headed Lord Ganesha to the temple.

Young muslim boys on
Eid holiday filled the bus

A window into the labryinth

In addition to visiting the caves, we stopped to see the Ellora fort. After seeing so many castles we were a bit weary of another stone palace but the Ellora fort is unique. It has never been captured. It is a study in trickery and calculated violence. 
To begin with, the fort is hidden around a curve in the plain so that as an enemy approaches along the trade route they do not see it at first. Instead from the road they see a looming façade on a well elevated hill. From a distance it looks just like the Ellora fort. However, this is the decoy fort, a carved rock precipice intended to trick the enemy into marching miles in the wrong direction. The actual Ellora fort sits around another bend with its keep high on a rocky crag. The fort is guarded by an impressive wall. But it is not just the fortifcation but the layout of the palace that is so forboding. At every turn along the approach to the keep the architects made it far easier to head left. Taking a left leaning tack however leads to a serious of false doors and dead ends which heard the enemy into closed chambers or cliff drops that allow them to be picked off with arrows and hot oil.

The bridge over the moat

 If a valiant enemy were to make it past the first set of deceptions it would then be faced with a crocodile stocked moat and rickety leather bridge to cross, wide enough for only two men to pass abreast. Assuming the enemy could navigate the bridge it would be confronted by the pitch black, bat infested, tunnels of a labyrinth running hundreds of feet into the rock. In the dark echoing maze there are strategic branching tunnels that divide the enemy so that when half goes left the other half goes right and the enemy then doubles back through the maze, converges on itself in the dark and unwittingly attacks its own men.
 The small shafts of light that do penetrate the maze, tempt the confused and frightened soldier to slide through a tunnel that drops away to the moat where the crocodiles wait. We entered the labyrinth accompanied by a pack of screaming young boys and got a feel for what it would have been like to battle our way through.

Monkeys in the trees outside Ellora Fort

After touring the Ellora fort, we headed back into Aurangabad and had a delicious traditional Thali lunch and headed to catch the plane to Mumbai.

Standing for photos with packs of young boys on Eid holiday amazed to see a tourist in their midst

Traveling the Silk Road

Water buffalos in their wallows

Jodhpur is only 150 miles from Pakistan and sixty percent of its population is the Indian army. A 310 KM drive meant 7 hours with one stop. The drive was a visual feast of country life in Rajasthan. Pilgrims walked along side the road carrying banners and flags making the annual trek of over 250 km on foot. Women carried clay water jars on their heads, old men herded goats, colorful trucks labored over potholes, families of five rode along on one motorcycle and the ever present cows lay in the road slowing traffic more effectively than speed bumps. We traveled to Jodhpur to the never ending beep beep of horns. Drivers here honk their horns any time the car changes lanes or passes anything alive or motorized. Large overburdened trucks have 'horn please" painted on their back fenders because their rearview mirrors are useless and they relied on the honking. Alongside the highway, the fields stretched away across the plain planted with lentils and potatoes and dotted with muddy water buffalo wallows.

Family motorcycle outing

We arrived early in the evening and had time to swim in a giant pool that we had all to ourselves with the exception of a gaggle of peacocks their distinctive calls reminded us we were not alone.

Mom ready to zip!

Next we went to a Hindu temple built of white marble where the royalty is cremated. It gave us a excellent view of the Mehrangarh Fort. We arrived at the Mehrangarh Fort amongst a sea of pilgrims that were going to worship at a temple in the fort. But we did not join them or take a tour of the fort. We went zip lining from the fort's towers and over moats and rocky slopes. A unique way to appreciate the monolithic structure. 

The blue city from the palace walls

Then we ventured to a local restaurant and had the best naan ever as well as other tasty morsels. That afternoon we drove in a Land Rover out over a dirt “road” to the countryside to visit some small villages. First we stop at the potter’s house. He makes the water containers that the women carry on their heads, the clay pots that food is cooked in, and a variety of decorative pieces. He demonstrated how he throws the clay on his pottery wheel. The wheel is totally different from the kind we use. The potter squats beside it (the way people squat in India is amazing, a contortionist feat) and uses a stick placed in the top of the wheel to turn the lopsided wheel. When he gets it going he drops the stick and throws the clay. The wheel maintains enough speed for two pots to be made. Next we went to see a family farm. We saw where they kept their animals, grew their crops, cooked their meals the and slept.We finished up the afternoon tour with a visit to a durries rug cooperative. Way out in the farming communities is a collective of rug makers that weave rugs at night under solar powered fluorescent lights in their mud and brick houses. The rugs were beautiful and Mark had to pull me a way to keep me from bringing home yet another rug As we left the village we were chased by children with their hands out shouting “one pen!” Out there they have schools but not enough pencils or pens. When families buy school supplies they will cut pencils into thirds so that the kids can have more than one. A pen is a highly coveted luxury. We pulled all we had out of our pack packs and gave them to smiling children who waved us along. After the hot and dusty drive back to town we took an evening swim and sat watching a lightening storm in the distance that went on for over an hour. An amazing end to the day.

The next day we returned to the fort to explore on foot. The Jodhpur fort lookout over the blue city, so called because members of the higher castes to keep their homes cool. The entry way was painted with a parade of gods and is approached by a steep ramp lined by imposing walls. Inside, the palace was brightly decorated with glass and gold and frescoes. Outside, the fort was veiled in a tapestry of carved sandstone screens. Hallways contained royal furniture and a collection of palanquins and elephant seats used to transfer the maharaja and his ladies about the city. 

Elaborate stone jalis screen

Elephant saddle

Ceiling paintings

Knife hilt

Indian tourists looking at artifacts from the former kingdom of Jodhpur

From the top ramparts of the old palace, we could look across the valley and see the maharaja's new palace rising above the city skyline. This new palace, built to provide jobs in a stagnant economy, is magnificent and still inhabited by the maharaja and his family today. The building embodies the charisma and energy of the royal family in its graceful art deco expansiveness. This charisma is evidence in the famous story of Jodhpurs it was said that hte Raja travelled to England to visit the King and his clothes were lost at sea. He hired a tailor to make him pants, trying to describe the Indian fashion of long flowing leggings. The tailor tried his best but the version he produced were far to roomy at the top and far to tight at the bottom. Dismayed the raja asked the tailor what he expected him to do with the misshapen pants. The tailor replied that he the raja was a king and if he wore his pants with royal confidence they would be transformed into fashion. It was in this way the Raja of Jodhpur set a trend that lasted throughout the empire for years. Seeing the old and the new on their opposite mountaintops brought to life the full span of history that animates India. 

View of the Maharaja's new palace from the old palace

A palace guard ties his traditional turban.

The king's bedroom

An audience hall

Castles in the Sand

Extraordinary news this morning: Anna Hazare has won! Who is Anna Hazare? Many people have started referring to him as a kind of second Ghandi. He looks a bit like Ghandi, skinny, with white hair and dark skin and a warm smile. One of our drivers even described him as cute. Looks aside, he is on an important mission to end corruption in India. According to wikileaks, and pretty much anyone you ask about Anna (as well as the local newspapers) the government officials have embezzled billions of rupees out of India and deposited them in Swiss banks. To fight against this graft, seventy-four year old Anna fasted for twelve days demanding an amendment to the Indian constitution that would subject all government officials, including the prime minister to investigation and prosecution by the Central Bureau of Investigation. (For reference, the 11th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution provides “sovereign” immunity to our government officials.) The “Lokhpal” bill proposed by Anna went through U.S style senate negotiations with much huffing and puffing and a total failure to compromise or act until it became clear that a failure to act would lead to the death of Anna and in the popular opinion rioting, fires and general revolt. In fact, one guide estimated that 80 percent of the country supported Anna’s reforms. 

Click to expand for a panorama of Amber Fort

The rooftop party terrace,
complete with dancing girl platform

After visiting palaces where we were told that elephants carried the rulers to the gates and flowers were dropped from above while music played we had a chance to make the same type of arrival at the Amber Fort of Rajasthan. Twisting through the mountains we came upon the town of Amber Fort and there true to its name the extensive palace with its twelve kilometers of red sandstone wall looked like something out of a fairytale or perhaps. . . Game of Thrones! 

We pulled up to a cue of elephants and then climbed aboard. As we jostled up the stone road to the palace gate the panorama of Amber Fort and Amber Town unrolled along the massive ramparts and a flute player followed along behind us. We entered the fort on elephant back to the beating of drums. The Amber Fort sparks a kind of romance that is tough to describe. Perhaps it is conjured by the precarious mountainside on which the fort is set or the hundreds of chambers and rooms or the beautiful gardens and artificial lake. Our guide did a wonderful job bringing the palace to life describing the entertaining of royal guests in the mirror house and moonlight dancing and wine on the top of the palace. He showed us the identical bedrooms of the twelve wives, carefully matched to avoid provoking jelousy and the intricately worked and painted gate where the Maharhani (queen) was required to throw rosepetals on her returning husband. 

The king's secret escape route from 

the roof of Amber Palace 

to the gardens below

The beauty of the place was amplified by the exquisite detail in the painting, the stone work, the landscaping and even the bright colored domes along the palace walls. The room that displayed this best was the mirror hall. One of a kind, here in the mountains and around the world, the mirror hall had hundreds of convex mirror tiles along the ceiling, the walls and arches and niches for lamps. 

A window looking out on the
walls and cisterns of Amber Fort

The guide explained that a single oil lamp could light the expansive room, which would be floored with carpets from Kashmir and hung with embroidered silk curtains from Benares and roofed with a crust of semi precious jewels. Wine would be liberally poured and hookah smoked and the color of the room would change depending on the hues of the fabrics adorning the hall. In short, the Fort, like a good novel, freed your imagination and gave rise to endless tales of chivalry and debauchery and intrigue high in the mountains guarding the way to the Thar desert that stretches to frontier of Pakistan. 

The gardens of Amber Fort

At this point we feel it is only fair to note that we are bad at blogging and in the midst of a six hour drive to Jodhpur and there are many holy cows in the road. The trip so far has been wonderful and there has been so much to see its tough to know where to start, what to leave out and which photos of hundreds to post on the “little” blog. One thing we know for sure is that we miss having as travel companions you Bill, Joe and Sam because each day we see something that makes us think of you. Today marks two weeks on this side of the world, the halfway point of our trip. Stay tuned!

Mom and Dad on elephant back




Elephant gate to the Amber Fort

 




Entering the palace Raja style

 
 

Mom and Dad reflected in the mirror hall

 
 

Lord Ganesh guarding the palace gate



The Maharaja's hottub