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Ven. Ngawang Wangmo, Emily Coleing, Ven. Thubten Pema, Mark Reid, Geshe Ngawang Rabga, Drolkar Maree, Annie McGhee, Sharon Dobson, and Pierre Yves at Ajanta Caves, Maharasthra, India, December 2018. Photo courtesy of Pierre Yves.
In December 2018 a group of pilgrims organized by FPMT center Root Institute for Wisdom Culture in Bodhgaya, Gaya District, Bihar, India, traveled together to the Ajanta and Ellora Caves in Aurangabad District, Maharashtra, India, with Geshe Ngawang Rabga, Root Institute’s resident geshe. Trip leader Annie McGhee shares the story.
A group of nine of us left Root Institute early one morning to Delhi. It was very special to have Geshe Ngawang Rabga with us as part of our group of nine. He is extremely humble, knowledgeable, charismatic, gentle, warm, and incredibly kind. We spent the next day visiting the National Museum where a superb stupa holds relics of Shakyamuni Buddha. The museum also has many objects from the Dunhuang Caves of a Thousand Buddhas in Gansu Province, China.
We stayed two nights in Delhi, then after a short flight south to Aurangabad, we traveled by mini bus up to Ellora, where we stayed for several nights.
Mini bus ride over dusty bumpy roads, Maharasthra, India, December 2018. Photo by Pierre Yves.
Recognized as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1983, the Ajanta Caves are some of the finest and most extensive surviving examples of ancient Indian art, architecture, and sculpture.
Only a few hours from the city of Aurangabad, twenty-nine immense caves are nestled in a huge gorge in the shape of a horseshoe. Dating from the second and first centuries B.C.E. to the fifth and sixth centuries C.E., the Ajanta Caves consist of viharas (monasteries) and chaitya (prayer halls) of different Buddhist traditions, which were carved into a 250 foot (76 meter) wall of rock.
Geshe Ngawang Rabga at Ajanta Caves, Maharasthra, India, December 2018. Photo by Annie McGhee.
We saw cave walls and ceilings adorned with paintings. Among the most interesting paintings are the Jataka tales, illustrating diverse stories relating to the previous incarnations of the Buddha as various bodhisattvas.
We did prayers and meditated within the quiet solitude of some of the caves. There was a palpable feeling that these were indeed very holy and blessed places.
The next day we woke early to go to the Ellora Caves. They became a UNESCO site in 1983 and extend over one mile (two kilometeres).
The cave monasteries and temples at Ellora were dug out of the vertical face of a cliff. It is one of the largest rock-cut monastery-temple cave complexes in the world, featuring Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain monuments and artwork dating from 600 to 1,000 C.E. Each of the thirty-four excavated caves depict deities and mythology, and contain viharas and chaityas.
Hindu Kailasha temple at Ellora Caves, Maharashtra, India. December 2018. Photo by Pierre Yves.
Twelve of the Ellora Caves are Buddhist, with one featuring a superb Maitreya statue. We sat quietly at that cave, doing practices and contemplating the greatness of these caves and what they would have been like in their day.
These magnificent caves—unique in the history of humankind, as well as the extraordinary artwork and statuary, and what they represent—remain etched on my mind.
For more information about the Root Institute, visit their website:
http://www.rootinstitute.ngo/
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