---UTTERLY AMAZING
Ajanta Caves:
Over hundreds of years thirty one monuments hewn from the rockface!
Two thousand two hundred years ago work began in Maharashtra, India.
Den jungle grew around, hiding the caves away from human eyes.
Then, some speculate around the year 1000 AD, they fell in to disu.
The Ajanta caves lay undisturbed for hundreds of years.
Then, in April 1819, during the time of the British, Raj, an officer with
the unassuming name of John Smith, rediscovered a doorway to one of the temples. He had been hunting tigers - something of which many would disapprove today.
One can only imagine what went through Smith's head when he made his find. Such a rediscovery did not remain cret for very long.Soon, European and Indian tourists were thronging to the site - after extensive tidying up.
After all, the caves had been home to bat, birds and larger animals for
hundreds of years. The Ajanta Caves had been returned to the world of the living.
The nearest human habitation is Ajin?hā, a tiny village a few miles away from the caves. The sanctuaries, which are known as chaytia-girhas
from the cond century before Christ. They were ud primarily as prayer halls and are similar to an extent to the contemporary Roman designs
of arch and column. However, the sanctuaries were carved from the immen rock face of the caves, with chils and, indeed, bare hands.
The first caves were hewn from the bare rock at the time of
The Sātavāhana Empire which started around 230BC.
The Sātavāhanas brought peace to India after veral foreign invasions and the decline of the previous, Mauryan Empire.
Although there is widespread debate about the time at which the cond period of building took place, most now agree that it was probably during the reign of Harishena, from 460AD and over a period of around twenty years. This architectural flowering saw the creation of twenty temples which were ud as monasteries.
