India Revealed: The Caves of Ajanta, Ellora, and Elephanta, Mumbai (Travel Guide)

Travel guidebooks for the ultra curious, Approach Guides reveal a destination’s essence by exploring a compelling aspect of its cultural heritage: art, architecture, history, food, or wine. Built by Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain monks as mountain retreats, India’s magnificent rock-cut sanctuaries, monasteries, and temples offer travelers an unrivaled cultural experience, transporting them back to the formative stage of art and architecture for India’s indigenous religions. This Approach Guide serves as an ideal companion for travelers seeking a deeper understanding this fantastic landscape, profiling India’s three premier rock-cut religious sites: Ajanta (Buddhist), Elephanta (Hindu), and Ellora (a mixture of Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain) RECENTLY UPDATED FOR 2022! With more than 130 high-resolution images, maps and a detailed tour itinerary, this is the definitive guide to Indias ancient Ellora and Ajanta near Aurangabad and Elephanta in Mumbai. Built by Buddhist, Hindu and Jain monks as mountain retreats, Indias magnificent rock-cut sanctuaries, monasteries and temples offer travelers an unrivaled cultural experience, transporting them back to the formative stage of art and architecture for Indias indigenous religions. This Approach Guide serves as an ideal companion for travelers seeking a deeper understanding of this fantastic landscape, profiling Indias three premier rock-cut religious Ajanta (Buddhist), Elephanta (Hindu) and Ellora (a mixture of Buddhist, Hindu and Jain). Whats in this guidebook Comprehensive look at rock-cut art and architecture . We provide an overview of Indias rock-cut art and architecture, isolating trademark features that you will see again and again as you make your way through Ajanta, Elephanta and Ellora. To make things come alive, we have packed our review with high-resolution images. A tour that goes deeper on the most important sites . Following our tradition of being the most valuable resource for culture-focused travelers, we offer detailed tours of the most impressive and representative caves at Ajanta, Elephanta and Ellora, walking step-by-step through their distinctive artistic and architectural highlights. For each, we present information on its history, a detailed plan that highlights its most important architectural and artistic features, high-resolution images and a discussion that ties it all together. Advice for getting the best cultural experience . To help you plan your visit, this guidebook supplies logistical advice, maps and links to online resources. Plus, we give our personal tips for getting the most from your experience while on location. Information the way you like it . As with all of our guides, this book is optimized for intuitive, quick navigation; information is organized into bullet points to make absorption easy; and images are marked up with text that explains important features. NEW! Customers can now print this guidebook with our new PDF-on-Demand service. See the final chapter in the book for details. ABOUT APPROACH GUIDES Travel guidebooks for the ultra curious, Approach Guides reveal a destinations essence by exploring a compelling aspect of its cultural art, architecture, history, food, or wine. PRAISE FOR APPROACH GUIDES Compulsive (and compulsively informed) travelers, the Raezers are the masterminds behind the downloadable Approach Guides, which are filled with a university course-worth of history and insights for 62 destinations worldwide. WHY WE LOVE The Raezers share our desire for deep, well-researched information on the wonders of the world. - Travel + Leisure Introduction Rock-Cut Architecture in India SITE PROFILES AJANTA Architecture Overview Chaityas Chaitya Stupas Viharas Paintings Reliefs Ajanta Map Featured Caves Cave 1 * Cave 2 * Cave 4 Cave 9 Cave 10 * Cave 16 * Cave 17 * Cave 19 * Cave 26 * ELEPHANTA Architecture Reliefs Overview Reliefs Style Featured Reliefs Ravana Shakes Mount Kailasa Shiva and Parvati Gambling Androgyne Sadashiva Ganges Descends to Earth Marriage of Shiva and Parvati Shiva Slays Andhaka Nataraja Lord of Yogis ELLORA Ellora Map Buddhist Caves Cave 5 - Maharwada Cave 10 - Vishvakarma * Cave 12 - Tin Tal Hindu Caves Cave 15 - Dashavatara * Cave 16 - Kailasa * Cave 21 - Rameshvara * Cave 29 - Dhumar Lena Jain Caves Cave 32 - Indra Sabha * LEGACY CONTINUES: CHINA Free Updates More from Approach Guides Praise for Approach Guides About Approach Guides