Aurangabad: the gateway to the Ajanta and Ellora caves

Founded by the Mughals as a military base, Aurangabad remains the most convenient starting point for reaching two of South Asia's most extraordinary rock-cut complexes.

A car or organized tour remains necessary to reach the caves.

The Bibi Ka Maqbara, mausoleum built by the son of Emperor Aurangzeb in honor of his mother, deliberately echoes the style of the Taj Mahal on a reduced scale.

In the afternoon it is advisable to reach the Ellora Caves, a UNESCO heritage site with thirty-four Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain temples carved side by side into the same rock wall.

Among the Ellora caves, the Kailasa Temple, carved from top to bottom as a single monolithic sculpture, remains one of the most extraordinary architectural achievements of ancient India.

The Ajanta Caves, older and farther from the city, preserve Buddhist frescoes among the best-preserved in the world dating to the second century B.C.

The Kailasa Temple at Ellora was carved by removing approximately two hundred thousand tons of rock from top to bottom without the use of scaffolding – an engineering feat requiring generations of stone-carvers.

The Ajanta Caves were abandoned and forgotten for centuries, rediscovered only in 1819 by a British officer during a tiger hunt in the surrounding jungle.