Wonders of Ancient India | Unchartered Ruins

28 Mar 2024 – KANHERI CAVES

The Kanheri Caves are a group of over one hundred Buddhist rock-cut monuments dating from the first century CE to the tenth century CE. The caves are located inside the Sanjay Gandhi National Park, to the North of Mumbai, India, on what was formerly the island of Salsette. With an estimated 109 caves, the Kanheri Caves are the largest Buddhist rock-cut monastery in all of India. They include stunning examples of early Indian sculpture and frescoes. Cave n. 3 is one of the largest surviving Buddhist Chaityas (Prayer Halls) from the first centuries of our era, likely built after the model of the Great Chaitya of the Karla Caves.

17 Apr 2024 – KARLA CAVES

Located in the Western Ghats, the rock-cut temples of Karla, Bhaja and Bedse are among the earliest Buddhist cave temples in India. Their construction shortly follows the fragmentation of the Mauryan Empire and of the Indo-Greek kingdoms that arose from Alexander’s conquests, in the 2nd Century BCE. Their architecture and sculptural decoration reflects a mix of Hindu, Persian, and Hellenistic motifs, peaking in the 1st Century CE with the construction of the Great Chaitya of the Karla Caves, the largest in all of India. Carved out of the solid basalt of the Deccan plateau, they are some of the earliest surviving monumental structures in all of India. And yet, their fantastic ornamentation, representing multi-storied, fairy-tale palaces with projecting arches and balconies, suggests the existence of a much earlier architectural tradition in either wood or stone of which there is no trace in the archaeological record.

4 Oct 2024 – ELLORA CAVES

The Ellora Caves are the largest group of Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain rock-cut monuments in all of India.

They comprise over 34 caves, ranging from huge pillared halls to massive free standing monuments like the gigantic Kailasha Temple, the largest monolithic structure in the world. It is estimated that between 1 and 6 million tons of basalt had to be removed for the construction of this wonder of ancient engineering, the same as the Great Pyramid of Giza. There are many mysteries surrounding these caves, beginning with the tools and technologies employed for their construction, the true age of the caves, and their exact sequence. Generally dated between the 6th and the 10th century CE, many believe that the caves may be in fact thousands of years older.

9 Nov 2024 – AJANTA CAVES

Located in central Maharashtra, near the city of Aurangabad, the Ajanta Caves are a complex of over 30 Buddhist rock-cut temples dating from the 2nd century BCE to the 6th century CE A UNESCO World Heritage Site, they contain the largest surviving body of ancient Indian paintings, as well as a profusion of sculptures and architectural decorations.

19 Dec 2024 – HAMPI

Once one of the largest cities in the world, the ruins of Hampi Vijayanagara, extend over 25 square kilometers of rocky terrain along the banks of the Tungabhadra river, in the southern Indian state of Karnataka. Founded in 1336 over the ruins of a far older megalithic city, in less than two hundred years Hampi rose from a small village to becoming the capital of the greatest medieval Indian empire to ever rule over south India. In 1565, a Muslim army defeated the Vijayanagara king Rama Raya at the battle of Talikota. Abandoned by its king and court, the great city was subject to months of pillaging and looting, from which it never recovered. By the early 19th century, Hampi lay in ruins, its great temples and palaces inhabited only by wild beasts and nearly swallowed by the jungle. Today, Hampi contains the ruins of hundreds of temples in various stages of ruin and decay, only a handful of which have been restored or even excavated. The structures that better than any others appear to have survived the ravages of time are some huge megalithic stone walls and subterranean structures that appear to far predate the medieval architecture at the site. These megalithic structures, which the Vijayanagara kings repurposed and restored, are all but identical to the megalithic monuments of Egypt and Peru, and contain moreover tantalizing evidence of the use of advanced technology for cutting and lifting the enormous stone blocks. Hampi Vijayanagara may be one of the last great megalithic projects of its kind anywhere in the world, after which the techniques and principles of megalithic architecture were seemingly lost in the centuries that followed the Muslim conquest of the Vijayanagara empire.