CAVES OF A J ANT A. 37 



look at it before starting on my return trip to 

 Naudgaum. 



It had been my intention to visit Ajanta, but owing 

 to heavy rains, the road in that direction had become 

 impassable. Its temples, some thirty in number, are 

 very celebrated. They are cave-chambers, highly 

 ornamented, and many of them covered with paint- 

 ings, the most important of these, according to Mr. 

 James Ferguson, appertaining to the middle of the 

 seventh century. As regards some of the cruder 

 specimens, Babu Rajendralala Mitra, a learned native, 

 and author of the recently published " Indo- Aryan," on 

 the evidence of inscriptions he discovered, places their 

 antiquity as early as the first century of the Christian 

 era, and the entire group as belonging to the Budd- 

 hist, the Brahminical, and the Iain professions of 

 religious belief At first, cave-temples were little 

 more than copies of original types in wood ; figure 

 sculpture, which long preceded painting, was then 

 their only embellishment. 



The best route to visit these caves, as described to 

 me by a friend who knew it well, is as follows : Pro- 

 ceed for about a mile beyond the EUora temples up 

 the ghaut to Boza, where there is the simple tomb, 

 without dome or canopy, of Aurungezebe, the most 



