India Guide
Maharashtra
Vast and rugged, the modern state of MAHARASHTRA, the third largest in India, was created in 1960 from the Marathi-speaking regions of what was previously Bombay State. As soon as you leave its seething port capital, Mumbai, you enter a different world with a different history.
Undoubtedly, Maharashtra's greatest treasures are its extraordinary cave temples and monasteries. The finest of all are found near the busy commercial city of Aurangabad: the caves at Ajanta, with their fabulous and still-vibrant murals, and the monolithic temples of Ellora. From the second century BC, this region was an important centre of Buddhism; artificial caves were excavated to shelter monks, and artists sculpted magnificent cathedral-like halls for worship.
Hinduism later supplanted Buddhism as the region's principal religion, which it remains, despite the efforts of the successive Muslim rulers to introduce Islam to Maharashtra – eighty percent of the population is Hindu. Balancing modern industry alongside ancient associations with the Ramayana, the main pilgrimage centre has always been Nasik, 187km northeast of Mumbai. As one of the four locations of the Kumbh Mela, when up to four million devotees battle to bathe simultaneously in the holy River Godavari, the town is always a hive of devotional activity, even during less auspicious times.
Inland, parallel to the sea, and never further than 100km from it, the mighty Western Ghats rise abruptly. The areas of level ground that crowned them, endowed with fresh water, were easily converted into forts where small forces could withstand protracted sieges by large armies. Modern visitors can scale such windswept fortified heights at Pratapgadh and Daulatabad, the latter of which – briefly, bizarrely and disastrously – replaced Delhi as capital in the fourteenth century.
During the nineteenth century, the mountains found another use. When the summer proved too much for the British in Bombay, they sought refuge in nearby hill stations, the most popular of which, Mahabaleshwar, now caters for droves of Indian holiday-makers. Beyond the Ghats, the modern city of Pune is site of the internationally famous Osho ashram founded by the New Age guru Bhagwan Rajneesh.
Highlights
1 Daulatabad One of India's most spectacular hill-forts, presiding over an epic desert landscape of table-topped mountains.
2 Ellora caves Breathtaking Hindu, Buddhist and Jain caves carved from solid volcanic rock.
3 Ajanta caves Hidden in a remote horseshoe-shaped ravine, Ajanta's murals are the finest storehouse of art to have survived from any ancient civilization.