Journey To India

Chapter 10

As it turned out that there are five caves in the whole of ‘Elephanta Caves’. And we being who we are, we started with Cave No.5, cause that’s the first one we saw. Actually not, the first one we saw was some other cave but Cave No. 5 was the first one we noticed.

This Cave was damaged to extreme, but it was beautiful none the less. We didn’t go inside the cave as we didn’t have much time, but we went till the mouth of the cave and it was beautiful. The interior, as it seemed from there, was entirely dark and gloomy but at the point where we all were standing, the sunlight merged with the darkness of the cave, giving it a wonderful view.   

“Its wonderful!” Prachi exclaimed as we were about to walk out and go to the next cave. None of us disagreed. “I wonder why I have never came here, seeing that it is so close to where I live.”

“That’s because you are lazy,” Aryan stated, making us all laugh at Prachi’s expense.

“You know, this cave is only half built.” Somya gave this information to us.

“But its still beautiful.” I countered jokingly.

“Enough lets move on to the next cave.” Ryan said giving me a slight push, to walk on.

“Let’s go see the Trimurti?” Somya, the most knowledgeable of us on these caves, advised.

“What is Trimurti?” I asked genuinely interested.

“Tri means three, and Murti means sculptor.” Prachi explained to us.

“It is called so because we are only able to see three heads.” Somya completed.

“Oh, that’s sounds interesting, lets go!” Rey said rubbing his hands together, an action I think he does when he is excited.

Somya nodded at him and led the way. “You see this ‘Trimurti’ depicts the three different forms of Shiva. Shiva is one of gods,” Somya explains before one of us has a chance of asking her who Shiva is, “He has five actions, you see, Creation, Preservation, Destruction, Concealing Grace and Revealing Grace. ‘Trimurti’ is also known as the ‘masterpiece of the Gupta-Chalukyaan Art’.  In this sculptor, the qualities of Creation, Destruction and Preservation of Shiva are primarily represented. “

I couldn’t think of a single reason, why she would know all of this.

“How do you know all this?” Rey voices my thoughts.

“I was a student of Art and had to do a paper on this once.” She explains.

By the time, all this was over; we had reached the Trimurti Sculptor and what a marvelous view it was. It was huge and wwas decorated with a lot of other sculptures by its side. The lighting itself was not up to the mark, but that just seemed to make the structure look more huge and more. . . real and unnatural. I don’t know how it was possible but it did look like it.

It was sculptor of a man-Shiva, there god, I guessed-with three heads. It wasn’t in its best condition, but it as not in a bad condition either. You can say that it was in a semi-good condition. The right head of his, depicted I guess, a young person and it was holding what seemed like a rosebud. It represented, Somya explained, Creativity. “That face is the closest to that of Brahma, another god, the creator of Uma, the feminine side of Shiva, creator of beauty and joy.” Somya acted like our guide here, explaining everything.