TIL about the Ellora Caves
This place seems like a great symbol of religious freedom and non-sectarianism, possibly similar to how universities study these things today but with more practice immersion. The 100+ rock-cut caves (34 open to public -12 Buddhist) are in Maharashtra, India and consist mostly of monasteries, halls and temples of different traditions. Here's one of the Vajrayana monasteries for example. Interesting too, in this article they say the walls were preserved with cannabis which helped keep them in tact. Here's an image of Cave 5 built by Buddhist monastics which has a special kind of arrangement according to archaeologists. Just as a funny thing, the special arrangement includes the Buddha being in the back of the room and now I'm wondering if this was a mistake related to the cannabis being around :D
It also has what I think is a pretty rare 15 ft seated Buddha in the Vishvakarman cave that seems to resemble Maitreya Buddha (the Buddha to come in the future).
Also interesting is this statue of what appears to be White Tara/Dhatvishvari.
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from Buddhism https://ift.tt/2Q2nROu
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