India | Ajanta Chait Hall... - Secret World

Ajanta caves, Thana, Maharashtra 431118, India

by Lara Kipling

Ajanta Chait Hall is s structure, or artificial cave, with an apse encircling a stupa.This makes the two caves--each of them a ribbed chaitya hall lined with tapering octagonal columns, ending in a rounded apse which encloses the perfect dome of a tall stone stupa--among the oldest rooms in the world, already 200 years old when Augustus started the rebuilding of Rome. The closest monuments to the early caves of Ajanta are the other rock-cut chaitya halls of western India at sites like Bhaja, Bedsa and Pitalkhora.