Paranormal Ponderings: FTN looks at the Ajanta Caves

 Two Thousand years ago in Western India a city existed which wasn’t discovered until April 28th 1819 by one John Smith (not the one in the police box) who discovered it by accident while out hunting tigers near the village of Ajanta. He found 29 temples carved into a cliff face. But do these temples reveal a bigger mystery? A mystery that leads to the stars themselves?

These temples were adorned with elaborate carvings and gave an insight into India’s spiritual past. It is believed work on the temples began in 200BC and continued to the end of the 6th century AD. History tells us that the following for Buddha began to decline around this time which historians believe is when these magnificent temples were abandoned. But they are filled with art and sculptures that are regarded as the finest examples of Indian religious art in the world and all created by monks. But these temples were abandoned to the degree that they were all in time buried under a dense forest. And the question is why?

They are the focus of many religious devotees to this day who marvel at how the entire place was basically carved into the rock face itself. It is truly a monument to the spirit of man and his creativity. Buddha is everywhere here as well as mythological beings that show the rebirth of Buddha from many forms. And, like the pyramids of Egypt and Stonehenge, today’s engineers still have no idea how they were able to carve such intricate and huge temples in the 70 foot cliff walls. Make no mistake these temples are huge and filled with art on every level. There is nothing like it on Earth and yet there it is. The arrangement of the caves however indicates an understanding of the celestial maps. Arranged in a horseshoe shape, the temples are said to be facing the rising sun at various points. But is this merely modern day man underestimating earlier generations about their understanding of the world around them? How many have stood and looked at the stars wondering what lay beyond and at one point humanity feared the sun was a living deity that would sweep down and destroy them if angered.

Two temples in particular have domed areas, the stupas, which are devoted to the highest Buddha, the Siddhartha Gatuma, who founded Buddhism. This is cave 19 and 26 where both are perfectly aligned to both the summer and winter solstice where the sunlight will enter the cave and illuminate the statue of Gatuma. Historians and engineers speculate you would have needed some specialized equipment to pull this off with rock carvings in 70 foot cliffs. Ancient astronaut theorists have said it is due to the influence of star travellers who interacted with ancient human societies. They say the stupas represent the power of flight and in certain carvings it looks like the figures have been placed as if they are operating controls of some sort. Stupas were always seen as a way for Buddha to ascend and descend into the heavens so was this in fact a stellar craft?

Another argument is that all over the world ancient humans recorded their lives through artwork because that was the only way they knew how. The caveman had the cave walls which told the stories of their hunting seasons and details of their lives which helps modern men better understand them. Native Americans, long before the white man arrived, detailed a large hairy man living in the mountains that should be left alone and in Australia we had the Aboriginals depicting creatures we never even knew existed. They say man recorded what he saw around him so where did the half animal, half people come from? Where did the images of unusual craft come from? Why would a devoted monk put something as outlandish as this in his sacred artwork? Could this really be evidence that aliens did indeed come from the heavens and interact with man and the story is right there from images from Egyptian hieroglyphics to the Bible itself?

If so, then it would change the face of the world itself. Could the decline of Buddhism at the end of the 7th century really have been because Buddha returned to heaven or space? And that would explain why the temples were left alone because they would have been declared sacred and not to be entered until Buddha’s return. Whatever the reasons and whatever the truth, there is no doubt the magnificent Ajanta temples will always stand as one of the most beautiful pieces of man’s holy places ever. And that’s magical in itself.