Ajanta Caves situated about 107 kms from the Aurangabad city and just 61 kms from Jalgaon; the rock-cut caves of Ajanta nestle in a panoramic gap, in the form of a massive horse shoe. Among the finest examples of some of the earliest (from the second century BCE) Buddhist architecture, caves-paintings and sculptures, these caves comprise Chaitya Halls, or shrines, dedicated to Lord Buddha and Viharas, or monasteries, used by Buddhist monks for meditation and the study of Buddhist teachings. Since 1983, the Ajanta Caves have been a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Way back in 1819, a party of British army officers on a tiger hunt in the forest of western Deccan, suddenly spotted their prey, on the far side of a loop in the Waghora River, high up on the horseshoe- shaped rock face; the hunting party saw the tiger, silhouetted against the fixed front of a cave. There are 29 caves Ajanta (as officially numbered by the Archaeological Survey of India), of which 9, 10, 19, 26 and 29 are chaitya-grihas and the rest are monasteries.

These caves were discovered in AD 1819. All paintings show heavy religious influence and centre around Buddha, Bodhisattvas, incidents from the life of Buddha and the Jatakas.The paintings are executed on a ground of mud-plaster in the tempera technique. The paintings on the walls, illustrate the events in the life of Prince Gautama Buddha, the founder of Buddhism and in the more popular Jatakas stories pertaining to Buddha’s previous incarnation. Incidentally they contain the scenes of semi-mythological history, the royal court and popular life of the ancient times, as told in romances and plays. Some pictures recall the Greek and Roman compositions and proportions, few late resemble to Chinese manners to some extent. But majority belongs to a phase, which is purely Indian, as they are found nowhere else.