Aurangabad

It's easy to see why many travellers regard Aurangabad as little more than a convenient, though largely uninteresting, place in which to kill time on the way to Ellora and Ajanta. First impression seem to confirm its reputation as an industrial metropolis ; wide streets, fast traffic, ugly building sites, and gaping patches of urban wasteland merge into a featureless ferroconcrete sprwal. Yet, given a little effort, northern Maharashtra's largest city can compensate for its architectural shortcomings. Scattered around its ragged fringes, the dilapidated remains of fortifcations, gateways, domes and minarets - including those of the most ambitious Moghul tomb garden in western India, the Bibi-Ka-Maqbara -bear witness to an illustrious imperial past, the small but fascinating crop of rock-cut Buddhist caves, huddled along the flanks of the flat-topped, sandy yellow hills to the north, are remnants of even more ancient occupation.

The city, originally called Khadke, or "Big Rock", was founded in the early 16th century by Mailk Amber, an ex-Abyssinian slave and prime minister of the independent Muslim kingdom of the Nizam Shahis, based at Ahmadnagar, 112km southwest. It was a perfect spot for a provincial capital : on the banks of the River Kham, in a a broad valley seperating the then-forested Sahyadri Range to the north from the Satharas to the south, and at a crossroads of the religion's key trade routes. Many of the mosques and palaces erected by Malik Amber still endure, albeit in ruins.
Buddhism was introduced to this region during the reign of the powerful Mauryan Emperors and its rapid acceptance is evident in the profusion of Buddhist cave temples found in and around modern aurangabad. The Hindu temples of Ellora built by the kings of the Satvahana and Rashtrakuta dynasties predate the influx of Buddhism. Strategically located in the centre of India, the region was considered the safest from the marauding armies of the Afghan and Central Asian raiders. The Tughlaq King Mohammed bin Tughlaq of the Delhi Sultanate moved his capital from Delhi, along with the citizens to this area in the 14^th century but failed due to poor logistical planning.

The climate of Aurangabad is temperate with moderate winters in the months of November-February and hot summers from April through to June. The summers are hot and winters are warm. But it is better to come here between October and March.