Six kilometers west of Bhubaneshwar, beyond the leafy avenues of its exclusive neighbourhoods and the point where the green belt is broken by the busy Calcutta-Madras highway. The Udaigiri caves occupy a fairly compact area around the south of the hill. To reach the largest and most impressive in the group, walk up the main pathway and take the track off to the right. Cave 1, the Rani Gumpha or "Queen's Cave", is tucked away around the corner. Its best sculpture is to be found over the pillars, arches and to the rear of the courtyard on the lower level, and across the back wall of the upper storey, where a long frieze shows rampaging elephants, panicking monkeys, sword fights and the abduction of a women.

Nobody, as yet, has managed to string all these scenes into a coherent narrative, though some are thought to illustrate episodes from the life of Kalinga's King Kharavela. As you return along the same path, the first caves of interest are numbers 3 and 4 - a double-storeyed cave containing sculptures of a lion holding its prey, elephants with snakes wrapped around them and pillars topped by pairs of peculiar winged animals.

To reach cave 10, return to the main steps and climb towards the top of the hill. Its popular name, Ganesh Gumpha, is not derived from the elephants in front of the cave, but from the appearance on the rear wall of the cell on the right of the elephant-heades Ganesh. From here, follow the path to the ledge at the very top of Udaigiri hill for good views and the ruins of an old chaitya hall. This was probably the main place of worship for the Jain monks who lived below and may even once have housed the legendary Kalinga Jina, a kind of votive cult object-cum-Holy Grail that Kharavela recovered after it had been removed by the King of Magadha.
Below the ruins are cave 12, shaped like the head of a tiger, and cave 14, the Hathi Gumpha known for the long inscription in ancient Magadhi carved onto its overhang.