India Guide
Maharashtra
Ellora
Maharashtra's most visited ancient monument, the ELLORA caves, 29km northwest of Aurangabad, may not enjoy as grand a setting as their older cousins at Ajanta, but their amazing wealth of sculpture more than compensates. In all, 34 Buddhist, Hindu and Jain caves line the foot of the two-kilometre-long Chamadiri escarpment as it tumbles down to meet the open plains. The site's principal attraction, the colossal Kailash temple, rears from a huge, sheer-edged cavity cut from the hillside – a vast lump of solid basalt fashioned into a spectacular complex of colonnaded halls, galleries and shrines.
This apparently remote spot became a focus of religious and artistic activity thanks to the busy caravan route that passed through en route between the prosperous cities to the north and the ports of the west coast. A five-hundred-year spate of excavation began midway through the sixth century AD, during the twilight of the Buddhist era in central India. The Brahmanical Hindu resurgence over the next three hundred years witnessed the bulk of the construction at Ellora, including the eighth-century Kailash temple. A third and final flourish took place towards the end of the millennium, after the local rulers had switched to the Jain faith.
Unlike Ajanta, Ellora experienced the iconoclasm that accompanied the thirteenth-century arrival of the Muslims. Aurangzeb ordered the demolition of the site's "heathen idols". Although Ellora still bears the scars, most of its best pieces of sculpture have remained remarkably well preserved, sheltered from centuries of monsoon downpours by the hard basalt hillside.
All the caves are numbered, following a roughly chronological plan. Numbers 1 to 12, at the south end of the site, are the oldest, from the Vajrayana Buddhist era (500–750 AD). The Hindu caves, 13 to 29, overlap with the later Buddhist ones and date from between 600 and 870 AD. Further north, the Jain caves – 30 to 34 – were excavated from 800 AD until the late eleventh century. Because of the sloping hillside, most of the cave entrances are set back from the level ground behind open courtyards and large colonnaded verandas or porches.