However, the overlapping styles between the Buddhist, Hindu and Jain caves has made it difficult to establish agreement concerning the chronology of their construction. The construction at Ellora has been studied since British colonial rule. The resulting vertical face made access to many layers of rock formations easier, enabling architects to pick basalt with finer grains for more detailed sculpting. The volcanic activity that formed the west-facing cliff that houses the Ellora caves occurred during the Cretaceous period. The Ellora caves are situated in state of Maharashtra about 29 kilometres (18 miles) northwest of the city of Aurangabad, 300 kilometres (190 miles) east-northeast of Mumbai, 235 kilometres (146 miles) from Pune and about 100 kilometres (62 miles) west of the Ajanta Caves, 2.3 kilometres (1.42 miles) from Grishneshwar Temple (India).Įllora occupies a relatively flat rocky region of the Western Ghats, where ancient volcanic activity had created multilayered basalt formations, known as the Deccan Traps. Location Įllora Caves, general map (the rock is depicted as dark green)
It is many a times also thought to be derived from Ilvalapuram, named after the asura Ilvala who ruled this region who was vanquished by Sage Agastya.
In the Indian tradition, each cave is named and has a suffix Guha (Sanskrit), Lena or Leni (Marathi), meaning cave. The older form of the name has been found in ancient references such as the Baroda inscription of 812 CE which mentions "the greatness of this edifice" and that "this great edifice was built on a hill by Krishnaraja at Elapura, the edifice in the inscription being the Kailasa temple.
All of the Ellora monuments were built during the Rashtrakuta dynasty, which constructed part of the Hindu and Buddhist caves, and the Yadava dynasty, which constructed a number of the Jain caves. They were built close to one another and illustrate the religious harmony that existed in ancient India. These consist of 17 Hindu (caves 13–29), 12 Buddhist (caves 1–12) and 5 Jain (caves 30–34) caves, each group representing deities and mythologies prevalent in the 1st millennium CE, as well as monasteries of each respective religion. There are over 100 caves at the site, all excavated from the basalt cliffs in the Charanandri Hills, 34 of which are open to public. The Kailash temple excavation also features sculptures depicting various Hindu deities as well as relief panels summarizing the two major Hindu epics. Cave 16 features the largest single monolithic rock excavation in the world, the Kailash temple, a chariot-shaped monument dedicated to the god Shiva. It is one of the largest rock-cut Hindu temple cave complexes in the world, with artwork dating from the period 600–1000 CE. Ellora Caves (Maharashtra) Show map of MaharashtraĮllora is a UNESCO World Heritage Site located in the Aurangabad district of Maharashtra, India.
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