Temple on the back of elephants

Kailasa is a temple, conceived as a mountain, some

three stories high, carried by a frieze of huge elephants.

As it was customary to embellish all parts of the religious

structure with sacred motifs. The Kailasa temple is

shown as if carried by huge elephant caryatids.

 

The ultimate culmination of rock-cut architecture,

in terms of sheer mastery of technique and dazzling

conception, is the Kailasa temple at Ellora caves.

Kailasa, perhaps fittingly, refers to the god Shiva's

abode in the mountains and was excavated under

the patronage of the Rashtrakuta ruler Krishna I,

who ascended the throne in the mid-eighth century.

Work on the temple continued under his descendants

for a hundred years.

 

The Temple itself is richly carved and embossed, the

whole being an amazing example of the imagination,

engineering skill, labour and perseverance of its

builders. The making of Kailasa involved the cutting

of three huge trenches at right angles from the top of

the hill downwards, the three excavated areas forming

the open court around the temple. The standing mass

of rock in the centre was eventually hewn into the

exquisite proportions of the temple itself.

 

The hillside is about 30 m (100 ft) high and one can

only speculate as to the time this massive task must

have taken. One estimate is that roughly three million

cubic metres of rock had to be excavated to make

Kailasa possible.

 

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