Ellora..............

Ellora..............‎
From: smita
Sent: Fri 3/31/06 10:02 AM
To:

Ellora is an ancient village 30 km (18.6 miles) from the city of Aurangabad in the Indian state of Maharashtra. Famous for its monumental caves, Ellora is a World Heritage Site .

Ellora represents the epitome of Indian rock cut architecture . The 34 "caves" – actually structures excavated out of the vertical face of the Charanandri hills – comprised of Buddhist, Hindu and Jain cave temples and monasteries, were built between the 5th century and 10th century. The 12 Buddhist, 17 Hindu and 5 Jain caves, built in close proximity, demonstrate the religious tolerance prevalent during this period of Indian history.

This is standing just inside the entrance, looking to the left. There is a free-standing statue of an elephant partly obscured by the shadows directly in front

The main temple has two "stories", although the bottom one (at the level of which this is taken) is solid. There are two "buildings" (of course, all part of the one rock), a large main one, and a smaller forebuilding with a Nandi (statue of a seated cow) inside it. We stand here at the base of the forebuilding. At the upper left corner is a raised walkway leading to the upper part of the entrance building. To the right is a free-standing plinth.

Here, I have climbed up to the level of the raised colonade surrounding the temple forecourt. We look at the main temple building. On the left, in bright sunlight, is the walkway leading to the fore-temple. The small doorway in the centre of the photo leads to stairs climbing to the upper level of the temple. The main shrine is in middle of the upper level of the building in front of us. Remember again, this whole "building" has not been constructed, but excavated: what we see here is not what was "built", but what was left when everything else was chiselled away.

This holds the Nandi shrine.