About

The Kailasha temple at Ellora is part of the Ellora Caves complex, in Verul, near Aurangabad. It is also known as Cave 16.

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. Caves 1-12 are Buddhist, 13–29 are Hindu, and caves 30–34 are Jain caves. Each group represents deities and mythologies prevalent at the time of their construction, as well as monasteries of each religion. The Ellora caves are spread over a 2km cliff face, with the southernmost ones being Buddhist viharas, and the northernmost ones being Jain caves. The viharas at Ellora have a similar pattern to the ones seen at Ajanta, which is about 100km away — with large square colonnaded courtyards in the centre, aisles all around, a shrine at the center of the back wall of the cave, some chambers cut into the walls, and pillared verandah at the entrance of the cave. Unlike the caves at Ajanta, the caves at Ellora have more sculptures along the walls and fewer murals and paintings by way of decoration.

The temple is carved into the Layan-shankhala located in Ellora district Aurangabad. Situated twenty kilometers away from Aurangabad city of Maharashtra, this 1200 years old temple is dedicated to Lord Shiva. What makes this temple even more beautiful and special is that this two-storey, 90 feet high, 276 feet long and 154 feet wide temple has been built by cutting only one rock of the mountain.

The temple is partially obscured from view when one first enters the caves complex, thanks to a magnificently carved gateway, the gopuram. On entering through the gateway, one is greeted with two massive elephants on either side, as well as two ornately carved square pillars.

The temple has two floors. The frieze on the lower floor is lined with near life-sized elephants in various poses, creating an impression that these elephants are holding up the temple. There are a number of sculptures all over the temple — from the Gaja Lakshmi carving that greets the visitor near the entrance, to the “Ravana shaking Kailasha” sculpture (which has copies in several other caves in the complex), Nataraja, and one panel with smaller sculptures telling the story of Ramayana, and another which tells the story of Mahabharata. The main temple has a detached Nandi mandapa, and a Sabha mandapa leading up to the sanctum sanctorum. There are five secondary shrines around the main temple. The central shrine housing the lingam features a flat-roofed mandapa supported by 16 pillars, and a Dravidian shikhara. An image of Shiva's mount, Nandi, stands in the Nandi-mandapam. Two of the walls in the main temple house rows of carvings depicting the Mahabharata, along the north side, and the Ramayana, on the south side.

There is a colonnaded gallery which runs on three sides of the courtyard, on the same level as the first floor of the temple, with scenes from the dashavatara and Shiva-Parvati’s wedding.

There is a path that leads up to the innocuously named Cave 16A (and one to Cave 16B) which lead to the top of the cliff from which one gets a startling view of the beautifully carved roof of not only the main shikhara, but also the four lions on the Sabha Mandapa, the carvings atop the Nandi Mandapa and the gateway as well.

Trivia

It took more than 100 years to complete this huge temple.

About 7000 workers were engaged for building this temple

It is estimated that around 400,000 tonnes of rock were removed to build this temple. This huge amount of heavy rock has not been found or seen by anyone in and around the site. Where was it used or dumped is still an unanswered question.