Ellora Caves: Rock marvel

14 Apr 2025 Ellora

By ANIRBAN RAY

Ellora rock-cut caves in India stands out as a remarkable piece of art and an engineering marvel that can adorn human experiences with a strange sense of euphoria. This UNECSO World Heritage Site is located in Aurangabad, Maharashtra state (India)

Muscat – Romanticism is the nostalgia for the past. And when the past is a deja vu of experiences to all the five senses, it gets intensely intense.

With the lazy spring wind blowing among the various contours of caves and the nearby lush green forests, any meditative mind is capable to teleport to an era of artists, architects, sculptures from the 6^th Century CE. You have entered the magic realm of Ellora Caves in Aurangabad, in the Western Indian state of Maharashtra.

Being an ardent admirer of anything dilapidated, yet with a tale intact, I made a short trip to these ‘moving’ pieces of stones during the recent Eid break. Ellora is a set of 34 caves that were carved out more than 1500 years ago. It had taken almost four centuries to finish the caves.

Though there are almost 100 caves made with besalt, only 34 are open to the public. Divided into three segments – Buddhism, Jainism and Hinduism – these caves throw a spectacular light to the secularism that India always promoted right from ancient times.

The caves served as resting points (like the present days hotels), centres of education, business centres and pilgrim sites. The huge rocks cut and shaped like seating arrangements inside the caves clearly establish that there was indeed an influx of people during those times. Though the summers hit tourists, once inside the caves, one can feel a fresh cool gush of wind, thus making one wonder about the heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HAVC) mechanism.

There are small sets of caves to the left and right. If one has time (minimum of three hours) he can explore all in one day. However, if you are an architect, a film maker or one with a more creative bent, it will take longer. Most of the Hindu caves have idols and sculptures engraved on the entrances as well as the inner walls.

The sculptures, depicting several stories from mythologies, are huge with exotic and detailed life like carvings. Perhaps the biggest inspiration to a work of art in the lost days have been religious texts and much alike to the Sistine Chapel (depicting the Creation of Adam among many), Ellora caves sculptures describe vividly the episodes of epics like the Ramayana and Shiva Parvati narratives, among many.

One needs to be physically strong as a trip to these caves involves a lot of walking/climbing around. A bottle of water, a selfie stick, a cap or an umbrella (all are sold at affordable prices at the entrance) is a must.

Cave 15 of Ellora describes all 10 incarnations of lord Vishnu, and the map of Cave 29 is somewhat similar to that of the Elephanta Caves off Mumbai. At these Buddhist caves, the carvings depict events from the life of Gautam Buddha and important stories of that time.

Coming to the main section of the attraction – The Kailash cave (Also called Cave 16), it is the largest of all the caves and considered one of the most remarkable cave temples in the world because of its grand size, architecture and sculptural treatment. It can be called the star of every rock architecture in India. A single rock structure without any joints, the monolithic structure is one if the world’s greatest wonders. Carved from top to down (instead of the standard down to top method), the entire base of the temple is carved with elephant statues and inscriptions. Legend has it that it took about 7000 labourers and almost two decades to complete the temple in phases.

One of the greatest mysteries surrounding the Kailash Temple is how the ancient builders were able to create such a massive structure by cutting vertically into the rock face. The temple is over 100 feet tall and spans more than 300 feet in length, making it one of the largest rock-cut structures in the world. To make matters even more mysterious, the temple was not built in sections but was carved as a single, massive block of rock. Considering the grandeur and several mysteries, a section of enthusiasts also believes that extraterrestrial machines may have been used to build the enormous temple of Kailash. There are also mainstream discussions about a ‘mythological technology’ that had the ability to vaporise hundreds of tonnes of rocks.

Victim of vandalism

Ellora Caves have been a victim of vandalism and foreign attacks as several sculptures on the walls could be seen disfigured or broken. The present times have always laid indefinite doubts over our ancestors and their skills. We view their achievement – scientific, artistic and archaeological through the lens of scepticism and ridicule.

The mysteries of the pyramids, the balance of Stonehenge, the geometry of Machu Pichu, instead of being a celebration of human skills, become secret blessings from beings from an outer space. It is high time we got over our post-modern ego and identify that the past had indeed held depths of knowledge with extraordinary feats.

As I turned away from a two-hour teleporting ordeal, I felt that if stones could talk and stones could move, these caves would whisper many tales of an era gone by, of achievements and atrocities, of valour and vindication, of storms and survival against all odds, that mankind is yet to rediscover.