Ellora

Historical site in modern Maharashtra,
about twenty miles north of Aurangabad.
It is world famous for a group of thirtythree rock-cut temples, which were
sculpted between the fourth and tenth
centuries C.E. Twelve of the caves have
Buddhist images, and these tend to be
the oldest; four of the caves are Jain, and
the remaining seventeen are Hindu. In
each case, the caves were created by
excavating into the volcanic stone outcrop of the hillside, carefully cutting
away the stone to leave finished images.
Several of the Hindu caves have images
of exceptional artistic quality. The most
famous is the eighth century
Kailasanatha Temple for which the
entire hillside was cut away, leaving the
temple behind, looking as if it had been
built there from the ground up.