Ellora Caves

Timeline

1. c. 550-600 CE

   Earliest excavations

   Late Traikutaka or Vakataka craftsmen begin the first caves at Ellora, with Cave 29 and several proto-Hindu shrines often attributed to the Shiva-devoted Kalachuri dynasty

2. c. 600-730 CE

   Buddhist cave phase

   The 12 Buddhist caves numbered 1 to 12 are excavated under Chalukya patronage, climaxing with the great chaitya hall of Cave 10 Vishvakarma in the 7th century

3. c. 756-775 CE

   Kailasa Temple begun

   Rashtrakuta king Krishna I orders Cave 16, the monolithic Kailasa Temple, hewn from the top down out of a single basalt cliff over roughly a century of labour

4. 812 CE

   Baroda inscription

   A Rashtrakuta copper-plate inscription at Baroda praises Krishna's 'great edifice on the hill at Elapura', long identified as the Kailasa Temple at Ellora

5. c. 850-950 CE

   Late Hindu caves

   Hindu caves 13-29 including the Dashavatara (Cave 15) and Dhumar Lena (Cave 29) are completed under the high Rashtrakuta dynasty, finishing the Hindu programme

6. 9th-10th c.

   Jain cave phase

   Caves 30-34, including the elaborate two-storey Indra Sabha (Cave 32), are carved by Jain communities under late Rashtrakuta and early Yadava patronage

7. 1187-1317

   Yadava additions

   The Yadava dynasty of Devagiri sponsors the final Jain carvings and minor extensions, ending the seven-century campaign of rock-cut work at Ellora

8. late 17th c.

   Aurangzeb's damage

   Some Hindu images at Ellora are defaced under the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, though the bulk of the sculptural programme survives intact

9. 1819

   Rediscovery by John Smith

   British army officer John Smith stumbles upon the Kailasa Temple while pursuing a tiger; his report makes Ellora a sensation in nineteenth-century European antiquarian circles

10. 1861

    ASI protection

    The newly founded Archaeological Survey of India brings Ellora under formal study and conservation, beginning systematic mapping and documentation

11. 1983

    World Heritage inscription

    UNESCO inscribes the Ellora Caves on the World Heritage List under criteria i, iii and vi (listing 243), recognising the site as a symbol of religious tolerance

12. 2010s

    Conservation overhaul

    ASI undertakes a major round of stone consolidation, water-drainage works and visitor-path upgrades, securing the caves for the modern tourism era

Detailed History

The Ellora caves were carved in three main phases over nearly half a millennium. The earliest excavations are usually attributed to the late Traikutaka and Vakataka dynasties of the late 5th and early 6th centuries, with Cave 29 and some early Hindu shrines built under the Shiva-devoted Kalachuri dynasty in the mid-6th century. The 12 Buddhist caves numbered 1 to 12 followed during the long Chalukya period, between roughly 600 and 730 CE; Cave 10 Vishvakarma, with its ribbed timber-like ceiling and seated preaching Buddha, marks the climax of this Mahayana phase. Power on the Deccan then passed to the Rashtrakuta dynasty (753-982 CE), under whose patronage most of the later Hindu caves and the earliest Jain shrines were carved. The supreme monument of this period is Cave 16, the Kailasa Temple. Begun around 756-775 under king Krishna I, it was hewn out of the basalt cliff from the top down — an excavation that removed an estimated 200,000 tonnes of rock and took roughly a century to complete. The Baroda copper-plate inscription of 812 CE praises Krishna's 'great edifice on the hill at Elapura', long identified with the Kailasa Temple. Architecturally it draws on the Dravidian shrines of the Chalukyan capital at Pattadakal while surpassing the rock-cut Pallava rathas at Mamallapuram, recreating Mount Kailasa, the cosmic seat of Shiva, in stone. The last campaign produced the five Jain caves numbered 30 to 34, including the two-storey Cave 32 Indra Sabha, under the late Rashtrakutas and the Yadava dynasty (c. 1187-1317). After the rise of Islamic powers in the Deccan, parts of the Hindu sculpture were defaced under the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb in the late 17th century, although the caves as a whole survived. In 1819 the British army officer John Smith reached the Kailasa Temple while pursuing a tiger and announced his discovery to colonial India; the Archaeological Survey of India placed Ellora under formal study and protection from 1861 onwards. UNESCO inscribed the Ellora Caves on the World Heritage List in 1983 (criteria i, iii and vi, listing 243) as a vivid testimony to the religious tolerance of medieval India. Today the site is managed by the ASI and draws several million visitors a year, paired in most guidebooks with the painted caves of Ajanta.

Cultural Significance

Ellora is widely regarded as the supreme expression of Indian rock-cut architecture and the most extensive surviving testimony to the religious pluralism of medieval South Asia. Nowhere else do Buddhist, Hindu and Jain sanctuaries stand side by side on the same cliff in such numbers; the 34 caves, carved over four centuries, are routinely cited as a symbol of the coexistence of three rival faiths in the 1st millennium CE. Their patrons included the Chalukya, Kalachuri, Rashtrakuta and Yadava courts as well as merchants who funded individual caves, reflecting the wealth of the Deccan trade routes that ran past the site. Cave 16, the Kailasa Temple, is treated as one of the supreme engineering and artistic feats of pre-modern Asia. Roughly twice the floor area of the Parthenon and carved from one living rock, it embodies the same Mount Meru cosmology that later inspired Angkor Wat and Borobudur, and is India's most photographed monument after the Taj Mahal. UNESCO inscribed Ellora in 1983 under criteria i (unique artistic achievement), iii (testimony to Rashtrakuta civilisation) and vi (association with living religious traditions), and the ASI protects it as a Monument of National Importance. The caves remain a fixture of Indian school curricula and of tourist itineraries paired with the painted Ajanta Caves.

Architectural Details

The Ellora monuments are excavated, not built. Workers cut down into the west-facing basalt cliff of the Charanandri Hills along nearly two kilometres of escarpment, using iron chisels, wooden wedges and water to split blocks of Deccan trap basalt. Each cave is therefore a monolithic excavation — every column, beam, doorway and image is carved from the same continuous mother rock. The 12 Buddhist caves (5th-7th centuries) follow two basic plans: viharas, or pillared residential halls for monks (Caves 1-9 and 11-12), and the single chaitya hall of Cave 10 Vishvakarma, where a barrel-vaulted ceiling carries imitation timber ribs that recall the wooden prototypes the rock here replaces. The 17 Hindu caves (7th-9th centuries) move outward and upward, culminating in Cave 16, the Kailasa Temple. Carved top-down from the summit of the cliff, the courtyard measures 82 by 46 metres and the temple itself rises 32 metres, with two-storeyed shrines, a Nandi pavilion, elephant plinths and a flagstaff column, every element severed from the surrounding stone and shaped in situ. The five Jain caves (9th-10th centuries) at the northern end of the cliff are smaller but most densely decorated: monolithic shrines such as Cave 32 Indra Sabha pair with pillared halls covered in painted lotus medallions and finely carved Tirthankaras.