Ellora Caves

The Kailasha temple: Cave 16

Cave 16, known as the Kailas(h)a temple, is a particularly notable cave temple in India as a result of its size, architecture and having been entirely carved out of a single rock.


Other Hindu caves

Other notable Hindu caves are the Ravan ki Khai (Cave 14) and the Nilkantha (Cave 22), both of which house numerous sculptures, Cave 25 in particular features a carving of Surya in its ceiling.


The Buddhist monuments: Caves 1–12

These caves are located on the southern side and were built either between 630 and 700 CE, or 600–730 CE. It was initially thought that the Buddhist caves were the earliest structures that were created between the fifth and eighth centuries, with caves 1–5 in the first phase (400–600) and 6–12 in the later phase (650–750), but modern scholars now consider the construction of Hindu caves to have been before the Buddhist caves. The earliest Buddhist cave is Cave 6, then 5, 2, 3, 5 (right wing), 4, 7, 8, 10 and 9, with caves 11 and 12, also known as Do Thal and Tin Thal respectively, being the last.

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