The many histories of Ellora's art

A new book, accompanying an interactive website, investigates the rock-cut temples at Ellora through themes of patronage, style and cultural exchange

- Avantika Bhuyan [e-mail]

Elephant plinth supporting the main temple, Kailash; and (right) Dancing Shiva in 'tandava', Kailash, Cave 16, Lankeshwar shrine.

ver a thousand years ago, one of the largest complexes of rock-cut caves in the world were carved in the village of Elapura in Maharashtra. Between 600 CE and 1000 CE, highly skilled guilds of sculptors, painters and architects together created Buddhist, Hindu and Jain imagery in these rock-cut temples, including the Kailash in Cave 16, which is the largest monolithic rock excavation in the world dedicated to Shiva. Carved into the Charanandri Hills, Ellora, featuring 34 main caves and spread across 2km, has been studied by scholars from around the world. There has been debate about the overlapping styles of Buddhist, Hindu and Jain cave temples, making it difficult to agree upon a specific chronology of their creation.

A new book, Ellora: A Cross-Fertilization of Style in Buddhist, Hindu and Jain Cave Temples (Mapin Publishing), goes beyond just documentation and chronological arrangement of the Unesco World Heritage Site. Rather, it seeks to capture the essence of the complex by investigating the three groups of rock-cut temples—Buddhist (Caves 1-12), Hindu (Caves 13-29) and Jain (Caves 30-34)—through their iconography, patronage, stylistic influences, economics of monastery life, cultural exchange, and the process of art production.

"When I began to go through my doctoral thesis anew, it was clear that I could not do justice to this site alone," writes Deepanjana Klein, art historian, special advisor to the chairperson, and director of acquisitions and development, Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, in her preface. So, she began to assemble a group of scholars "who share the same passion, dedication and scholarship for the site."