2-981-915 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Kailas, in the Cave Temples of Ellora, Western India, from a sketch by one of our special artists, 1876. 'This temple is an exception among the rock excavations of Western India. The others are all cave temples; but the Kailas is a mass of rock cut out of the hillside, and then sculptured in the form of a built temple. The importance of the work may be judged of by its size. The hill has been cut into as far back as 400 ft.; the temple itself is 300 ft. long...Over the north colonnade is a very fine rock-cut temple, known as the Lanka Cave; over the south colonnade is another called the Pir Lanka, and a bridge once communicated with it from the great hall of the Kailas, but this has been broken down, and the cave cannot now be reached without a ladder. The illustration is taken from the southern side, and shows this broken bridge'. From "Illustrated London News", 1876.