Kailasa Temple in Ellora, Maharashtra, India, is the world’s largest monolithic piece of art. Master craftspeople carved the gigantic structure from a single piece of solid rock in a cave on a mountainside. The entire building took more than two decades to carve.
Kailasa Temple is one of the 34 rock-cut temples in Ellora caves. Situated in the city of Aurangabad, this cave temple is a beauty. This megalithic temple is believed to have been sculpted out of basaltic rocks in 8th century. The structure follows the Dravidian style of architecture.
It is estimated that the construction must have required the removal of over 200000 tons of rock over a period of 20 years.
One side of the courtyard
Ramayana panel
One of the many stories carved into the walls of Kailasa Temple
The Kailasa elephants standing watch over the temple
Vyacheslav Argenberg
Jmadhu, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
