Kailasa Temple: They Carved This Temple From the Roof Down. There Was No Undo. | Ellora

The Kailasa temple at Ellora, in India, was not built. It was cut out of a single basalt hillside, from the roof down, about 1,250 years ago. What stands there today is one piece of stone. This video shows how it was done: the three trenches that freed the block, why the carvers started with the spire, how the pillars, the bridge and the life-size elephants were left behind rather than added, how long it may have taken, and the copper-plate inscription in which the architect is said to have asked how he ever built it. CHAPTERS 0:00 One piece of stone 0:35 The Hill 1:43 The Vow 2:22 The Trenches 3:04 Roof First 4:11 No Undo 5:20 The Mountain 5:59 The Count 7:03 The Question SOURCES M. K. Dhavalikar, "Kailasa: The Stylistic Development and Chronology", Bulletin of the Deccan College Research Institute 41 (1982), pp. 33-45: planning, the labour estimate (about 4 cubic feet per cutter per day, 250 workers, about 5.5 years), the dating of the Ravana panel, and the Kokasa legend. Vidya Dehejia, "Unfinished Work at Ellora", in Deepanjana Klein and Arno Klein (eds), Ellora: Cross-fertilization of Style in Buddhist, Hindu and Jain Cave Temples (Mapin): the unfinished figures in Cave 2, tools, and the absence of repair work. J. C. Harle, The Art and Architecture of the Indian Subcontinent, p. 181: translation of the copper-plate inscription of about 812 CE. K. V. Soundara Rajan, Rock-cut Temple Styles (1998), pp. 142-143: excavation from the top down. H. P. Ray and C. M. Sinopoli, Archaeology as History in Early South Asia (2004), p. 109: the Katha-Kalpataru legend. H. Goetz, "The Kailasa of Ellora and the Chronology of Rashtrakuta Art", Artibus Asiae 15 (1952): the case for several building phases. Government of India, Indian Culture portal, "Kailasa: the majestic temple of Ellora": the three trenches and the size of the block. UNESCO World Heritage List, Ellora Caves (no. 243), and Guinness World Records, "Largest monolithic building": dates and the 150,000 to 200,000 tonne figure. Several of these were read through summaries: the Wikipedia articles "Kailasa Temple, Ellora" and "Ellora Caves", World History Encyclopedia's "Ellora Caves" (Mark Cartwright, 2016), and Scroll.in's excerpt of Dehejia's essay (1 April 2026). NOTES The drawings are schematic and not to scale. No inscription on the temple names its builder. The attribution to Krishna I rests on later copper-plate grants, and some scholars think the carving continued under later kings. The story of the queen and the architect Kokasa is a legend, written down about seven hundred years after the temple was cut. Dimensions and tonnages are approximate and differ between sources. Narration uses a synthetic voice. All animation, music and sound are original. #history #ancientengineering #ellora