11/17/2018 0 Comments ElloraEllora is located in the State of Maharashtra in the mid west part of India, it has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The site was carved constantly between 600A.D and 1000A.D into a one and a half mile long basalt rock hillside. It contains thirty four temples and monasteries dedicated to three different religions; Buddhism, Jainism and Hinduism. It has within it the world's largest rock cut monolith in the world.
Ellora contains similar features to both Abu Simbel and the Longmen Grottoes with monumentally huge sculptures hewn from the living rock and the technique used in the Ethiopian complex of Lalibela of creating a religious building by burrowing down into a hillside of solid rock. Of the six items chosen for this exhibition Ellora shows the greatest attention to detail with artwork carved upon every available surface, often just for the sake of beauty and symmetry rather than for the purpose of telling a narrative. While many of the gods and saints sit and stand in familiar poses, seen at the Longmen Grottoes, many other carved figures are shown in poses with far more movement than those at any of the previous five locations. In one temple Shiva may be seen doing battle with an army of demons, his arms waving his war clubs in the air at his terrified foes, elsewhere in a Jain temple the three worlds of Earth, Heaven and Hell are represented by a god holding up a king who is relaxing with his arms entwined with his lover's embrace, while a statue at another shrine may either show a grinning evil spirit disemboweling a victim or it may show a beautiful goddess dancing freely in front of her loyal attendants, all with an attempt to gain a realistic representation of how the body looks in motion.
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