An atmospheric escape from the city’s clamor and crowd, the Elephanta Island is an hour’s boat ride from Gateway Of India. The rock cut temples on the Elephanta caves are World Heritage Site and a fascinating carving on the walls of ancient caves. From Elephanta Island their are stairs that leads to the cave. 5th century rock cut temples are fabulous piece of architecture. The name elephant was given by Portuguese who discovered a monolithic elephant statue near the island. The caves are dedicated to Lord Shiva and beautifully adorned in sculptural style. Some historian believes that caves were built during the reign of Silhara Kings of the 9th to 13th century. Some of the sculptures are also dedicated to Rastrakutas era.

The cave temple complex covers an area of 60000 square feet and cut out of a basalt rock face. The caves are one of the best rock cut architectures of the world. The temple is adorned with beautiful stone sculptures of Hindu Gods and Goddess and collection of shrines, courtyards, halls and porticos arranged in a precise geometrical calculation. The most surprising part of the cave architecture is, nicely fused the graceful forms of South Indian Hindu sculpture with Buddhist Gupta Arts. Though a massive damage had been done still they are captivating.

Sights And Activities

Temple Structure
These temples were built by carving out massive basalt rocks, rocks were also used to make columns, the inner spaces and the sculptured figures. The entire temples seems a mammoth sculpture with corridors and chambers. You can easily walk in these corridors. Creation of temple complex was also in a unique way. It was made by rock removal process. Most of the rocks are bare rocks while few of them are exquisitely polished.

Trimurthi Sadasiva Image
Sadashiva is other name of Lord Shiva, the rock cut image of Sadashiva is carved at the end of the north south axis. One of the masterpiece of Indian art, this superb 20 feet tall three headed Shiva also known as Trimurthy is the prime attraction. Originally it was supposed to have five faces but only three faces are carved into the wall.

Other Images
Apart from various Shiva images, there are other spectacular images like massive Kalyanasundara, Gangadhara, Ardhanariswara and Uma Maheswara on the southern wall. To the west to northern entrance is dedicated to southern God Natraja and Hakaasuravadamoorthy. Images of Yogiswara and Ravanaanugrahamurthy are seen on the northern entrance.