religious treatises and scriptures. The main hall in the centre and the cubical rooms on either side were used as monasteries for teaching and preaching. This is attested by a figure, in cave number six, of man reading a manuscript on a folding table. The panels in these caves portray scenes from the life of the Buddha.
Three different characters are indentified by the sculptures in the caves. The central figure is Buddha found in three sagacious postures: meditating ( dhyana mudra ), preaching ( vyakhyana mudra ) and touching the earth by index finger of right hand ( bhumi-sparsha mudra ). Buddha in Meditation-Ellora Goddesses Buddhist caves represented goddesses by way of the carved images of Tara, Khadiravani- tara, Chunda, Vajradhat-vishvari, Maha- mayuri, Sujata, Pandara and Bhrikuti. In cave twelve, a stout female figure is depicted wearing a waistband and headgear of a cobra.
Khadrivani-tara also holds a cobra in one of her hands in the same cave. Heterodox II / Jain caves A few Jain caves are also seen in Ellora group and are distinct from others. But they are incomplete. The figures of Yaksha-matanga, Mahavira, Parsvanatha, and Gomatesvara are surrounded by attendants.
Caves of Vedic Religions The earliest caves in these groups are modest and simple. Mostly, they are square-shaped except Kailasanatha cave (cave- ), which is a massive monolithic structure, carved out of a II. Ellora – Ajanta and Mamallapuram Aurangabad district in Maharashtra is the centre of the groups of caves in Ellora and Ajanta. The Ellora group of caves are famous for sculptures while the Ajanta group of caves are famous for paintings.
The dates of these temples range from c. to c. CE. But the activity of creating cave temples may have started two hundred years earlier.
The first cave temple was created for the Ajivikas . Some of the temples are incomplete.