ELLO'RA. A ruined town in the dominions of the Nizam. not far from the city of Dowlata bad, in latitude 20° 2' N. and longitude 75° 13' E. It is celebrated for its wonderful rock-cut temples, of which there are nineteen large ones, partly of Hindu and partly of Buddhist origin. Some are cave temples proper. but others are vast buildings hewn out of the solid granite of the hills, having an exterior as well as an in terior architecture, and being, in fact, magnificent monoliths. In executing the latter, the process was first to sink a quadrangular pit, leaving the central mass standing, and then to hew and excavate this mass into a temple. The most beautiful is the Hindu temple. Kailasa. At its entrance is an antechamber 138 feet wide by SS deep, with numerous rows of pillars. This is followed by a colonnaded bridge leading into a great rectangular court 247 feet in length and 150 broad, in the centre of which stands the temple itself, a vast mass of rock richly hewn and carved. It is supported by four rows of
pilasters, with colossal elephants beneath, and seems suspended in the air. The interior is about 103 feet long, 56 broad, and 17 high, but the en• tire exterior forms a pyramid 100 feet high and is overlaid with sculpture. In the great court are mimeron; ponds, obelisks, colonnades, sphinxes, and on the walls thousands of mythological fig ures of all kinds, from 10 to 12 feet in height. (If the other temples, those of bairn and Hilmar heyna are little inferior to that of Kailasa. Re garding their antiquity and religions significance, authorities are not agreed; but at all events they must be subsequent to the epic poems L'amayana or .11aboblorrola, because they contain represen tations taken from these poems, and also to the' cave temples of Elephanta, because they exhibit a richer and more advanced ,tyl• of minimitceiuIC. and Burgess, The Care Tent s of India (London, ISSO).