Place · rock-cut Shaiva caves · India
Elephanta Caves
The sixth-century Shaiva rock-cut caves on Elephanta Island in Mumbai harbour, 10 kilometres from the Gateway of India by ferry. The main cave (c.540 CE under the Konkan Maurya dynasty or the Kalachuris) is dominated by the colossal 6-metre three-headed Sadashiva relief — Shiva's Tatpurusha (centre), Aghora (east, ferocious) and Vamadeva (west, feminine) aspects together, one of the most imposing single-stone sculptures in India. The caves were sacked by the Portuguese after 1534, who used the panels for target practice (damage visible on the Shivalinga sanctum entrance). Named 'Elephanta' by Portuguese sailors for a monolithic basalt elephant statue (now at Jijamata Udyan) at the island's shore. UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1987.
- Date
- 1987
- Function
- Archaeology & heritage
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 18.963, 72.931
Worth knowing
Named by the Portuguese after a large stone elephant they found on the shore. The elephant was moved to Mumbai, the island kept the name, and the caves' actual name is forgotten.
Connections (3)
- Architectural modelEllorā
Elephanta's sixth-century Shaiva caves in Bombay harbour, dominated by the colossal three-headed Sadashiva, precede the Rashtrakuta work at Ellora by two centuries and belong to the same western Deccan tradition of cutting temples out of basalt. The Kalachuri or early Chalukya patrons of Elephanta worked out the iconographic programme — the Shiva panels, the great faces — that Ellora's Cave 29 repeats almost exactly.
- Monument relocationVictorian Gothic & Art Deco, Mumbai
The Elephanta elephant was lowered, broke apart in the attempt, lay in pieces for decades and was reassembled in the Victoria Gardens — now Jijamata Udyaan — in Bombay, where it stands in a public park nine kilometres from the island it named. The island is a World Heritage site and keeps the name; the animal that gave it the name is a municipal exhibit, which is a fairly exact picture of how nineteenth-century collecting worked.
- Site withinMumbai
Elephanta Caves lies within Mumbai — the two sites sit about 10 km apart, well inside the city's historical boundary and part of the same urban or peri-urban landscape. Elephanta Caves is one of the specific sites that give Mumbai its layered character, and reads differently when seen as a stop within the larger city rather than as an isolated monument on an open map. The surrounding neighbourhoods, roads and other heritage ensembles belong to the same single urban fabric.
On these journeys
Sources
List of World Heritage Sites in India — Wikipedia
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