Kailasa Temple: Part II - Through My Eyes

Until I visited Ellora, One of my favorite authors was Jeffrey Archer, for the way he cuts a long story short!! Now I shift my allegiance to the sculptors who etched the mighty Itihaasas of Ramayana and Mahabharatha into a crispy visual collage on the exterior walls of the mandap on the South and North side respectively.

And I thought ‘Relay’ is a recent concept in Olympics until I was welcomed by the grand sculpture as you enter the complex - two pair of elephants on both sides of the Gajalakshmi, bottom ones drawing water from the pond and passing it on to the ones on upper deck which anoints the Goddess with the water. The motion of the elephants in action is signified by the flutter in the water surface causing the leaves to float unevenly and the bells on the elephant swinging backwards due to their force in the forward direction (especially that of the bottom right one - And we credit Sir Isaac Newton who came a thousand years later for discovering 3rd law of motion..?)

Flanking the pavements below the porch that connects mandappa 2 with the main temple are the best contradictions of how a same person assumes different persona. On the east side is Lord Shiva as 'Maha Yogi', symbol of peace and serenity and on the west side is Shiva in his 'Rudhra Thandavam' (Rudhra = Anger, Thandav = Dance). Here too the aesthetic beauty of the sculptor kicks in, with Shiva reassuring his better half not to worry as he is in full control and is aware of what he is doing, by caressing her cheek with one of his hands. Positioning of these two right opposite to each other couldn’t be more poignant.

We were also Pioneers in equality, a fact signified by the Statue of 'Ardhanarishwara' in the north courtyard (Ardha = Half, Nari = Woman), where half of the statue is male (Shiva) and the other half is female (Parvati, his wife). This is an iconographic representation of how male form of life (Shiva) is inseparable from the female form (Shakti). The details in the sculpture are impeccable. The female half is delicate while the male rough. The jewellery on the female side, the hairstyle, the attire, the breast, the curve of the waist, all are expressed with absolute perfection and distinguishing with that of Siva.

An interesting carving in the south facing walls whose better account can also be found in Cave 21 is – Parvati stunning Shiva over a game of dice which he usually wins. Shiva pleading her to play one more time to settle the scores even and a rather lackadaisical Parvati, not enthralled by the offer prepares to leave as she wants to use her winning proposition to full advantage. What beautiful characterization of the male ego – not admitting the defeat easily and the female ego – enjoying the prospect of the male going in circles around her. Life hasn’t changed much in a thousand and half years !!

Also one of the most famous sculpture of the complex, Ravanna buoyed by defeating his brother deems himself mighty and shakes the Mount Kailasa in an attempt to carry it off. The chaos is beautifully portrayed. Parvati caught off balance, male attendants fighting by throwing stones down at the evil and the female attendants are frightened and one of whom even fleeing, some troubled saints fearing the end while the picture of Shiva and his loyalists symbolize composure and Shiva restoring order with merely pressing his right toe down and silencing the villain.

Other Stories include Shiva’s heroic efforts of killing the daemon Anthakasura, Shiva Playing the Veena, Ravana offering all his ten heads to Shiva, Kalyana Sundaram (Or Shiva marrying Parvati) ... All these sort of round up most interesting tales from Shiva Purana. There are also some rare anthropomorphic representation of - Rathi and Manmatha (the God and Godesses of desire), The Trinity of Rivers - Ganga, Yamuna and Sarasawati, The Mahishasuramardhini etc.,

Apart from the Shivite illustrations, stories from the Vaishnava schools are no less impressive. Portrayals of Vamana avathara(what a stunning display of story telling..!!), Narasimha Avathara, Varaha Avathara all from the stories of Dasavathara deserve special credit. The Short and Sweet account of Ramayana and Mahabharatha, with Krishna’s mischievous childhood at Vrindavan (especially the Govardhana Giridhari), repeatitive but complex Vishnu on Garuda, all of them and more gives him his due credit.

The reason behind embellishing the whole temple so lavishly with so many sculptures and with so much of details engrained in each of them is that, a vast majority of visitors a thousand years ago, would most probably neither knew how to read nor write and hence the pictorial representations. As one complete the tour, one really can't help but salute the valiant attempt of these master sculptors.

Just to put in perspective, the 'Gotthard railway link', a 57 KM long tunnel that runs through the Swiss Alps is slated to become World's longest tunnel when completed. It was started in 1993 and will be commissioned in 2015. Amount of excavated rock would be around 24 Million tons. The 400,000 tons of rock supposedly excavated for Kailasa alone is certainly no match to this. But then the Gotthard project employs four state of the art Tunnel Boring Machines measuring some 440 meters(1400 Feet) and wielding 5 Mega Watt energy (equivalent to 6700 Horse Power) that can drill about 40 Meters in a given extra-ordinary day while in Kailasa there were 7000 human labours using just hammer and chisel, for 150 long gruesome years. By one account, the Baroda copper plate (inscription dated 812 A.D) suggests that the Chief Architect of Kailasa of Ellora was happy to have completed the work in his own lifetime (thou' the temple is supposed to have taken some 150 years from start to finish). Man may invent a machine which substitues his body.. But the key question is, can he invent a machine that substitutes his mind and soul..? Can a machine be invented which can carve such sculptures full of life?

Therefore in all fairness, The audacity with which this edifice was Planned, The gut feeling with which the plan was Conceived and more importantly the Endeavour with which the conception is executed is the ultimate triumph of Human Imagination and Capability.

Finally, If you thought Six Sigma is the most sophisticated measure of error free benchmarking, you are bound to change your opinion once you offer a visit to Kailasa temple. Probably the title should go to "Shilpa Shastras" (The rules of statue making).