wetheartist: Elephanta Caves

There was a painting tour to the Elephanta caves, of the Art Society of India's artist group a few days back.

Before getting into details just a quick brief for those who are unaware of this location :
These are Caves built on a hill, on a island close to Mumbai by Buddhist monks. Just like the Ellora and Ajanta caves. It takes atleast 45 minutes by a launch which starts from the Gateway of India to reach there.

So, you can see the end of this rocky track. Here is where you get down by the launch. A mini train can also be seen which starts from there and it takes you to the base of the hill from where you have to climb up the hill.
We preferred walking instead of this train as it is very close and does not take more than 10 minutes to reach.

There are stairs built as you can see which go right up to the caves. There are stalls on both the sides which sell handicrafts etc.

There is a saying that there are 38 crores of hindu gods.
Seeing this one, can make you believe that.

The front view of the Caves ....

And the top veiw of the same....

The main attraction or like the climax of the movie is this sculptor of the Trimurti. The photo of this didn't came out good due to poor light. It is called Trimurti but according to the legal information given here, it has got four heads, of which the fourth one is at the back.

Its peaceful looks, really get into you.

Its huge and magnificient, you should visit this once. It is really worth.

Our group of artist....

This group of girls were not from our group. They were so engrossed looking at the painting going on, i couldn't resist the urge to catch that moment on the camera.

They must be art lovers because they sat for nearly half an hour watching the painting done.

Here are some of the paintings done there....

This Foreign tourist had brought her dog all the way.....

The inside scene of the caves.

Sometimes I just wonder how this buddhist monks had so much energy and motivation in them to build this caves hundreds of years ago, with so much creativity and architectural excellence. Also on such locations which are even today not easily accessible.

For example the kanheri caves in national park, the Ajanta and ellora, the karla caves just to name a few.

Many such sculptors were disfigured by the Mughals for the spread of Islam.

There are guides, who take you to each sculptor and explains the idea and the symbolism behind it. Here you can see some foreign tourist listening to the guide with the white beard.

This is a sculptor of the Nataraj, Shiva.

One of the incomplete carvings.

This is the museum maintained by the archeological survey of India. Here you can get details of about the sculptors inside the caves and also about the other caves situated in India.