Rock-cut architecture

Most buildings are made by adding: brick on brick, stone on stone. Rock-cut architecture works the other way, by taking away. Workers carve straight into a rock face to make caves for worship, living or meeting.

It was efficient (no heavy stone to carry, the workers came to the rock) and it lasts a very long time. Many cave sites kept growing for centuries, as needs and patrons changed.

The Udayagiri–Khandagiri caves near Bhubaneswar in Odisha were begun in the 2nd century BCE with a king's support. They are among India's first rock-cut caves.

Most of these caves were homes for Jain monks. One of them holds the famous inscription of King Khāravela.

In Maharashtra, Ajanta and Ellora are famous for their huge size and amazing carving skill.

At Ellora, the Kailaśha Temple is monolithic: carved from one single mass of rock. Many thousands of tonnes of rock were chipped away to leave the temple standing.

Think about what that means. In a built temple, a mistake can be pulled down and rebuilt. In a carved temple, rock that is cut away cannot be put back. So the whole design had to be clear in the builders' minds before the first cut.

Ellora's cave 10 is enormous. A large seated Buddha, in a teaching pose, rests against a stupa.

Look up in cave 10: the arched roof is carved to look like wooden beams, copying the timber roofs of town buildings of that time. It is stone pretending to be wood.

Monks walked around the stupa in the aisle, the passage outside the row of pillars. This walking around, clockwise, is called pradakṣhiṇā, and people still do it in temples today.

The chapter also names other important religious sites:

• Sharada Peetha, Kashmir: a great centre of learning for the goddess Śhāradā. It is why Kashmir was called Śhāradā Deśh, the land of Śhāradā. It is now in ruins.
• Hidimba Devi Temple, Manali, Himachal Pradesh: a wooden temple from the 16th century.
• Jageshwar, Uttarakhand: about 124 stone temples.
• The Golden Temple (Harmandir Sahib), Punjab: the holiest Sikh shrine.