Indisputably the most elaborate and imposing rock-cut monument in the world, the Kailasa still triumphantly confirms the Balhara’s status as ‘one of the four great or principal kings of the world’. It also provides a further illustration of the Rashtrakutas’ attempt to appropriate the sacred geography of arya-varta. Mount Kailasa in the Himalayas is the earthly abode of Lord Shiva. The new Kailasa temple at Ellora, also wrought of rock and also dedicated to Shiva, was designed to reposition Mount Kailasa in the Deccan and so, by implication, to make of the gentle Vindhya hills a
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