These 34 monas­ter­ies and tem­ples, extend­ing over more than 2 km, were dug side by side in the wall of a high basalt cliff, not far from Aurangabad, in Maha­rash­tra. Ello­ra, with its unin­ter­rupt­ed sequence of mon­u­ments dat­ing from A.D. 600 to 1000, brings the civ­i­liza­tion of ancient India to life. Not only is the Ello­ra com­plex a unique artis­tic cre­ation and a tech­no­log­i­cal exploit but, with its sanc­tu­ar­ies devot­ed to Bud­dhism, Hin­duism and Jain­ism, it illus­trates the spir­it of tol­er­ance that was char­ac­ter­is­tic of ancient India.