Ageless chisel: The rock-cut caves of Ellora The Ellora caves,
locally known as ‘Verul Leni’ and located on the Aurangabad-
Chalisgaon road, were, like the Ajanta caves,carved out of the
terraces that were formed as a result of the great movements in
the crust of the earth that began millions of years ago. A part
of land that had broken off the Australian landmass drifted
north and began to push against the Laurasian plate about 65
million years ago, giving birth to the Himalayas at one end and
triggering hectic volcanic activity at the point of contact. The
resulting waves of lava flow solidified into layers, or
terraces, spread across hundreds of miles. Both Ajanta and
Ellora are located on this massive lava flow known as the Deccan
trap. Incidentally, the Deccan trap is full of man-made caves.
Maha-rashtra alone has about 1,200 big or small caves or big and
small cave clusters and close to 75 per cent of them (about 900)
are Buddhist caves. The volcanic activity in the region that led
to the formation of th