Ellora Hindu Cave 24 Aids Artists, Scientists Analyzing Water Features

Summary: Ellora Hindu Cave 24 in Maharashtra, India, allows artists to appreciate and scientists to analyze adjacent area natural and stormwater water features.

injured sculpture of a River Goddess in Ellura Hindu Cave 24; sketch by Scottish archaeologist James Burgess (Aug. 14, 1832-Oct. 3, 1916), Report on the Elura Cave Temples (1883), Plate XXV: via Internet Archive

Ellora Hindu Cave 24 in Maharashtra state, western peninsular India, attracts artistic and scientific environmentalists to a natural waterfall and to stormwater runoff as adjoining water features for aesthetic and analytical appreciation.

The border between the Hindu and the Jain temples bears a natural waterfall and stormwater torrents, both of whose photogenic beauty brings in tourist photoghraphers. Cascading and coursing water features contribute to the hydrological context of the Ellora Caves and confirms concerned conclusions of the World Heritage Centre (WHUC) since 1983. Stormwater discharges divulge daily downpours during the drenching monsoon (from Arabic موسم, "season") months from June through Septermber and delight tourist photographers with their downward displays.

A natural waterfall enchants artists and scientists even as it endangers exterior and interior environmental humidity at the end of Ellora Hindu Caves 13 through 29.<

Itinerant artisans under Kalachuri (from Sanskrit कलचुरि, "country chieftain") dynasts (753?-982? C.E.) fashioned Ellora Hindu Cave 24 from basalt cliffs fraught with water and weather forces.

The Ellora Buddhist, Hindu and Jain Caves gained joint WHC status with the Buddhist Ajanta Caves in the United Nations Economic, Scientific and Cultural Organizations (UNESCO). WHC documents herded under State of Conservation in 1997, 2001 and 2002 hertald rainwater heading through tree root-hastened cracks to harm Ajanta and Ellora cave temples. The natural Sita's Bath (from Marathi Sita ki Nahani) waterfall increases relative humidity in Ellora (from Sanskrit एला, "cardamom" and पुर, "town") Hindu and Jain Caves.

Sat Kund (from Sanskrit सप्त, "seven" and कुण्ड्, "leap") waterfall jumps the Ajanta (from Sanskrit अजित, "invincible") co-WHC site's relative humidity 62 miles (99.78 kilometers) northeastward.

Monsoon rains, natural waterfalls, stormwater discharges and tourist admissions more than twice the recommended maximum keep relative humidity at higher levels in Ellora Hindu Cave 24.

Artistic and non-artistic, scientific and non-scientific visitors line up to look at Ajanta cave ceiling, pillar and wall paintings despite painted surfaces flaking from relative humidity. They move in and out of 30 Buddhist Ajanta Caves and 12 Buddhist and five Jain Ellora Caves despite carved, sculpted surfaces cracked from relative humidity. Their numbers, at 100, not the WHC-recommended 40, in any one cave at any one time note no paintings in anciently carved, painted, sculpted Ellora Caves.

Relative humidity offers cave bats and invertebrates and cavern fungi optimal opportunities to obliterate painted surfaces with their decompositional orientations and with their corpses and wastes.

Ellora Hindu Cave 24, presented locally as the Oilman's Mill (from Marathi Teli ka Gana), possesses no paintings even as it preserves some, albeit small, sculptures.

Environmentally artistic and scientific tourists queue up for photogenic runoff and waterfalls, whose spray perhaps quietens personal stress even as its relative humidity quickens cave deterioration. Geologic weakness and relative humidity resulted in itinerant artisans not realizing a cave temple, whose rough, rudimentary remains resist time-, water-, weather-eroding ravages into present days. Some 100 caves still stand even as the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) shows solely the 34 least stressed hydrogeologically and most storied architecturally and artistically.

Photogenic rains, torrents and waterfalls tempt artistic tourists even as the same water features turn touring scientists toward troubleshooting relative humidity in Ellora Hindu Cave 24.

view of Ellora Hindu Cave 24; Thursday, July 7, 2011, 12:17: Abhinav pandagale, CC BY SA 3.0 Unported, via Wikimedia Commons

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

injured sculpture of a River Goddess in Ellura Hindu Cave 24; sketch by Scottish archaeologist James Burgess (Aug. 14, 1832-Oct. 3, 1916), Report on the Elura Cave Temples (1883), Plate XXV: via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/details/in.gov.ignca.1544/page/n151/mode/1up

view of Ellora Hindu Cave 24; Thursday, July 7, 2011, 12:17: Abhinav pandagale, CC BY SA 3.0 Unported, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:From_Ellora_caves_no._24.JPG

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