A list of the most magnificent wonders which ancient civilizations have produced, including the Egyptian pyramids, the ancient city and temples at Machu Picchu in Peru, and the ancient temples at Angkor in Cambodia, should not omit the rock-cut cave temples of India, especially the large Kailas complex at Ellora. Entirely cut out of the hills, these cave temples are in f not buildings but masterpieces of sculpture. It is mind-boggling to realize that all that is seen is the original rock still standing, sculptured with precision and great care on the basis of a grand plan. So far about 1,200 cave temples have been discovered in India, some 1,000 of them located in the western state of Maharastra. Others are located in the northeastern state of Bihar and in Karnataka to the south of Maharastra, with a few scattered throughout other states.* The most famous cave complexes are Ellora, Ajanta, Elephanta, Karli, Bhaja, Bedsa, Nasik, Udayagiri, Bagh, Badami, Cuttack, and Barabar. The temples were sculptured by Jains, Hindus, and Buddhists, and standard textbook opinion about their age is that the earliest were carved around 300 BCE but most in the period of the 4th to the 9th centuries CE . However, according to HP Blavatsky some of these complexes date to a much more remote period and were ancient mystery schools built on labyrinths of still other caves which have not been discovered
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