Essay:
How does one 'date' Hindu Temples ?
By Sunny Narang

Someone begins with a grand idea and design in the 8th Century. The later Kings add to it continuously over the next 300 years.

Then someone in the 18th century adds a layer to it.

It is a work over a 1000 years.

That is what I say about India -we imagine for a thousand years, a project, and little by little it gets done .

When we have the right intent, right time, right resources .

This is The Sanatan Way .

The Kailasa or Kailasanatha temple (Kailāsanātha) is one of the largest rock-cut ancient Hindu temples located in Ellora, Maharashtra, India.

A megalith carved out of one single rock, it is considered one of the most remarkable cave temples in India because of its size, architecture and sculptural treatment.

The Kailasa Temple is notable for its vertical excavation—carvers started at the top of the original rock and excavated downward. The traditional methods were rigidly followed by the master architect which could not have been achieved by excavating from the front.

The Kailasa temple lacks a dedicatory inscription, but there is no doubt that it was commissioned by a Rashtrakuta ruler.

Its construction is generally attributed to the Rashtrakuta king Krishna I (r. 756-773 CE), based on two epigraphs that link the temple to "Krishnaraja" .

The Baroda copper-plate inscription (c. 812-813 CE) of Karkaraja II (a ruler of a Rashtrakuta branch of Gujarat) records the grant of a village in present-day Gujarat. It mentions Krishnaraja as the patron of Kailasanatha, and also mentions a Shiva temple at Elapura (Ellora). It states that the king constructed a temple so wondrous that even the gods and the architect were astonished.

Most scholars believe that this is a reference to the Kailasa Shiva temple at Ellora.

The Kadamba grant of Govinda Prabhutavarsha similarly appears to credit Krishnaraja with the construction of the temple.

However, the attribution of the temple to Krishna I is not completely certain because these epigraphs are not physically connected to the caves, and do not date Krishnaraja reign.

Moreover, the land grants issued by Krishna's other successors do not contain any references to the Kailasa temple.

Dhavalikar pointed out that no major part of the monolithic temple appears to have been an afterthought: architectural evidence suggests that the entire temple was planned at the beginning.

M. K. Dhavalikar (1982) analyzed the architecture of the temple, and concluded that the major part of the temple was completed during the reign of Krishna I, although he agreed with Goetz that some other parts of the temple complex can be dated to the later rulers. According to Dhavalikar, the following components were completed by Krishna: the main shrine, its gateway, the nandi-mandapa, the lower-storey, the elephant-lion frieze, the court elephants and the victory pillars.

Dhavalikar admits that the most important sculpture of the temple, which depicts Ravana shaking the Kailasa mountain, appears to have been built after the main edifice. This sculpture is considered as one of the finest pieces of Indian art, and it is possible that the temple came to be known as Kailasa after it.

The Dashavatara cave contains an inscription of Krishna's predecessor and nephew Dantidurga (c. 735–756 CE).

Based on this, art historian Hermann Goetz (1952) theorized that the construction of the Kailasa temple began during the reign of Dantidurga. Krishna consecrated its first complete version, which was much smaller than the present-day temple.

According to Gotez, Dantidurga's role in the temple construction must have been deliberately suppressed, as Krishna sidelined Dantidurga's sons to claim the throne after his death.

Based on analysis of the different styles, Goetz further hypothesized that the later Rashtrakuta rulers also extended the temple.

These rulers include Dhruva Dharavarsha, Govinda III, Amoghavarsha I, and Krishna III. According to Goetz, the 11th century Paramara ruler Bhoja commissioned the elephant-lion frieze on the lower plinth during his invasion of Deccan, and added a new layer of paintings.

Finally, Ahilyabai Holkar commissioned the last layer of paintings in the temple.

Maharani Ahilya Bai Holkar (31 May 1725 – 13 August 1795) was the Holkar Queen of the Maratha ruled Malwa kingdom, India. Rajmata Ahilyabai was born in the village of Chondi in Jamkhed, Ahmednagar, Maharashtra. She moved the capital to Maheshwar south of Indore on the Narmada River.

Rani Ahilyabai was a great builder and patron of many Hindu temples which embellished Maheshwar and Indore. She also built temples and Dharmshalas at sacred sites outside her kingdom, at prominent religious places like Dwarka in Gujarat east to the Kashi Vishwanath Temple at Varanasi on the Ganges, Ujjain, Nasik, Vishnupad Mandir, Gaya and Parali Vaijnath in Maharashtra. Seeing the destroyed and desecrated temple in Somnath, Rani Ahilyabai built a temple where Lord Shiva is still worshipped by Hindus.

"The reign of Ahilya Bai, of Indore in central India, lasted for 30 Yrs. This has become almost legendary as a period during which perfect order and good Government prevailed and the people prospered. She was a very able ruler and organizer, highly respected during her lifetime, and considered as a saint by a grateful people after her death.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kailasa_temple,_Ellora
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahilyabai_Holkar