It is believed that the caves were used as target practice after they constructed a fort and put a flag to ward off pirates. Whatever the cause may be, many of the sculptures have been desecrated. From the Portuguese, the Britishers captured the island and used it for the same purpose.

Canon Hill
As I said earlier, the island consists of two hillocks. Your trip to Elephanta Island would be incomplete without a small climb up to Cannon Hill – aptly named because of the cannons strategically perched on top of the …

Some more pictures from the caves. As always, they are just the way they were clicked.. without any enhancements. You can click them to get enlarged view. And you can also check my webpicasa album for more pictures.

Most of the sculptures were in bad shape.

The closer look of a Shivaling. All the Shivlings are worshiped daily with fresh flowers and one can smell the nice fragrance of incense sticks.

The main sculpture.
Technorati Tags: Mumbai Islands Elephanta Caves Day Trip

Once you step onto the island, the mini train welcomes you. Again, as I always prefer to do; we kept the mini train ride for coming back when we would be tired. So fresh and raring to go, we chose to walk while going, clicking some pictures on the way.
The island is full of tourists and small-shop owners and the fifteen minute trek to the first cave is the noisiest part of the whole trip. Shops on both sides of the steps tempt you to stop and the foreigners are …

Western India is famous for a string of rock-cut temples ranging in date from the 2nd century B.C. to the 12th century A.D. Around Mumbai alone one can see several of them including the Buddhist rock-cut temples of Kanheri and Kondivita and the brahminical caves of Elephanta, Mandapeshvar, and Jogeshwari within a radius of 20 kms.
The Elephanta Island is the site of the magnificent Elephanta caves, one of the principal tourist attractions of the Mumbai city containing beautiful carvings, sculptures, and a temple to the Hindu God, Lord Shiva. It …

Taking a break from Geneva. Lots of pictures to be scanned and am really fed up with the quality I am getting even in 600 dpi which makes each one of them massive (over 100 MB per photo) ! Oh why have I started blogging ?
Anyways, most probably I’ll resume it in a week’s time or so. Meanwhile I thought of coming back to Indian scenario.
The other Sunday morning I just wanted to go out to a quiet secluded place. Not able to decide where to go, I took an …

I had thought of putting a foreign locale as my first working post here but as luck would have it, it had to be a place where I live. Yes, it is about Mumbai.
Yesterday I went to see Banganga music festival. It is a ritual every year in January, to have a cultural extravaganza at Banganga, where top artistes from around the country perform live Hindustani classical music concerts. Cultural enthusiasts attend the festival and feast the soul as well as the mind as the sun sets.

For the last two …