File:1876 sketch of Mahishasura mardini Durga fighting buffalo demon at the Kailash temple Ellora Caves Maharashtra b.jpg

English: 8th century artwork at Kailasha temple Ellora Cave 16, showing Durga in her Mahishasura-mardini form warring with an evil shape shifting, buffalo demon. Above are shown all the major Vedic and Puranic Hindu gods. From the British Library description, "The spectacular site of Ellora, in Maharashtra, is famous for its series of Buddhist, Hindu and Jain cave temples excavated into the rocky façade of a cliff of basalt. The works were done under the patronage of the Kalachuri, the Chalukya and the Rashtrakuta dynasties between the 6th and the 9th centuries. The Kailasanath is the most noted of all the splendours of Ellora, a free-standing temple rather than a cave, entirely sculpted out of a great mass of basalt. Commissioned by the Rashtrakuta king Krishna I in the mid-eighth century, it symbolises Mount Kailasa, the sacred abode of Shiva. A tall screen marks the entrance, and river goddesses mark the route to the three sections of the temple (a Nandi shrine, a mandapa, and the main sanctuary) which are on a raised plinth borne by elephants. The principal shrine is topped by a pyramidal tower (shikara). Superb sculptural friezes in the temple tell tales from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, and of Shiva."