Udayagiri Caves, Vidisha MP
— — the boar that lifted the earth from the flood.
Not only on a wall.
“Twenty rock-cut shrines along a low sandstone ridge above the Bes River, a few kilometres from the town of Vidisha in central Madhya Pradesh. They were carved at the turn of the fifth century under Chandragupta II, the Gupta emperor whose dated inscription of 401 CE is cut into the stone here. Cave 5 holds the panel everyone comes for: a colossal Varaha, Vishnu in boar form, lifting the goddess Earth from the cosmic ocean, surrounded by ranks of sages and rivers. Sanchi sits just over the next hill. from the studio
Udayagiri Caves, Vidisha MP, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Udayagiri is a group of twenty rock-cut shrines along a low sandstone ridge in Vidisha district, Madhya Pradesh, about 60 kilometres northeast of Bhopal and 13 kilometres from the Buddhist stupas of Sanchi. The caves were excavated at the turn of the fifth century under Chandragupta II of the Gupta dynasty; an inscription on the doorway of Cave 6 records a date of 401 CE, one of the earliest firmly dated Hindu temples in India. The site sits above the confluence of the Bes and Betwa rivers and is maintained by the Archaeological Survey of India.
The reliefs are cut into a pinkish-buff Vindhyan sandstone soft enough to carve in deep relief but durable in the dry Malwa climate. Cave 5 holds the masterpiece: a colossal Varaha, Vishnu in his boar avatar, roughly four metres tall, lifting the goddess Bhudevi from the cosmic ocean while ranks of celestial sages, the rivers Ganga and Yamuna, and an ocean god look on. Art historians read it as a political allegory of Chandragupta II rescuing the land. Caves 1, 4 and 6 hold smaller Shaiva, Vaishnava and Jain shrines; Cave 20, a Jain cave, carries a fifth-century inscription naming the donor.
The caves are open daily from sunrise to sunset and entry is a small ticket administered by the Archaeological Survey of India. Most visitors reach Udayagiri as a half-day from Bhopal or as a paired trip with Sanchi, 13 kilometres south by road. A flagged path runs the ridge, climbing past Caves 1 through 20 in roughly twenty minutes of walking; Cave 5 with the Varaha panel is the first major stop and lies under a stone overhang that keeps the relief in shade most of the day. Late winter and the cool months from November through February are the most comfortable.