The Kailash Temple has been brought to present shape by chiseling out a rock-hill from top to down and removing 4, 00,000 tonnes of rock in the process. It resembles the Mount Kailash, the perennial abode of Lord Shiva. The archaeologists still wonder that how the then builders could get aerial view of and identically carve out like Mount Kailash. In its heydays, the temple was covered by white plaster connoting ice. The temple stands in the midst of a court-yard, the whole having been cut out of rock. There are two huge elephants in the court-yard, beautifully sculptured. On each side of the court there is also a square pillar or ensign staff, roughly 45 feet in height. The temple proper, which rises in the middle of this court-yard, measures 164 feet from east to west and 109 feet from north to south. The outer wall of the south stairway is filled with scenes sculptured in stone from the great epic Ramayana, and the north wall is adorned with similar sculptures illustrating the other epic, the Mahabharata. The Kailash Temple is home to the largest cantilevered rock ceiling in the world. There is a huge Shivalingam in the sanctum sanctorum of the temple.
Sixteenth number cave is the location of the Kailash Temple. Historians emphatically claim that this temple is the earliest structure among all the caves in Ellora but the architecture & sculpture of Kailash Temple is the most advance. In an unfinished cave on the south side of the court, there is to be found a sculptural representation of Ravan lifting the Kailash. The sculpture is full of life and is an interesting predecessor of the similar magnificent carving found in Elephanta caves. The walls in the corridor of the temple contain profuse sculptures, of which those representing the Mothers of Creation may be mentioned. The temple, constructed out of a solid mass of rock left standing after the court-yard was excavated, is a double-storied structure of elaborate workmanship. The interior decorations consist of huge statues of elephants, lions, griffins and others in various attitudes and action, and the temple itself abounds in handsome pillars, shrines and pavilions. The temple seems to have been once covered over with paintings, hence its other name Rang Mahal or Painted Palace, but there are now left only very poor vestiges of the coloured grandeur.
The temple has withstood the ravages of weather and barbaric Islamic rulers like Alauddin Khilji & Aurangzeb. In 1682 AD, Aurangzeb had sent one thousand men to destroy the Kailash Temple but even after three years of efforts, they could not demolish it.