You have to walk through a 100 foot gate of granite just to get in. It blows the mind everytime I walk through at the imagination and ambition to build such a thing. And then inside things are even more breathtaking.
It's in daily use for worship and rituals by thousands of people even today. It has seen 8-12 different kingdoms come and go. Not just Hindus but Christians and Muslims administered the area at one time or another.
In addition to Stone what you need is Beauty.
People universally for mysterious reasons recognize Beauty. If it's beautiful it's going to be protected and taken care off. People will happily die to do it.
That's an amazing monument. I live 30s walk from this 1350 year old church - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Peter%27s_Church,_Monkwearm... - it's slightly less ambitious but still a beautiful place, and incredible to think people have been gathering there for that long.
Some beautiful structures have survived through constant maintenance of successive civilizations and faith groups. Others have been abandoned to collapse or razed to the ground to punish the people that built it, to clear space to build something new or simply for useful building material. Even the Parthenon, sufficiently revered by successive civilizations to find itself a Greek temple, Roman temple, church and mosque, was redeployed as a gunpowder store with predictable results.
Carving a temple out of solid basalt is a more reliable way of protecting from the elements and all but the most determined humans (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellora_Caves)
You have to walk through a 100 foot gate of granite just to get in. It blows the mind everytime I walk through at the imagination and ambition to build such a thing. And then inside things are even more breathtaking.
It's in daily use for worship and rituals by thousands of people even today. It has seen 8-12 different kingdoms come and go. Not just Hindus but Christians and Muslims administered the area at one time or another.
In addition to Stone what you need is Beauty.
People universally for mysterious reasons recognize Beauty. If it's beautiful it's going to be protected and taken care off. People will happily die to do it.