The Ajanta Caves in Aurangabad district of Maharashtra, India, are about 30 rock-cut Buddhist cave monuments which date from the 2nd century BCE to about 480 or 650 CE. The caves include paintings and sculptures which are examples for the finest surviving examples of Indian art, particularly painting. The caves depict masterpieces of Buddhist religious art, with figures of the Buddha and depictions of the Jataka tales.
The builders had to just carve the temple out from a hill side, no need of transporting stone or other materials. Sounds simple, right? Actually no! The fact that you are going to carve the top floor before even conceptualizing the ground floor should require some kind of imagination and planning! The temple has been carved top to bottom and front to back and has taken several generations of work and planning.