The number of unfinished stone monuments in India is staggering. More than half of the 1100 rock-cut monuments are at various stages of unfinish from famous sites like Ellora, Ajanta, and Mamallapuram, to temple structures like Hoysala temples. Celebrated for the intricacy of their sculpted decoration, the unfinished monuments are usually overlooked, their language never interpreted. The Unfinished: Stone Carvers at work on the Indian subcontinent explores reasons for such unfinish, sharing valuable insights into the process and raising fundamental issues about the nature of the stone being cut, the tools in use, the makeup of the teams of workers required to work on stone monuments, the sequence of the actual carving process, and the importance of the rhythm of construction. Meticulously researched, this richly illustrated book focuses on specific issues of consequence in the context of unfinished work, as they gain an added weight and significance through discovery of their repetitive occurrence at site after site.