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Gommatagiri Close-up of the five and a half metre high Bahubali at Gommatagiri. Hewn from black granite, the statue (right) stands on a solitary hillock about twenty-five kilometres north-west of Mysore city on the road to Hunsur. The inhabitants of the sparsely populated area call the colossus 'Shramana Gudda'. For an unknown of time it...

Chandragiri Site plan of temples. 1- Chamundaraya Basti 2-Shasana Basti 3-Kattale Basti 4-Chandragupta Basti 5-Parshvanatha Basti 6-Shantinatha Basti 7-Savati Gandhavarana Basti, Built In 1123 By Queen Shantal Devi. Wife Of A Hoysala King. Inscriptions67. Chamundaraya Basti. Late tenth century. "This granite structure is a perfect specimen of Ganga workmanship and of Dravidian architectural features.(...) We find...

Shravanabelagola Shravanabelagola - so spelled by the Jaina authorities of this town but also known as Shravana Belgola and by other spellings is in more than one respect a most remarkable place of pilgrimage. Its giant image of Bahubali has already been featured in chapter two. Another first held by Shravanabelagola is in the field...

Halebid The capital of the Hoysala kings who ruled for nearly three centuries, from 1047 to 1343, was, for most of the time, what today is the vilage of Halebid(u) - hale - old, bidu- capital. There is evidence to presume that the Hoysala dynasty came to power with the help of a Jaina ascetic...

Venur  Due to some rivalry between the northern and southern Bhattarakas of this area at the beginning of the seventeenth century, a third Bahubali of colossal size came to be erected at Venur, a then and still small village twenty-five kilometres east of Moodabidri. According to inscriptions, the ten and a half metre high statue...

Moodabiri Moodabidri's Thribhuvana Tilaka Chundamani Basadi, meaning 'The Crest Jewel of the Three Worlds', but better known as Hosa (new) Basadi. A temple which was built in stages between 1430 and 1516, being the last of the town's eighteen Jaina temples. The presiding Jina in the sanctum is a nine foot (2.74 m) high bronze...

Karkala Twelve and a half metre high statue of Bahubali. Erected in 1431-32 on a slope of naked rock at the southern outskirts of Karkala, a township famous for its stonemasons. The Chaturmukha ('four-faced') basti or basadi (both terms mean tem- ple), built in 1586-87, stands on the same slope. This architecturally important temple is...

VARANGA  Lake Temple at Varanga; a unique shrine in a picturesque surrounding The little known Jaina temples of Varanga are within easy reach if one asks the driver of the morning bus from Humcha to Karkala to drop one at the appropriate halt at the northern entrance of Varanga village. From the bus-stop, having left...

Humcha  Main Jaina temple at Humcha. On the left the residence of the Bhattaraka. Two further buildings on the left (not shown here) contain a library and rooms for pilgrims and visitors. The history of Humcha (also Hombuja), a quiet, unobtrusive township and seat of a Jaina Bhattaraka (see next page), began about 1300 years...

Hampi Hampi . Jaina temple popularly known as the Ganigitti (oil woman`s) Temple. Built in 1385. In the early nineteen-eighties. Hampi (alias Vijayanagar) was adopted by young travellers from abroad as an alternative hide-out next to Goa which at that time began to be overrun by tourists. It was a sensible choice to make. The...