Jain heritage across India

The holiest Jain tirtha: twenty of the twenty-four Tirthankaras are believed to have attained moksha on this Jharkhand hill, which pilgrims still climb barefoot before dawn.

Where Bhagwan Mahavira attained nirvana on the new-moon night of Kartika — the night Jains keep as Diwali — marked by a white marble shrine in a lotus pond.

Capital of ancient Magadha, ringed by five hills that carry Jain temples: Munisuvrata, the twentieth Tirthankara, was born here, and Mahavira taught here through many rainy seasons.

Two places in Bihar are honoured as Mahavira's birthplace: Kundalpur near Nalanda in Digambara tradition, and Kshatriyakunda near Vaishali in Svetambara and most scholarly accounts.

Capital of ancient Anga, and the only place where all five kalyanakas of a single Tirthankara — Vasupujya, the twelfth — are held to have taken place.

Two low hills at the edge of Bhubaneswar, honeycombed with rock-cut cells carved for Jain monks under King Kharavela, and carrying the great Hathigumpha inscription.

A low mound in Mathura that covered an ancient Jain stupa and yielded some of the earliest dated Jain sculpture in India, now kept in the Mathura and Lucknow museums.

The tirtha where three Tirthankaras were born and where Rishabhadeva broke his long fast with sugarcane juice — the day Jains keep as Akshaya Tritiya.

In Jain tradition the city where five Tirthankaras were born, beginning with Rishabhadeva, the first — marked today by temples and a 31-foot standing image.

About thirty Digambara temples packed inside an old hill fort above the Betwa, holding some two thousand carved images — said to be the largest such collection anywhere.

Five white marble temples on Mount Abu whose ceilings and pillars are carved so finely that the stone seems to hold light inside it.

A four-faced marble temple to Rishabhanatha in the Aravalli hills, famous for a forest of 1,444 carved pillars of which no two are alike.

Seven yellow sandstone Jain temples inside the living fort of Jaisalmer, and beneath them a bhandar of palm-leaf manuscripts eight centuries old.

A 22-metre Digambara Jain tower inside Chittorgarh Fort, built by a merchant and covered outside with rows of Tirthankara figures.

A hill above Palitana carrying some 865 temples, where Rishabhanatha is believed to have preached and countless souls to have reached liberation.

The mountain where Neminatha, the 22nd Tirthankara, renounced the world, gained omniscience and attained nirvana; temples crowd its first summit.

Gujarat's Jain knowledge-houses at Patan and Khambhat, where palm-leaf and paper manuscripts have been copied, wrapped and guarded for over 800 years.

Colossal Tirthankaras cut straight into the sandstone cliffs of Gwalior Fort in the 15th century — among the largest rock-cut Jain images anywhere in India.

A hill of more than sixty Digambara temples in Damoh district, crowned by Bade Baba — an ancient seated Rishabhanatha about 15 feet tall, loved across central India.

A quiet hill in Datia district covered with more than a hundred white Digambara temples, where tradition says millions of ascetics attained liberation.

The Digambara temples of Khajuraho's Eastern Group — Parshvanatha, Adinatha and Shantinatha — carry Chandela sculpture as fine as the famous Hindu shrines, and are still in worship.

Five Digambara caves at the northern end of Ellora, cut in the ninth and tenth centuries — the two-storeyed Indra Sabha is their masterpiece.

Twin rock pinnacles in Nashik district honoured as a siddhakshetra, with caves of carved Tirthankaras and, since 2016, a 108-foot Rishabhadeva cut from the cliff.

A small hill in Dharashiv district revered as a siddhakshetra, and the place where Acharya Shantisagar, who revived the Digambara monastic order, took sallekhana in 1955.

Two granite hills above a temple town: on one stands the 57-foot Bahubali carved in 981 CE, on the other the caves, basadis and inscriptions of fifteen centuries.

The 'Jain Kashi' of the south — eighteen basadis in one small town, a thousand carved pillars, and the palm-leaf Dhavala texts kept here for centuries.

Two more monolithic Bahubalis raised by Jain kings of the Tulu country — 42 feet at Karkala in 1432, about 35 feet at Venur in 1604.

The Padmavati shrine of the Santara kings, where a Jain prince from Mathura is said to have founded a capital — and where a Bhattaraka matha still runs.

A small hillside cave in Tamil Nadu holding some of the oldest and finest Jain painting in India, and, above it, seventeen stone beds cut for monks two thousand years ago.

Two Tamil hills that carry the south's Jain memory in stone — a tall Neminatha and painted caves at one, and a hillside of carved Tirthankaras at the other.