heritage/kunthalgiri.jpg · 1200×800Kunthalgiri is a low hill in Dharashiv (formerly Osmanabad) district, about 60 km from the district town on the Solapur–Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar road. It is named in the Nirvanakanda, the old list of places of liberation, and is often described as the southernmost siddhakshetra. Tradition, following the Padmapurana, tells of the princes Kulbhushan and Deshbhushan, who became monks, gained omniscience here and then liberation.
Eleven temples make up the kshetra: seven on the hill, including the Kulbhushan–Deshbhushan shrine, and four at its foot. The Shantinatha temple dates from 1875, and a manastambha 53 feet high was raised in 1944; the principal image in the hill shrine is a black stone Parshvanatha about 160 centimetres tall. The buildings are plain and the setting open, with the Marathwada plain spreading below.
In 1955 Acharya Shantisagar (1872–1955), who had restored the Digambara monastic order across India, came to Kunthalgiri old and nearly blind, took the vow of sallekhana and died on 18 September after more than a month of fasting. His samadhi, marked by carved footprints, stands near the Chandraprabha temple, and his punya tithi in the month of Bhadrapada draws pilgrims here every year.
