heritage/shravanabelagola.jpg · 1200×800Jain tradition holds that around 300 BCE the shruta-kevali Bhadrabahu foresaw a long famine in the north and led a company of monks south to this pair of hills. With him, the tradition says, came the emperor Chandragupta Maurya, who had given up his throne to follow him. Bhadrabahu ended his life here by sallekhana, the peaceful fast, and the cave on Chandragiri that bears his name is still shown to pilgrims. Inscriptions on the hill from about the 7th century CE record this memory.
On Vindhyagiri, the taller hill, stands the colossal Gommateshwara — Bahubali, son of Rishabhanatha, who stood in meditation so long that creepers wound about his legs. Carved from a single granite outcrop and about 57 feet high, it was consecrated in 981 CE by Chavundaraya, minister and general of the Western Ganga kings, for his mother; some scholars prefer 983. A short inscription at its feet naming him is repeated in Kannada, Tamil and Marathi.
Every twelve years the image is bathed in the Mahamastakabhisheka, when milk, sugarcane juice, turmeric, sandalwood and saffron are poured over it from a scaffold while lakhs of people watch; the last was in 2018 and the next falls in 2030. Around the two hills stand the Chandragupta and Chavundaraya basadis, the Bhandari and Akkana basadis in the town, and about 800 inscriptions dating from the 7th century to the 19th.
