heritage/sittanavasal.jpg · 1200×800On the brow of the hill is Eladipattam, a natural cavern where seventeen beds are cut into the rock floor, each with a raised pillow, for Digambara monks. Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions beside them begin in about the 2nd century BCE and continue to the 10th century CE; several record the names of ascetics who ended their lives here by sallekhana. The shelter was in monastic use, on and off, for well over a thousand years.
Lower down is the Arivar Koil, 'temple of the enlightened ones', a rock-cut shrine whose sanctum holds three seated Tirthankaras under umbrellas. Scholars disagree about who cut it: the pillars look Pallava, and it is often given to Mahendravarman I in the 7th century, while an inscription records work under the Pandya king Srimara Srivallabha in the 9th. Carved on the pillars of the front hall are dancing celestial women, and a royal couple with the monk Ilan Gautaman.
The paintings are what draw visitors. Laid in mineral colours on lime plaster, in the fresco-secco manner, the ceiling shows a lotus tank — the Khatikabhumi of the samavasarana, the assembly hall of a Tirthankara — with fish, geese, buffaloes, elephants and men wading in to gather flowers for worship. Much has flaked away, and the Archaeological Survey of India now protects the cave as a ticketed monument, but what survives is among the oldest Jain painting anywhere.
