Temples

Five marble temples renowned for carving so fine the stone is translucent in places. Built under the Solanki rulers.

A chaumukha temple open on four sides, dedicated to Rishabhanatha. Its forest of carved pillars is traditionally counted at 1,444, no two alike.

A red sandstone temple in the old city, known for painted interiors and for a tradition that ghee was mixed into its mortar.

Among the oldest surviving Jain temples in western India, standing in a desert town that was once a trading centre.

Seven interconnected temples inside the living fort, carved from the same yellow sandstone as the walls around them.

A desert pilgrimage centre built around a Parshvanatha image, heavily visited from Gujarat and Rajasthan.

A red sandstone temple whose hall holds an enormous gilded wooden model of the Jain cosmology and of Ayodhya.

A black-stone Rishabhadeva bathed in saffron, revered by Jains of both traditions and by the surrounding Bhil communities, who call him Kalaji.

A yellow-sandstone temple in the ruins of the old Bhati capital, known for a metal kalpavriksha and a finely cut torana.

A Parshvanatha shrine in the Aravallis invoked by name at the opening of Svetambara ritual across western India.

The principal Digambara pilgrimage centre of eastern Rajasthan, grown around an image tradition says was found by a cowherd.

One of the oldest marble temples in western India, and a plausible ancestor of the carving later perfected at Dilwara.

A Digambara atishaya kshetra in the Aravallis near Mount Abu, its principal shrine holding a Rishabhadeva image tradition credits with miraculous properties.

A marble temple in a small Pali district village, its Parshvanatha image and carved mandapa drawing pilgrims well beyond the village’s size.

A Mahavira temple on the Falna–Kumbhalgarh road, its image tradition holds once grew a moustache — the origin of the name it carries.

A village temple below a granite hill known for its near life-sized carved elephants, tradition tracing its founding to Samprati Maurya.

A north-facing Padmaprabha temple in the old Chahamana capital, its dated inscriptions among the oldest evidence for any site in this Rajasthan cluster.

A large marble complex of twenty-four small shrines, one for each Tirthankara, built on a hillside outside Ajmer in the early twenty-first century.

A seven-storey tower inside Chittorgarh Fort, raised by a Digambara merchant and carved over its whole height with Jain iconography.

Site of the monolithic statue of Bahubali, carved from a single granite outcrop and anointed once every twelve years at the Mahamastakabhisheka.

A town of eighteen basadis, the Saavira Kambada among them — a thousand-pillared hall where no two pillars repeat.

A free-standing Bahubali of about thirteen metres, raised on a rock outcrop above the town.

The smallest and latest of the three great Bahubali colossi of coastal Karnataka, at about eleven metres.

A modern Bahubali on Ratnagiri hill, at a town whose principal shrine is Shaiva but which has been administered by a Jain family for centuries.

Hoysala-period basadis beside the better-known Hindu temples of Halebidu, with the same lathe-turned pillars.

The old Santara capital in the Malnad, best known for its Padmavati shrine and its long-established Digambara matha.

A temple standing in the middle of a lake, reached only by boat, holding images of four Tirthankaras.

A Bahubali monolith of about twenty feet on a granite hillock near Mysuru, anointed each year at Mahamastakabhisheka.

The earliest securely dated temple in the Chalukyan series, fixed to 634 CE by an inscription on its own wall.

The largest of Lakkundi’s temples, built in chloritic schist rather than sandstone — a change that let the carving get finer.

A basadi in the old Vijayanagara-era port town of Bhatkal, one of several Jain shrines built by the coastal merchant families the town once depended on.

A Hoysala-period basadi at Halebidu, standing near the famous Hoysaleswara temple and sharing its dark polished-stone style.

A group of five shrines from the Western Ganga period, one of Karnataka’s oldest surviving basadi complexes, with a free-standing pillar before it.

The fourth of the rock-cut Badami cave temples, later in date than the Hindu caves beside it and carved with Tirthankara figures in the same sandstone cliff.

Hundreds of temples along a hilltop reached by a long stone stairway. Among the most significant pilgrimage sites in the tradition.

A cluster of temples on Girnar hill, associated with the liberation of Neminatha, the twenty-second Tirthankara.

A tall Solanki-period temple on a wooded hill, raised under Kumarapala and among the least altered of its age.

One of the most visited Parshvanatha shrines in Gujarat, rebuilt several times on a site held to be far older.

Five marble temples in a quiet valley, contemporary with Dilwara and carved by the same tradition of workshops.

A merchant-built temple of 1848 in Ahmedabad, its courtyard ringed by fifty-two subsidiary shrines.

A very old Kutch tirtha, severely damaged in the 2001 earthquake and rebuilt largely from its own recovered stone.

A much-visited Gujarat shrine, known less for its Tirthankara image than for the Ghantakarna Mahavir it also houses.

The principal Jain temple of Patan, once the Solanki capital of Anhilwad, tradition connecting its founding to the city’s own.

A group of Jain shrines on Pavagadh hill, older than the Sultanate capital later built at its foot and now part of the wider Champaner-Pavagadh UNESCO World Heritage Site.

A cluster of temples in Surat’s old Gopipura quarter, built by the city’s Jain merchant families during its years as a major trading port.

An Aravalli hill town holding temples of both traditions, its main shrine reached by six hundred steps up the old fort hill.

A hill covered in white Digambara temples, and one of the tradition’s principal siddha-kshetras — a place from which souls are held to have attained liberation.

A Digambara pilgrimage centre built around the seated image known as Bade Baba, in a valley of some sixty temples.

Fifty-two Digambara temples set into a wooded ravine beside a waterfall, on the Madhya Pradesh–Maharashtra border.

The eastern group at Khajuraho, including the Parshvanatha temple — the largest and earliest of the Jain temples on the site.

Rock-cut Tirthankara figures carved into the cliffs of Gwalior fort, some of them colossal.

A rock-cut standing Rishabhadeva of about twenty-six metres, carved from the hillside itself.

A Chandela-period group in Bundelkhand, its principal image a standing Shantinatha of about twenty-two feet.

A hill siddhakshetra in Bundelkhand with a temple cluster below and a long stair to the summit shrine.

A Bundelkhand siddhakshetra of some thirty temples on and below a low hill, counted among the ancient places of liberation.

A Bundelkhand siddhakshetra a short distance from Ahar Kshetra, its cluster of temples counted among the region’s ancient places of liberation.

Indore’s glass temple, its walls, ceilings and pillars covered almost entirely in mirror and coloured-glass mosaic depicting Jain cosmology and narrative.

Some thirty Digambara temples and a great many loose sculptures on a hill above the Betwa river.

A site of great antiquity in tradition, now a large complex including the Jambudweep model of Jain cosmology.

Held in tradition to be the birthplace of several Tirthankaras, Rishabhadeva among them.

An excavated mound that yielded a Jain stupa and hundreds of inscribed sculptures — the richest archaeological record of early Jainism.

Held by tradition to be the birthplace of Neminatha, the twenty-second Tirthankara, on the Yamuna near Bateshwar.

An ancient city on the Yamuna, held to be the birthplace of Padmaprabha and a place where Mahavira spent a rainy season.

Better known as a Buddhist site, and in the Jain account the birthplace of Sambhavanatha, the third Tirthankara.

The traditional birthplace of Parshvanatha within Varanasi, marking the same city that Suparshvanatha’s Jain birth site also claims.

An ancient city, now an archaeological site, that Svetambara tradition holds as the place Parshvanatha attained omniscience under a protecting serpent-hood — the origin of his snake-canopy iconography.

The northernmost group at Ellora — five excavated temples including the Indra Sabha, carved from the cliff downward.

Twin pinnacles held to be a siddhakshetra, carrying rock-cut caves and, since 2016, a monolithic Rishabhadeva of about 108 feet.

A hill siddhakshetra in Marathwada, held to be the place of liberation of Kulbhushan and Deshbhushan.

A small hill outside Nashik counted a siddhakshetra, reached by a stair cut into rock shaped, tradition says, like an elephant.

An image whose name means "suspended in air", claimed and contested by both traditions for more than a century.

Mumbai’s best-known Jain temple, on Malabar Hill, its walls and ceilings painted with scenes from the lives of the Tirthankaras.

A twenty-eight-foot Bahubali on a hill in southern Maharashtra, with a teaching institution and dispensary grown up around it.

Where Mahavira attained liberation. The Jal Mandir stands in the middle of a lotus tank, reached by a causeway.

Where Mahavira gave his first sermon, remembered as Veer Shasan Jayanti. Temples stand on the surrounding hills.

Associated with Vasupujya, the twelfth Tirthankara — the only one whose five principal life-events tradition places at a single site.

The village near Nalanda that the Digambara tradition identifies as the birthplace of Mahavira.

The site the Svetambara tradition identifies as Mahavira’s birthplace, in Vaishali district — distinct from, and disputed against, the Digambara identification at Kundalpur near Nalanda.

A rock-cut cave temple holding some of the oldest surviving Indian mural painting outside Ajanta.

A hill site with cave shrines, murals and a Neminatha figure that is the tallest Jain image in Tamil Nadu.

Rows of Tirthankara figures cut into a rock face, with Tamil inscriptions naming the nuns and monks who commissioned them.

The Jain Kanchi, on the far bank of the Vegavati, carrying Vijayanagara-period ceiling paintings of the lives of the Tirthankaras.

A hill outside Vellore carrying Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions and rock-cut beds where Jain ascetics are held to have lived, alongside a later-built shrine.

The oldest Jain temple in Delhi, facing the Red Fort across Chandni Chowk, with a bird hospital attached.

A seated Mahavira in granite on a low hill in Mehrauli, raised in 1980 as a monument to non-violence.

The most significant pilgrimage site in the tradition: twenty of the twenty-four Tirthankaras are held to have attained liberation here.

Rock-cut cells carved for Jain ascetics under King Kharavela, carrying one of the most important inscriptions in early Indian history.

An old temple in Telangana holding a jade image of Mahavira and a Rishabhadeva said to be among the oldest in worship.

An 1867 temple in north Kolkata, encrusted in mirrorwork and Venetian glass mosaic, set in a formal garden.

An old Jain basadi in Wayanad later used as a garrison by Tipu Sultan’s forces, which is where the town’s name — Sultan’s garrison — comes from.

The first Jain tirtha established outside India, on a wooded hillside in New Jersey.

One of the largest Jain temples in North America, serving the dense New Jersey community and drawing visitors from across the wider New York area.

A large temple serving the Bay Area community, built as Jain families followed the technology industry west.

The principal Jain centre for the Los Angeles area, with shrines of more than one tradition.

The principal Jain temple of the Gulf Coast, serving one of the fastest-growing Jain populations in North America.

The principal Jain temple of the Dallas–Fort Worth area, serving a Texas community that has grown quickly alongside the region’s tech and medical sectors.

A temple serving the Jain community of Greater Cleveland, one of several Ohio congregations that grew out of the same wave of Gujarati and Marwari immigration.

A shared temple serving two neighbouring Ohio metro areas whose Jain communities were each too small to support one alone.

One of the largest Jain temples in North America, serving the Chicago-area community with shrines of more than one tradition.

One of the oldest Jain institutions in North America, serving the New York community with shrines of both traditions.

The temple of the Washington DC area community, holding shrines of both traditions under one roof.

A Michigan temple noted for carved stonework shipped from India and assembled on site.

The temple of the New England Jain community, long centred on the universities before acquiring its own building.

A large temple north-east of Atlanta serving the Jain community of the American south-east.

The temple of the Phoenix-area Jain community, in a state whose Jain population has grown substantially since the 1990s.

A Pennsylvania temple serving the Pittsburgh area, whose Jain community grew alongside the city’s university and medical institutions.

The temple of the Orlando-area Jain community, serving a Florida population that has grown quickly since the 1990s.

A temple and community centre serving the Twin Cities’ Jain population, one of the northernmost Jain congregations in the United States.

A Wisconsin temple serving the Milwaukee area’s Jain community.