Shri Digambar Jain Lal Mandir

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

Founded in 1656 under Shah Jahan, in the same years as the Red Fort it faces, and enlarged repeatedly since; the red sandstone that gives it its name is nineteenth-century.

Behind the temple is the Jain Birds Hospital, which treats birds free of charge and is run as an expression of ahimsa rather than as an adjunct charity. It is, for many visitors, the more memorable half of the site.

Written for Jain Times. Corrections are welcome — see sources and licences.