Kazhugumalai

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

A Pandya-era rock-cut site in Tamil Nadu holding rows of Jain images carved directly into the cliff face, alongside a separate, unfinished rock-cut Hindu temple on the same hill from a slightly later period — the two projects side by side are sometimes read as a visible marker of the religious transition then under way across the Tamil country.

The Jain reliefs, mostly Tirthankaras and yakshis in shallow niches, are considerably older than the unfinished temple beside them, dating to around the eighth or ninth century, and are among the clearest surviving evidence of the Digambara ascetic communities that Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions across the region record from centuries earlier still.

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