Kirti Stambh

Also Tower of Fame

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

Not a temple in the usual sense but a stambh — a tower monument — twenty-two metres high within the walls of Chittorgarh Fort, built in the twelfth century by a Digambara merchant named Jijaji Rathod.

Every storey is carved, inside and out, with figures from the Jain pantheon, and a stair inside the tower climbs to a viewing gallery. It stands apart from the fort’s later, better-known Vijaya Stambh — a Hindu victory tower of similar shape built two centuries afterward — which is often confused with it at a distance.

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