Kundalpur

Also Bade Baba

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

The image called Bade Baba — "the great elder" — is a seated Rishabhadeva of about four and a half metres, and the reason the site exists in the form it does. The temples around it accumulated over centuries in the valley and on the hill above.

It remains an active centre of Digambara monastic life rather than only a pilgrimage stop, which is the thing most visitors remark on: the ascetics are not an exhibit here.

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