Brahma Jinalaya

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

Commissioned in 1007 by Attimabbe, a Chalukya military officer’s wife known to her own era as Danachintamani — roughly, "wish-fulfilling gem of charity" — for her patronage of both Jainism and Kannada literature. That patronage record is unusually well attested for a temple this old: Attimabbe is independently known as a benefactor of Kannada poets, which places the building of Brahma Jinalaya inside a documented life rather than an anonymous dedication.

The material is what later temples across the region borrowed from Lakkundi: chloritic schist, a soft stone that takes far finer detail under the chisel than the sandstone most earlier Karnataka temples were cut from, letting the carving here reach a delicacy the harder stone could not sustain. The east-facing temple, with its sanctum crowned by a stepped vimana tower, still carries Tirthankara reliefs alongside two more unusual images for a Jain shrine, of Brahma and Saraswati, in its inner hall.

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