Nainagiri

Also Reshandigiri

A hill siddhakshetra in Bundelkhand with a temple cluster below and a long stair to the summit shrine.

The site’s own record dates its founding to 1053, with forty-one temples raised on and below the hill over the centuries since — a scale closer to a small town of shrines than to a single monument. As a siddhakshetra it is named for five ascetics, Varadatta among them, who tradition holds attained liberation here.

The alternative name, Reshandigiri, is used alongside Nainagiri in the site’s own records without either fully displacing the other — a small instance of the naming variation that runs through Bundelkhand’s Digambara hill sites generally, several of which carry more than one name in active use.

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