Rajgir

Where Mahavira gave his first sermon, remembered as Veer Shasan Jayanti. Temples stand on the surrounding hills.

A cluster of hills in Bihar, ringed by hot springs, and one of the densest concentrations of kalyanaka sites in the Jain landscape: the place of Mahavira’s first sermon after his sixty-six days of silence following omniscience, and the seat of several of his rainy-season retreats.

Gridhrakuta, the Vulture’s Peak, is the best known of the hills and is shared with Buddhist tradition, which places some of the Buddha’s own teaching there in roughly the same period — the two traditions’ claims on the same hill are not in conflict so much as parallel, each keeping its own account.

A cable car now carries pilgrims to the hilltop shrines, a concession to Rajgir’s climb that older pilgrimage sites without modern infrastructure do not have.

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