Shravanabelagola

Shravanabelagola is a religious town in Hassan situated around a pond between two granite hills at 871 meters elevation. The two hills, Chandragiri and Vindhyagiri, hold ancient Jain temples and monumental sculptures carved from solid granite.

Chavundaraya, a commander of the Ganga Kingdom, consecrated the 58-foot Gommateshwara statue in 981 after it was carved from a single granite block. The area served for centuries as a center of Jain scholarship, with many inscriptions on the hills dating back to the 7th century.

The site draws Jain pilgrims from across India who climb to the naked Bahubali statue representing renunciation and self-control. During the ceremony every twelve years, devotees sprinkle the sculpture with colored liquids while thousands of onlookers gather to watch.

Arrive early in the morning before the sun heats the stone steps, and bring comfortable shoes to remove as barefoot climbing is required. The ascent takes about thirty to forty minutes, and carry water since there is little shade at the top.

More than eight hundred inscriptions on rock faces and temple walls document over a thousand years of Kannada language and literary development, from 600 to 1830. The texts range from royal decrees to records of donations by merchants and farmers from the region.