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Odisha Part 11: Discovering the Jaina Heritage of Odisha at the caves of Udaygiri and Khandgiri

The Hindu and Buddhist history of Odisha , or rather, ancient Kalinga, is rather well known to everyone. Who hasn’t heard of the grand temples of Odisha – Puri, Lingaraj and Konark, or the great war of Kalinga which inspired Ashoka to convert to Buddhism? In contrast, very few know of the Jaina heritage of this region. This is quite a pity, since, just around 7 km from the city, is one of India’s most ancient inscriptions, which throws light on the Jaina heritage of Odisha. This inscription is the Hathigumpha inscription of Kharavela, in the hills of Udaygiri. Udaygiri and Khandgiri are two hills located opposite each other, and both are testaments to the rich Jaina heritage of Odisha. The caves at Udaygiri are older, while Khandgiri is relatively newer, but has lasted much longer, and continues to be a place of pilgrimage for Jains even today. These hills, from inscriptions and excavations of caves, shrines and rock beds, appear to have been a haven for Jaina monks, right from the ...
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Around Tirupati - Sripuram Golden Temple

The Sripuram Golden temple at Vellore was one temple I had been hearing a lot about, but had no plans of visiting on my Tirupati trip. For one thing, it wasn’t an ancient temple which draw me much more than anything else, and secondly, I felt it would be a better idea to make a visit from Chennai rather than Tirupati. However, as it happened, we found ourselves taking the APSRTC package tour to Kanipakkam and Sripuram, thanking our stars for the decision, since it poured constantly all day long, and we saw flooded roads all along the route. We would surely have been stalled had we taken any other mode of transport!

The Sripuram Golden temple has been built on 100 acres of land in Vellore by the Narayani Peetham headed by Shakti Amma. It’s a beautifully constructed temple situated in the centre of exquisitely laid out gardens and a pathway in the shape of a star. Cameras were not allowed inside, so I could not take any pics, but a google search yielded too many, so here are a few, as well as youtube video taking us through the temple.

For more information, go to the temple website which has all the details you could possibly want to know - http://www.sripuram.org/

To incite you to want to know more, here are a few photographs. I reiterate that all these images are from the internet!






Take a tour of the temple through this youtube video...


Information:

The Sripuram Golden Temple is about 120 Km from Tirupati and about 150 Km from Chennai.
The nearest railway station is Katpadi, 18 Km away, and the nearest bus station is at Vellore, 10 Km away.

There are plenty of buses from Chennai, Bangalore and Tirupati to Vellore.

APSRTC conducts a package tour to Kanipakkam and Sripuram Golden temple, by non-AC bus. The bus starts fromTirumala a 8:00 AM and reaches Srinivasam Complex, Tirupati at 9:30 AM. The bus returns to Tirupati by 7:30 PM. The bus only runs if there are a minimum of 10 passengers,  so please check in advance at the APSRTC counters at Tirumala / Tirupati before making any plans. Also, they allow enough time for darshan, so it is quite a comfortable experience. 

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Comments

  1. chitraDecember 29, 2010 at 9:08 AM

    I also never felt that I should visit this temple as I am also interested in visiting ancient ones. But who knows, like you I may also land up there. I heard that no camera, no mobile is allowed inside the temple grounds.

    ReplyDelete
  2. ArtiDecember 29, 2010 at 7:13 PM

    Looks a very opulent temple... Magnificent!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. TeamgsquareJanuary 2, 2011 at 2:16 PM

    nice temple ...

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anuradha ShankarJanuary 4, 2011 at 10:57 PM

    @Chitra: I would love to hear what u think of the temple after u visit it!! and u are right.... u can go in just with the purse and nothing more... security is really tight!! and u cant even get a decent pic from outside!

    @Arti: Opulent is just the word!!

    @Team G Square: it is!!

    ReplyDelete
  5. krishnaDecember 10, 2011 at 9:49 PM

    yes siripuram temple is so good and see this ramalayam its also very good

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anu ShankarDecember 25, 2011 at 10:30 AM

    Thanks Krishna!

    ReplyDelete

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