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 ...
No matter where you go in India , you come across temples. It was the same in Binsar too. Wherever we went, we passed by numerous temples, and often had to take a call on whether to visit it or not. Usually, we are not ones to bypass temples – most of them have something interesting to offer, but this was a trip for relaxation, not just sightseeing or temple visiting, so we decided to visit just a couple of those which looked interesting, and skipped all the others. Apart from Jageshwar and Patal Bhuvaneshwar, we visited just two other temples this time. Chitai temple or Golu Devta temple , Almora Golu Devta seems to be the local deity of the Almora region, for we passed at least 3 temples dedicated to him, one of them advertising itself as the ‘ Pracheen Golu Devta Mandir’ or the ‘ancient’ temple of the deity! Our driver assured us that this was no older than any of the other temples, but simply had some more dedicated devotees, plus its location on a hill top attracted mor...