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 ...
There is no counting the number of temples in the vicinity of Tirupati, but the TTD maintains some of them, and they also run buses to these temples in an attempt to popularize them. While some are just small temples about which not much information is available, some of them are really beautiful and worth a visit. We took the TTD bus to make a visit to all these temples in a day. It happened to be Diwali, so we had the added satisfaction of spending the festival in a memorable manner. Here are the temples we visited. Karvetinagaram Narayanavanam Nagari Bugga Nagalapuram Surutapalli Appalayagunta Tallapakka Chennakesava Swamy Temple Karvetinagaram Karvetinagaram , located about 48 Km from Tirupati, traces its origins back to the era of the Chalukyas, who had their capital at Narayanavanam. At some point, a forest was cleared and their new capital (Nagaram) was built here. Since the capital was built by cutting down a forest, this place came to be known as ‘Kadu vetti...