Ranakpur Jain Temple

Ranakpur situated around 60 km north of Udaipur, is one of the most revered Jain pilgrims as it the home to one of the largest and most important Jain Temples in the country. The temple has a vast basement of 4,500 square yards which covers the whole complex. There are four subsidiary shrines, twenty four pillared halls and eight domes supported by over four hundred columns. It’s amazing to know that the temple has a total number of 1,444 intricately carved columns and no two columns are alike. The main temple is a Chaumukh or a four-faced temple dedicated to the trithankara Rishabdeoji or popularly known as Shri Adinathji.

This shrine is of great significance to the Jain community as it is regarded as one of the five most important pilgrimage sites of Jainism. This exceptionally beautiful Jain temple complex is set in a remote valley in the Aravali range. The legends states that these temples were built in the fifteenth century during the rule of the liberal and munificent Rajput Monarch Rana Kumbha and also that when Akbar the mogul emperor visited this temple he was taken aback seeing the creativity and beauty of this unimaginable artistic work and was so full of admiration that he had made an inscription on one of the columns, saying that no one ever will be allowed to destroy this jewel of architecture.

Ranakpur Jain Temple