Place · Jain rock-cut cave temple · India
Kazhugumalai Jain beds, Tuticorin
Also known as Kazhugumalai Jain beds, Tirthankaras, Tirthankaras (rock reliefs), Tuticorin
The Pandya-period Jain rock-cut cave temple at Kazhugumalai in Thoothukudi district, Tamil Nadu — the Settipodavu Jain cave with 7-9 century relief sculpture of Jain Tirthankaras (over 150 figures carved into the natural rock), including the standing Mahavira (3 metres tall), seated Parshvanatha, and 100+ smaller Tirthankara reliefs. The Vattelutu inscriptions on the cave wall (one of the earliest Tamil-Brahmi script variants) record donations by local Pandya chieftains. The site is one of the three major Jain cave sites of southern Tamil Nadu (with Sittanavasal and Kazhugumalai Vettuvan Koil, which sits 100 metres away). The 'Kazhugumalai Jain Beds' name refers to the cave's shallow rock-cut platforms used by Jain ascetics for meditation. ASI protection since 1922.
- Function
- Sacred site & pilgrimage
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 9.150, 77.700
Connections (2)
- Shared site withThiruparankundram
Thiruparankundram's rock carries Jain beds and inscriptions alongside the Pāndya Murugan cave, as Kazhugumalai does a hundred kilometres south. Both are instances of the same Tamil hill being cut for more than one religion — Jain cells first, Hindu shrines afterwards, and at Thiruparankundram a dargah on the summit as well.
- Companion in the same setSittanavāsal
Kazhugumalai and Sittanavāsal are what Tamil Jainism left in rock: reliefs, beds and Vatteluttu inscriptions from the centuries before the Śaiva and Vaishnava bhakti movements displaced it. Sittanavāsal's cave paintings are the only substantial Jain murals surviving in the Tamil country. Tamil Jainism was substantial enough in the eighth century to be worth persecuting, and the Śaiva hymns of the period name the Jains as opponents by the thousand.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Kalugumalai Jain Beds”. Jain tīrtha guides and the Digambara and Śvetāmbara temple trusts’ own records.
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