Place · Digambara Jain temple complex · India
Kunthalgiri, Osmanabad
Also known as Kunthalgiri, Kunthunath, Kunthunath (Siddhakshetra), Osmanabad
The Kunthalgiri Jain siddhakshetra at Washi in Osmanabad district, Maharashtra — one of the Digambara Jain siddhakshetras (sites where Tirthankaras or senior ascetics attained moksha). The tradition holds that three arihants (enlightened Jain souls) attained moksha here: Vrushabhasen, Satyaki and Kalyan. The temple complex preserves 25+ Digambara basadis on the 1,000-foot Kunthalgiri hill, with the main Mahavira temple at the summit. The temple's foundation is traditional 11-century with major 15-17 century additions. The annual Siddhakshetra festival each May draws over 100,000 Digambara Jain pilgrims. The temple is managed by the Kunthalgiri Digambar Jain Siddhakshetra Trust. ASI partial protection since 1962. The adjoining Washi village is a working Jain community center.
- Function
- Sacred site & pilgrimage
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 18.200, 76.167
Connections (2)
- Companion in the same setMuktagiri, Betul
Kunthalgiri in the Balaghat range and Muktāgiri in the Satpuras are Deccan Digambara siddhakshetras, and both are places where the tradition records deaths rather than lives — arihants at one, and at Kunthalgiri the public sallekhanā of Ācharya Śāntisāgara, who revived the muni order, in 1955. Sallekhanā, the ritual fast to death, is performed in public and recorded; the Rajasthan High Court declared it illegal in 2015 and the Supreme Court stayed the ruling within weeks.
- Site adjacencyNaldurg, Osmanabad
Naldurg is a basalt-walled Bahmani-Adil Shahi hill fort near Tuljapur in Osmanabad district, while Kunthalgiri is a Jain siddhakshetra elsewhere in the same district; the two are neighbouring landmarks of Osmanabad's Deccan landscape rather than one inside the other.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Osmanabad district”. Jain tīrtha guides and the Digambara and Śvetāmbara temple trusts’ own records.
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