Unakoti

The site in Kailasahar district, Tripura, holding colossal Shaiva rock reliefs cut in the 7th-9th century — Unakoti means 'one less than a crore' (ninety-nine lakh ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine) in Bengali-Tripura folk reckoning, from the legend of Shiva and his thirty-three crore companions resting here on their way to Varanasi and only Shiva waking at dawn, so the others were cursed to remain as stone. The 10-metre central Shiva head and the surrounding Nandi, Ganesha and other panels show a distinctive fusion of classical Shaiva iconography with local tribal folk-art stylisation. The site is one of the easternmost major Shaiva rock-cut complexes in the subcontinent. UNESCO tentative list since 2022.