Palitana is a sleepy town in the western Indian state of Gujarat. Perched high on a hill overlooking the town is a network of 1,500 exquisite temples. For followers of the Jain faith this is a place of major significance. It is the world’s highest concentration of Jain temples – they are packed in dense clusters to enable barefoot pilgrims to move around easily. Every year more than half a million Jain pilgrims (of approximately 10 million Jains worldwide) make the journey to the stone and marble shrines at Palitana.
Many of the temples at Palitana date back to the 11th and 12th centuries Getting up to the mountain is not that easy. It involves climbing up more than 3,000 steps cut into the side of the mountain. The elderly or those who find it too difficult are taken up on special chairs carried by porters. It can take about two hours to get all the way up to the top. Most Jains will do it at least once in their lifetime but the truly devout will do it 99 times.
BBC camera team was recently in Palitana and their team of Sanjoy Majmudar and Bhasker Solanki have created a wonderful and captivating slide show. To view this slide show visit: Click here
Non-violence and compassion towards every living being is at the core of Jain belief. And this year their spiritual quest in Palitana has manifested itself in a project to help some 29,000 people with disabilities. A group of Jains has set up a vast medical camp in the town to provide mobility accessories and hearing aids to these people. The project was led by Ratna Nidhi Trust of Mumbai and supported by Jains globally. Diginitaries like His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the Gujarat’s Chief Minister, Mr Narendra Modi had attended the camp.
