The 1000 pillar Jain temple at Moodbidri
I had always assumed that Jainism was a geographically bound religion. I knew a lot of Gujaratis and Rajasthanis were Jains, as also some people from Uttar Pradesh and the Hindi heartland.
I didn’t realize Jainism had a following even down south. About 35 km from Mangalore lies the town of Moodbidri. Moodbidri is also referred to as the Kashi of Jains and was an important Jain centre in Karnataka.
Though Jains themselves are a minority population here, Moodbidri boasts many Jain temples (18 in number).
The most famous of these is the Hosa Basadi. The word Basadi derives from the Sanskrit word Vasathi, meaning temple. Hosa means new and relates to the relative newness of this temple.
The Hosa Basadi also called the Savira Kadamba Basadi, or thousand pillar temple is the largest and most ornate of the Jain temples here. The granite temple, built in 1430 AD, houses a bronze statue of a Jain monk called Chandranatha Swami. We reached the Hosa Basadi in the afternoon on a weekday and found the temple largely deserted.
The temple complex houses a large pillar at the entry (called a mahastambha) and the temple in a large open compound. Outside the main sanctum sanctorum is a huge hall with multiple pillars. Each pillar is heavily decorated with sculptures. The notice said that no two pillars had the same decorations and that some of them also had carvings of giraffes, Chinese dragons and Arabian horses — a tribute to the trading partners the local Jains had, but we weren’t to able to make out which ones had these.
As we walked around, we saw multiple pillars around the structure. Most were more for ornamentation is my guess, as the roof itself did not need to seem to need so much support.
We enjoyed walking around the temple, and then the compound. The rich green undergrowth contrasted well with the granite structure of the temple. The man-made structure seems to fit in with the foliage as an organic whole.
In the days where cities bustle with impatience, the Hosa Basadi is an oasis of silence, and definitely worth a visit if you like to observe architecture.
