More than 800 temples makes Palitana “The city of Temples”

Jain temples are always very astonishing and  takes you to a serene, peaceful and tranquil atmosphere. You should know this if you have visited any earlier.

I was wanting to visit the Palitana Jain temples since quite some time now and was glad finally I made it.

Palitana temples are considered to be the holiest place of Jains along with the Shikharji in Jharkhand, India. I saw the pictures while ago and was blown away by the fact that there are more than 800 temples on the way to the peak of  the Shatrunjay hill, where the temples are located.

A small town of Palitana is 36 kms away from Bhavnagar and 203 kms from Ahmedabad. Nearest airport is Bhavnagar. These temples were built by the contribution from the generations of Jain’s all over the country. One has to climb more than 3700 steps to reach the peak of Shatrunjay hill at a height of 1800 feet hill. It is a spiritual place and will definitely take you closer to the way Jain pilgrims live.

I took a 11 pm bus from Vadodara and reached Palitana early morning by 6:30 am. Locating a dharamshala is very easy here. I along with my two friends took a room in a dharamshala to get fresh and started by 9:00 am after having our breakfast.

Note: I say this from experience, start as early as possible before the sunrise specially if its summers. Also ensure you have good breakfast before you start as at the peak once you reach the temples you are not supposed to eat or drink. While climbing up unlike other pilgrimage sites those are at a height, here you do not get any food on the way. Yes there is water.

We had tea, Faafda and Jalebi, that is where I got this Picture.

Because we were late, it got very hot and our walk became a little difficult to us. But the moment we reached, we forgot everything and knew how little all that pain was to see the glory of the cluster of temples. We glanced through every temple that came on our way and reached the main temple which was very crowded. We went to a less crowded temple and sat before exploring the main temple. Below two pictures I took from my mobile .

 

The experience of sitting at the temples on the peak is too far from imagination without being there. Devotees of all age reach here to make their offerings to Adinath Lord.

We stayed there for about an hour and started back. It was noon time which made our descend difficult. By the end till we reached down, we had swollen legs and too hungry to walk more.  We had some lemon water and had some meal at a near by restaurant.