Ranakpur - Jain Temples

Kama Sutra Temple

A modest detour on our way from Jodphur to Udaipur brought us to Ranakpur. This is a very small place about 30km from anywhere of note but it has two claims to fame.

One is a fabulous Jain Temple and the other is the much smaller, adjacent temple known locally as the Kama Sutra Temple.

I have touched upon my own view of religion before in this diary and in a country with literally millions of temples, churches and mosques I thought that I had become pretty much immunised on the subject of temples, following the line that, "once you've seen one temple then you have seen them all". Whilst this is broadly true and the principle variations of most temples are in size and decoration nothing prepared me for the Jain Temple at Ranakpur. It is the reverse of most temples, being rather plain on the outside, with all the effort being spent on the decoration of the interior. Apparently this is as the Jain faith places less value on the significance of outward appearances and greater merit on the importance of a rich inner life. This interior has marble carvings and decorated domes of outstanding detail and quality. There are over a thousand intricately carved marble pillars and each is different from all of the others. As with so many things we've seen in India the photos we've taken struggle to convey the beauty of the place, but we've posted some below anyway.. Outside when we regained the stuff we had to remove before entry (shoes, water bottles and belts)  a stately old gentleman came to us with the visitors book - apparently all visitors not on pilgrimage ( and there were a decent number of those there too) are required to register in the book, which we were happy to do.

50 yards away is the much smaller Kama Sutra temple within the same complex. Its main attraction seems to be the carvings on the outside walls of couples in various intimate positions, some of which looked rather uncomfortable to me. But then I might be just getting old!

Jain Temple - Interior dome ceiling about 10m in diameter