---
title: "Halebidu’s 12th-century Jain temples in Karnataka hold 18-foot stone tirthankaras and lathe-turned pillars"
url: https://badiyaa.com/halebidu-jain-basadis-hoysala-pillars/
published: 2026-11-15T15:15:00+00:00
modified: 2026-11-15T15:15:00+00:00
section: History
publisher: Badiyaa
---

# Halebidu’s 12th-century Jain temples in Karnataka hold 18-foot stone tirthankaras and lathe-turned pillars

Halebidu's three Jain basadis in Karnataka, built 1133 to about 1192 under Hoysala kings, house 18-foot tirthankara statues.

Three Jain temples have stood side by side in Halebidu, in the south Indian state of Karnataka, since the 12th century, and the two largest are built around single stone figures 18 feet (5.5 meters) tall. The other showpiece is overhead and all around: rows of lathe-turned stone pillars holding up some of the richest carved ceilings in the old Hoysala capital.

Halebidu, then known as Dorasamudra or Dwarasamudra, was the seat of the Hoysala Empire from about the 11th to the 14th century. Jainism had a strong following in the region, and the three basadis, as Jain temples are called in Karnataka, stand near the Kedareshwara temple and the Dwarasamudra lake.

## A king who changed faith and kept the peace

The Hoysala king Vishnuvardhana, often ranked as the dynasty’s greatest ruler, was born Bittiga and followed Jainism until around 1115, when he turned to Vaishnavism under the Hindu teacher Ramanujacharya. He kept treating Jainism as the equal of Hinduism, and his queen, Shantala Devi, remained Jain.

That balance shows in the buildings. The temples were never a single project. Different patrons paid for them at different times across several decades.

## The three basadis, west to east

- **Parshvanatha Basadi (1133):** Built by Boppadeva, son of the royal minister Gangaraja, during Vishnuvardhana’s reign. Its idol is called Vijaya Parshvanatha, meaning “victorious Parsvanatha”, because the temple’s completion coincided with the triumph of Narasimha I as royal heir. It is the largest of the three and holds the 18-foot Parshvanatha in a standing meditation pose.

- **Adinatha Basadi (12th century):** The smallest and plainest, with a carving of the goddess Saraswati. Its original seated Adinatha image broke and now rests in the hall.

- **Shantinatha Basadi (about 1192):** Raised under King Veera Ballala II, with an 18-foot image of Shantinatha, the 16th tirthankara, and a Brahmadeva pillar outside.

Subtract the dates and the complex spans about 59 years of building, from 1133 to roughly 1192, so a visitor walking its length moves through nearly six decades of Hoysala work.

## The lathe-turned pillars

The pillars of the Parshvanatha Basadi are the reason many people make the trip. They were shaped on a lathe and stand in heavy, closely set rows through the temple’s halls. The Indologist Klaus Fisher judged its carved ceiling the most elaborate in all of Halebidu; at the center is the yaksha Dharanendra. Nearby is a well-known image of the goddess Padmavati, a three-hooded cobra rising above her head.

Travel posts often describe Halebidu’s pillars as musical. We could not confirm that in the records we checked, so we are not repeating it as fact.

## Raids, rites and new digs

The capital was plundered twice, by Malik Kafur, a general of Alauddin Khalji, in 1311, and by Sultan Muhammad bin Tughluq in 1326. The ground keeps giving up more. Remains of another Jain temple turned up near Parshvanatha Basadi in 2019, and the base of a 30-by-20-meter Hoysala-era temple was uncovered near Shantinatha Basadi in 2021. More than 1,000 sculptures have been found around the site, and the Archaeological Survey of India plans an open-air museum.

The complex lies in the buffer zone of the Sacred Ensembles of the Hoysalas, added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2023. Nearby Belur has its own Hoysala marvel in [stone dancers wearing carved jewelry that moves](https://badiyaa.com/belur-hoysala-temple-madanika-jewelry/), while a Karnataka border village keeps a very different custom alive in the [Gorehabba festival](https://badiyaa.com/gorehabba-cow-dung-festival-gumatapura/).

The Shantinatha statue last received a Mahamastakabhisheka, the Jain ritual of anointing a great image, in January 2010.

## Further reading

- [Wikipedia: Jain temples, Halebidu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jain_temples,_Halebidu)

*Image: Rohit Sharma, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons*

*This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by our Editorial Desk. [How we work](https://badiyaa.com/editorial-policy/).*