On 22 December 2024, I visited the famous udayagiri and khandagiri caves in bhubaneswar odisha. I visited there in a group of wikimedia hackathon as part of optional activity of our event. In morning I rushed to get there from my hotel Lemon Tree Premier. It was around 8.5 km from there as there was another group of guide who was waiting for us to explain this magnificient structure with a beautiful story.
There were various gumphas are hati, rani, ganesha, bagha, sarpa, etc. every gumpha has seperate story to tell. The rani gumpha is farmost the most famous and biggest gumpha having 8 cells on ground floor and 8 on first floor. The guide explained the story of this place by taking us back to kalinga dynasty where there was a king kharavela who built this residential blocks for jain monks.
Why did he make this?
He was devout follower of jainism and wants to invite the jain monks to his palace. He sents this message to monks via his servants and waited for them to arrive. After a long someone told him that monks who were reached to spiritual enlightenments were not fascinated by money and charm rather they live in caves. So then after he contructed these caves very thoughfully with a decline structure like to rest head while sleeping and have not enough place to stand inside cell as monks performs meditation in sitting posture.
Enviornment near the site were very greeny, slient and soothing. I would really recommand this to include in your check list.
I find out that bhubaneswar have very famous sites of various religions like hinduism (Jagganath temple puri), jainism (Udayagiri and khandagiri caves), bhuddism (Ratnagiri).
No doubt why this city is called the Temple city of India.
