CityDekho
Ranakpur Jain Temple

Ranakpur Jain Temple

pilgrimage site · Rajasthan

The Ranakpur Jain Temple, set in a quiet Aravalli valley, is a 15th-century marble masterpiece dedicated to Adinath, the first Tirthankara.

State
Rajasthan
Type
Pilgrimage Site
Best season
Winter
Things to do
1+

The Ranakpur Jain Temple, set in a quiet Aravalli valley, is a 15th-century marble masterpiece dedicated to Adinath, the first Tirthankara. Famed for its forest of 1,444 individually carved marble pillars — no two alike — it stands with Dilwara as the finest marble carving in Rajasthan.

When to go

Best visited October to March, though hill shrines may open only May-October.

Why visit

A 15th-century marble marvel with 1,444 uniquely carved pillars — one of India's most beautiful Jain temples.

Cultural notes

Built under the Mewar kingdom in the 15th century, Ranakpur is one of the five great Svetambara Jain pilgrimage sites and a peak of Maru-Gurjara temple architecture.

How to reach

Nearest airport Udaipur (~90 km); reached by road through the Aravalli hills, often paired with Kumbhalgarh fort.

Ranakpur Jain Temple guide & itineraries

Reviews & ratings

What travellers say about Ranakpur Jain Temple

CityDekho traveller reviews

★★★★★★★★★★

No CityDekho reviews yet

Be the first traveller to review this place.

Sign in to write a review

Community

Ask questions and share tips about Ranakpur Jain Temple

Sign in to ask a question or share a tip about Ranakpur Jain Temple.

Loading…

Been to Ranakpur Jain Temple?

Write what you would tell a friend — where you stayed, what you would skip, the thing you wish somebody had mentioned before you went. We read every submission before it goes up.

Share your story

More heritage & forts

More places you'll love

Karnataka

Daria Daulat Bagh (Srirangapatna)

Daria Daulat Bagh is the elegant summer palace of Tipu Sultan, the Tiger of Mysore, set in a garden on the river-island of Srirangapatna near Mysuru. Built largely of teak in 1784 in the Indo-Saracenic style, its walls and ceilings are covered in vivid frescoes, floral motifs and murals, including a famous depiction of Tipu's forces at the Battle of Pollilur.

Assam

Sivasagar

Sivasagar, once the capital of the mighty Ahom kingdom that ruled Assam for six centuries, is a town rich in monuments around its great tank. Its highlights include the Rang Ghar, often called Asia's oldest surviving amphitheatre, the Talatal and Kareng Ghar palaces, and the towering Sivadol temple.

Tripura

Neermahal

Neermahal is a striking water palace rising from the middle of Rudrasagar Lake near Melaghar in Tripura, built by the Manikya king in the 1930s as a royal summer retreat. Blending Hindu and Mughal architectural styles, its white-and-red pavilions are reached by boat and beautifully reflected in the lake.

Tripura

Unakoti

Unakoti, in the forested hills of northern Tripura, is an ancient Shaiva pilgrimage and archaeological site famous for its colossal rock-cut carvings and stone images dating back over a thousand years. Legend says there are one less than a crore of images here, giving the site its name, set amid waterfalls and greenery.

Delhi

Safdarjung's Tomb (Delhi)

Safdarjung's Tomb is a garden-tomb built around 1754 for Safdarjung, the powerful Nawab of Awadh and a prime minister of the Mughal empire. Set in a formal charbagh garden, its red-and-buff sandstone dome and symmetrical layout make it one of the last great monuments of the Mughal era.

Maharashtra

Bibi Ka Maqbara (Aurangabad)

Bibi Ka Maqbara in Aurangabad (Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar) is a grand Mughal mausoleum built in the 1660s to 1670s for Dilras Banu Begum, the wife of Emperor Aurangzeb. Closely modelled on the Taj Mahal, its marble and stucco dome earned it the nickname the Taj of the Deccan.

Karnataka

Gol Gumbaz (Vijayapura)

Gol Gumbaz in Vijayapura (Bijapur) is the mausoleum of Sultan Mohammed Adil Shah, completed in 1656. Crowned by one of the largest masonry domes in the world, it is famous for its Whispering Gallery, where even a soft sound is carried clearly across the vast circular hall and echoes many times over.

Maharashtra

Daulatabad Fort

Daulatabad Fort (historically Devagiri) stands atop a steep 200-metre conical hill roughly 15-16 km northwest of Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar (Aurangabad), Maharashtra. It is a massive fortified hill-city built up over about 1,000 years, enclosed by three concentric fortification walls and two moats, best known for Sultan Muhammad bin Tughluq's failed 14th-century attempt to shift the Delhi Sultanate's capital here.

Delhi

Lotus Temple (Delhi)

The Lotus Temple is a Baha'i House of Worship and one of Delhi's most photographed modern landmarks, shaped like a half-open lotus with 27 marble-clad petals set among nine pools and landscaped gardens. Completed in 1986 and open to people of all faiths, it is kept silent, and that is the point of going.

Andaman & Nicobar Islands

Cellular Jail (Port Blair)

The Cellular Jail in Port Blair, known as Kala Pani, is a colonial-era prison built by the British between 1896 and 1906 to hold Indian freedom fighters in solitary confinement. Its original seven wings radiated from a central tower like spokes; today the surviving structure is a national memorial to the independence movement.

Delhi

India Gate (Delhi)

India Gate is a 42-metre war memorial arch on the ceremonial Kartavya Path, designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens and completed in 1931. It honours around 74,000 Indian soldiers who died in the First World War and the Third Anglo-Afghan War, their names inscribed on its sandstone walls.

Gujarat

Shatrunjaya Hill

Shatrunjaya Hill, near Palitana town in the Bhavnagar district, is a world-famous sacred mountain rising above the Shatrunjaya River. It stands as a unique structural wonder, being the world's only mountain holding a fortified complex of more than 860 carved marble temples built over a millennium. Considered an entirely holy landscape by the Jain community, no vehicles are permitted past the base database, requiring pilgrims and travelers to scale approximately 3,500 stone steps to reach the mountaintop complex.

Trending in Rajasthan

Jaipur

Jaipur

Jaipur repays getting up early more than almost anywhere in Rajasthan, because by ten the coaches have arrived and Amber Fort stops being a fort and becomes a queue. Be at Amber for opening. Walk up rather than taking the elephants — the welfare of those animals is a long-running problem and a jeep does the same job. Inside, the Sheesh Mahal is the room everyone photographs, but the Ganesh Pol above the second courtyard is the better piece of work. Hawa Mahal disappoints people, and it is worth knowing why before you stand in front of it: it is a screen, one room deep, built so the women of the household could watch the street unseen. There is almost nothing behind the facade. The good view is from the rooftop cafés opposite, looking back at it. Jantar Mantar is the one to book a guide for. Without someone to explain them the instruments are handsome shapes; with someone, they are a working observatory and the visit turns into the best hour of your day. For fabric go to Johari Bazaar, for everyday chaos and better prices go to Chandpole. October to March. April onwards the stone gets too hot to touch by mid-morning.

Udaipur

Udaipur

Udaipur, the 'City of Lakes', sits among the green Aravalli Hills, built around a chain of interconnected lakes created over the centuries for water and defence. The largest, Lake Pichola, is the visual centre of the city, its shores lined with white marble palaces, bathing ghats and lakefront hotels. The grandest is the City Palace, which is really eleven palaces built against each other over four centuries by successive maharanas — which is why the inside is a maze of levels and courtyards rather than a single plan. Udaipur has a noticeably slower pace than Rajasthan's other big cities. In bad drought years Pichola has emptied completely, so if the lake is the reason you are coming, check before you book.

Jaisalmer

Jaisalmer

Jaisalmer is built from the same yellow sandstone it stands on, which is why at six in the evening the whole fort looks lit from inside — and why at midday it looks like nothing much at all. Time your first look for the last hour of light. The fort is one of very few in the world still lived in: several thousand people, with shops, homes, temples and plumbing inside the walls. That is what makes it extraordinary and also what is slowly destroying it, because the drainage was never built for modern water use and the bastions are being undermined. Conservationists ask visitors to sleep outside the walls rather than in the fort hotels. It is worth honouring. Patwon ki Haveli is the finest carved stone in the city. The Jain temples inside the fort are quieter and, to my eye, better. For the desert, the choice matters. Sam dunes at sunset is a full circus of camels, jeeps and loudspeakers. Khuri is further out, plainer, and gives you the silence people actually come to the Thar for. November to February. Nights in the desert get genuinely cold — bring more than you think.

Ajmer Sharif Dargah

Ajmer Sharif Dargah

Ajmer Sharif is the most revered Sufi shrine in India — the dargah of Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti, the 12th-century saint who founded the Chishti order. Drawing millions of pilgrims of all faiths, especially during the annual Urs, it is a powerful symbol of India's syncretic spiritual culture.