Kizhavalavu (Kilavalavu) -Jain Sculptures

Keezhavazhavu (also known as Kilavalavu and Keelavalavu and Kizhavalavu) is a village in

Madurai district Madurai district is one of the 38 districts of the state of Tamil Nadu in southeastern India., United States National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency The city of Madurai serves as the district headquarters. It houses the famous Sri Meenaksh ...

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is a state in southern India. It is the tenth largest Indian state by area and the sixth largest by population. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu is the home of the Tamil people, whose Tamil language ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. It is located from

Madurai Madurai ( , also , ) is a major city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is the cultural capital of Tamil Nadu and the administrative headquarters of Madurai District. As of the 2011 census, it was the third largest Urban agglomeration in ...

. It is known for two

hillock A hillock or knoll is a small hill,The Free Dictionary
"hillock" entry, retrieved December 18, 2007 ...

s called ''Panchapandavar Malai'' or ''Panchapandavar Padukkai'' which contains ancient

Jain Jainism ( ), also known as Jain Dharma, is an Indian religion. Jainism traces its spiritual ideas and history through the succession of twenty-four tirthankaras (supreme preachers of ''Dharma''), with the first in the current time cycle being ...

sculptures and stone beds, and another is Sakkarai peer oliulla Mountain. It has a cave.

Description

Kizhavalavu (Kilavalavu)-Panchapandavar beds

Keelavalavu is located in the Melur taluk of Madurai district. It is located from Melur. In the

2011 census of India The 2011 Census of India or the 15th Indian Census was conducted in two phases, house listing and population enumeration. The House listing phase began on 1 April 2010 and involved the collection of information about all buildings. Information ...

, it had a population of 5686, of which 2847 were males and 2839 females. The village is rich in

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained ( phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies under ...

and it is one of the hubs for illegal quarrying in the district.

Panchapandavar Malai

Panchapandavar Malai (Hill of Five

Pandava The Pandavas (Sanskrit: पाण्डव, IAST: Pāṇḍava) refers to the five legendary brothers— Yudhishthira, Bhima, Arjuna, Nakula and Sahadeva—who are the central characters of the Hindu epic ''Mahabharata''. They are acknowledge ...

s) is located in the village on the

Melur Melur is the Northern entrance of Madurai district. It is the town and municipality in the Madurai North in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Melur Old Name is Called Naduvi Nadu. The name Melur name comes from "Mela Nadu". Melur is called Thaigra ...

– Tiruppattur road. The hillock contains caves that were converted as adobe by the Jain monks who lived here when their religion flourished in the

ancient Tamil country Tamiḻakam ( Tamil: தமிழகம்; Malayalam: തമിഴകം), refers to the geographical region inhabited by the ancient Tamil people, covering the southernmost region of the Indian subcontinent. Tamilakam covered today's Tamil Na ...

. The hillock is one of the national monuments declared by the

Archaeological Survey of India The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) is an Indian government agency that is responsible for archaeological research and the conservation and preservation of cultural historical monuments in the country. It was founded in 1861 by Alexand ...

. The cave contains nine Jain sculptures belonging to 9th and 10th century AD, including sculptures of Mahavira, the last

thirthankara In Jainism, a ''Tirthankara'' (Sanskrit: '; English: literally a 'ford-maker') is a saviour and spiritual teacher of the ''dharma'' (righteous path). The word ''tirthankara'' signifies the founder of a '' tirtha'', which is a fordable passag ...

and

Bahubali Bahubali (), a much revered figure among Jains, was the son of Rishabadeva (the first ''tirthankara'' of Jainism) and the brother of Bharata Chakravartin. He is said to have meditated motionless for a year in a standing posture (''kayotsarg ...

. It also contains

Tamil-Brahmi Tamil-Brahmi, also known as Tamizhi or Damili, was a variant of the Brahmi script in southern India. It was used to write inscriptions in the early form of Old Tamil.Richard Salomon (1998) ''Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptio ...

and

Vatteluttu ''Vatteluttu,'' popularly romanised as ''Vattezhuthu'' ( ta, வட்டெழுத்து, ' and ml, വട്ടെഴുത്ത്, ', ), was a syllabic alphabet of south India (Tamil Nadu and Kerala) and Sri Lanka used for writing t ...

inscriptions. The Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions in the cave were discovered by Venkoba Rao in 1903. The inscriptions were engraved from right to left and upside-down. This kind of inscription is only found here in the

Kundrakudi Kundrakudi is a village in Sivaganga district that houses a famous Murugan temple, Shanmughanathar Temple, atop a small hill near Karaikudi, India. Location and places of interest Kundrakudi is situated very near to Karaikudi Karaikudi ...

hill. There are stone beds in the caves which were used by Jain monks for rest. An inscription in the cave mentions that these stone beds were sculptured by a person from

Thondi Thondi or Tondi is a Panchayat town in Ramanathapuram district in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is a state in southern India. It is the tenth largest Indian state by area and the sixth largest by population. Its c ...

Quarrying

The granite quarrying in the hillock, carried out by the government and private companies, vandalised some of the sculptures and inscriptions. In response to a

public interest litigation The chief instrument through which judicial activism has flourished in India is public interest litigation (PIL) or social action litigation (SAL). ''Public interest litigation'' (PIL) refers to litigation undertaken to secure public interest and de ...

filed by the residents of the village in 2008, in 2011 the Madurai bench of Madras High Court banned the granite-quarrying activities of the Tamil Nadu Minerals Limited (TAMIN) and private companies inside an area of around the hillock, citing the presence of a Jain monument of archaeological importance.

References

{{Madurai district Jain rock-cut architecture Hills of Tamil Nadu Caves of Tamil Nadu Villages in Madurai district Archaeological sites in Tamil Nadu 9th-century Jain temples