Mamandur

Jaina cave

The Jaina cave at Mamandur, dating from the third to fourth centuries CE, has a deep pillared hall and five shrines along its rear wall, as well as two shallow niches to the right. It is striking, that already during this early period, multiple sanctums of two to seven image chambers placed in a row were common practice in Jaina excavations. This indicates the very early association of multi-shrined spatial arrangements with a sacred Jaina architectural environment.