Taranga Jain Temple

Taranga hill near Kheralu in Mehsana district is a Jain pilgrimage centre with two walled temple compounds, one Svetambara with fourteen temples and one Digambara with five. A road climbs through brushwood forest to the plateau where the temples stand. Tradition links the older name Tarapur to a temple of the goddess Tara, and the site rose to importance in the 12th century.

Its centrepiece is the Ajitnatha temple, which the Solanki king Kumarapala built on the advice of his teacher Acharya Hemachandra and completed in 1161. Standing about 142 feet tall in the middle of a large square, it is a leading example of the Maru-Gurjara style and is still in worship. Its spire starts with clusters of miniature towers and rises into overlapping turrets, and the hall roof is studded with more turrets and lined with rows of beasts and urns.