Vallimalai Jain Caves

The Vallimalai Jain caves lie in Vallimalai village, Katpadi taluk, Vellore district. These natural caverns sheltered Digambara monks from early historic times, and smooth, polished stone beds are dated to the Satavahana period. The Jain carvings were made around 870 CE under the Western Ganga king Rachamalla II, after he took the region from the Cholas, and Vallimalai was an important Jain centre in the 8th–9th centuries.

Five inscriptions survive. The epigraphist E. Hultzsch recorded two groups of sculptures in a cave on the eastern slope, with inscriptions beneath them: one records that King Rajamalla founded a Jain vasati here and gives his Ganga ancestry, another names Devasena, teacher of the Bana ruler, and his fellow monks, and a third identifies an image of the teacher Govardhana. The main cavern measures about 40 by 20 ft, with a height of 7 to 10 ft, and is divided into three chambers. A temple in the area was later converted for Hindu worship.