Arivar Jain Cave

The main shrine and the front maṇḍapa are cut from the living rock; the present entrance pillars are of the 20th century, brought from Kudumianmalai. The ceiling carries the wheel of dharma and a faint carpet design, all hewn from the same rock as the hill with full precision.

An image of a seated Jain monk in meditation is set within; a single umbrella over him marks him not as a Tīrthaṅkara. On another wall stands the Tīrthaṅkara Parsvanatha protected by a five-headed cobra. Inside the sanctum are three seated figures, two Tīrthaṅkaras under triple umbrellas and an Ācārya. Two small portraits of dancing apsaras survive on the pillars.

The book calls these the only Jain paintings in Tamil Nadu and the state's earliest surviving paintings, placed in the 9th century and ranked, after Ajanta and Sigiriya, among the finest of that time. They are painted in mineral dyes on plaster, were once painted over, and were rediscovered in 1916. A ceiling fragment shows Bhavyas, or Jain monks, gathering lotus from a pond.

An inscription at the entrance names the cave as the Arivar Koil in the village of Annalvayil and records its repair by a Jain Ācārya, Ilan Gautaman, during the reign of a Pandya king between 815 and 822. A further inscription names Ilangautaman as the cave's sponsor. The name Arivar derives from the Jain word Arhat. Nearby, the Ezhadipattam natural cave carries stone beds for the rite of fasting to death and an inscription of the 1st century CE; the book reports such beds in use for about a thousand years from the 1st century CE.