Ryan and I made it to India. We arrived at Mangalore and took off immediately to Karkala, a historically important pilgrimage center for the followers of the ancient religion Jainism. Jainism is one of the world’s oldest religions, originating in India at least 2,500 years ago. Similar to Buddhism, Jainism teaches that the way to liberation and bliss is to live a life of harmlessness and renunciation and that the path to spiritual purity and enlightenment is through disciplined nonviolence. With over 3.5 million followers, Jainism is definitely a popular religion, particularly in India.

Anyway, our first stop was the statue of Lord Gomateshwara. Carved of a single block of granite, it is one of the tallest monolithic statues in the ancient world at 57-feet high. Aside from the statue being of a colossal size, it is rendered even more striking by its location atop a huge granite rock, recognized for having the oldest known inscriptions in the Marathi language on it.

Some quick facts about the statue: the feet are bathed daily, and the rest of the statue is ritualistically bathed every 12 years with milk, saffron, sugarcane juice, and other stuff. We could see where the liquid would runoff the statue during these washings. The statue itself shows Gomateshwara in a standing pose with climbing vines going around his legs. This is because he’s being depicted as he purportedly was when he meditated so long that plants grew up around him. His eyes are half-closed – again because he’s meditating. His lips are slightly curved into a smile to show his inner peace. With no support from the thighs upward, the statue is considered one of the largest free-standing statues in the world.

We also enjoyed the view from the hill where the statue stood.

After our visit to the statue, we hopped back on the bus… which then broke down on the side of the road. We had to join another tour to our next stop, which was to Soans farm, a farm that uses innovative agricultural techniques such as multi-storied mixed cropping. This 100-acres farmland by the side of Karkala-Udupi state highway is a sanctuary for exotic fruit and flower bearing trees. The best thing was when we first arrived, we were treated to pure pineapple juice. It was incredible… easily the best pineapple juice either of us have ever had.

After our refreshing juice, we wandered through the farm as the owner pointed out all the different trees that were growing on the property.

We also saw some young girls preparing cocoa.

Honestly, the farm visit lasted a bit longer than was needed. It was interesting to see how many different species of trees were growing along the pathway – from all over the world – but it went at such a slow pace and having all the other guests on the tour take photos of every single tree as the owner talked about it was a bit too much for us.  And bugs were eating us.

A replacement bus met us at the farm, so we hopped on our (new) bus again, which was good because the other bus was so full that Ryan had to sit in the aisle on a water cooler. So the replacement bus was a plus.

Our final stop for the excursion was a visit to the Thousand Pillars Temple in Moodbidri, a large, ornately decorated Jain temple that was constructed in the 15^th century. This temple was quite a sight to see, with so many uniquely decorated pillars. The guide told us that the temple was a location of learning back in the day so the pillars would depict important stories and lessons for students. For example, one pillar had people all around the pillar, but you had to pay attention to see how many people there were because one of the people was almost ‘hiding’ – so it would have been a way to see if people had keen attention to detail. Or so we were told.

There was another pillar that was a “floating pillar” with a gap at the bottom that the guide was able to pass his sign through. It was cool to see. I didn’t get a good photo of that, though, so here’s just another cool pillar that was there.

Besides its abundant elaborately carved pillars, the temple also contains a sacred bronze image of Lord Chandranatha Swami. It was back behind a locked gate that only certain people could get close to. We were not those people.

The temple concluded our excursion. Overall, we enjoyed seeing everything, and learning about a religion that neither of us had ever heard of before was enlightening.