Kesariyaji Tirth

Kesariyaji Tirth, known as the Rishabhdeo temple, lies in the hills of Mewar in southern Rajasthan on the old trade road from Gujarat's seaports into the interior, drawing merchant patronage. Its holiest object is a black stone image of the first Tirthankara Rishabhanatha, called Kesariyaji from the legend of a devotee who offered saffron, kesar, equal to the weight of his son in thanksgiving.

The temple was raised in 874 under the Mewar ruler Rawal Khuyan, and an inscription of 1422 records repairs through the 1300s and 1400s. Merchants commissioned marble replicas that carried the cult into Svetambara temples across western India.

Digambara and Svetambara Jains and Vaishnava Hindus honoured the idol and contended for control from the fourteenth century through the favour of Mewar's rulers. In 1654 a statue of Marudevi, Rishabhanatha's mother, seated on an elephant was added before the sanctum.