Temple Heritage

Kulpakji — once known as Kollipaka — was the second capital of the Western Chalukya empire under Someshvara I in the 11th century. Long before that, however, the village sheltered a Jain tirth whose origins recede into the seventh century, and whose moolnayak idol — Shri Manikyaswami — is said to predate the Common Era itself.

Carved from a single piece of sapphire and standing eight inches tall, the idol of Bhagwan Adinath is one of three jewel-carved idols revered in Shwetambar Jainism. Tradition holds that it was installed by Bharat Chakravarti, son of Bhagwan Rishabhdev, at the request of Indra himself.

By the medieval period, Kollipaka had grown into a flourishing Jain center, with seven temples and an active sangha. Inscriptions from the 11th and 12th centuries — preserved in Kannada and Telugu — record grants to the temple from Chalukya queens and ministers, as well as from the wealthy shreshthis of the Deccan trade routes.

The original spire stood through the centuries despite the upheavals that transformed the Deccan, sheltered each time by the patronage of devotees who carried Kulpakji's name across the seas to the Gulf and Southeast Asia.

In 1978, the Shwetambar sangh of Hyderabad undertook a complete jirnoddhar of the temple complex. White marble from Makrana, gold-leaf work from Palitana, and traditional silpa craftsmen from Gujarat restored the temple to its former glory over a period of seven years.

The pratishtha of 1986 — performed by Acharya Vijay Indradinnasuri Maharaj — brought back the sapphire idol to its consecrated simhasan, where it sits today, drawing devotees from across the Jain world.

In February 2027, the trust will mark fourteen hundred years of continuous darshan with a Mahotsav rarely undertaken in Jainism — a six-day pratishtha ceremony, accompanied by abhishek of all the idols of the temple, sangh sthapana of a hundred sadhus and sadhvis, and a procession from Hyderabad to Kolanupaka that retraces the route of the medieval shreshthis.

All devotees of the sangh are invited to register their families and attend. Bhojanshala arrangements will be made for ten thousand pilgrims daily across the six days.