01Datta’s peak
The Skanda Purana praises Girnar as Raivataka and Ujjayanta in its account of the Vastrapatha kshetra. Nath and Avadhuta sadhus have lived on its peaks for centuries: the Gorakhnath peak, at over 1,100 metres the highest point in Gujarat, and beyond it the Dattatreya peak, where a small shrine keeps the padukas of Guru Dattatreya and a great bell is rung by each pilgrim who arrives. Amba Mata sits on an earlier peak, and newly married couples climb to her for blessings. At the foot, Bhavnath Mahadev draws Naga sadhus for the Maha Shivaratri mela, and in Kartik lakhs walk the 36 km Lili Parikrama round the mountain.
02Neminath and the Jain temples
Jains hold that Neminath, the twenty-second Tirthankara and a cousin of Shri Krishna, turned back from his own wedding when he heard the animals penned for the feast, took diksha and attained nirvana on Girnar. A cluster of marble-and-stone temples stands on a shelf of the mountain below the summits. The Neminath temple was rebuilt in 1128 by Sajjana, the governor of Saurashtra under the Chaulukya king Siddharaja Jayasimha, and the ministers Vastupala and Tejapala added their temples in the 1230s. The ropeway, opened in 2020, now lifts pilgrims to Amba Mata in a few minutes.
03The rock at the foot
On the road from Junagadh to the mountain, under a shelter, lies a granite boulder that is a library in itself. Ashoka’s fourteen major edicts were cut on it around 250 BCE. About 150 CE the Shaka ruler Rudradaman added a long Sanskrit record of how he rebuilt the dam of the Sudarshana lake, first made under Chandragupta Maurya and improved under Ashoka. In 455–57 CE the governor of Skandagupta recorded repairing the same dam after it burst. Three empires, seven centuries, one stone.
The life of this place
- c. 250 BCEAshoka’s fourteen major rock edicts are cut on the boulder at the foot of Girnar.
- c. 150 CERudradaman records rebuilding the Sudarshana lake dam.
- 455–457 CESkandagupta’s governor repairs the burst dam and records it on the same rock.
- 1128 CESajjana, Siddharaja Jayasimha’s governor, rebuilds the Neminath temple.
- c. 1230sVastupala and Tejapala build their temples on Girnar.
- October 2020The Girnar ropeway opens to the Amba Mata peak.
Start the climb from Bhavnath at 4–5 a.m. to reach the Datta peak before the heat; the full climb takes four to six hours. The Ashokan rock is on the way out of Junagadh.
