Sacred Places
584 places found
HinduismUcchi Pillayar Temple, Rockfort
Tiruchirappalli · India · temple
Crowning the granite summit of Rock Fort in Tiruchirappalli, this shrine to Lord Ganesha is reached by 437 steps cut into the living stone and rewards the climb with views across the sacred rivers Kaveri and Kollidam.
JainismUdayagiri and Khandagiri Caves
Bhubaneswar · India · temple
Two adjoining hills on the edge of Bhubaneswar, honeycombed with rock-cut cells that first sheltered Jain ascetics in the first century BCE, with an active Jain Temple still standing at Khandagiri's summit above the older caves of Udayagiri.
HinduismUdupi Sri Krishna Matha
Udupi · India · temple
The 13th-century matha of Lord Bala Krishna founded by Sri Madhvacharya, where every pilgrim receives darshan through the silver-plated Kanakana Kindi window and eight mathas hand the Lord's worship from one to the next every two years in the Paryaya.
IndigenousUluru
Yulara · Australia · sacred natural site
A vast red arkose monolith in Australia's centre, a living sacred site of the Anangu people held under Tjukurpa, their traditional law. Visitors walk around the rock, never up it; the climb closed permanently on 26 October 2019 at the Anangu's request.
IslamUmayyad Mosque (Great Mosque of Damascus)
Damascus · Syria · mosque
One of the oldest and largest mosques in the world, raised by the Umayyad caliph al-Walid I between 705 and 715 CE in the heart of the Old City of Damascus, sheltering the shrine of Prophet Yahya (John the Baptist) honoured by Muslims and Christians alike.
JudaismUnion Libérale Israélite de France
Paris · France · synagogue
The oldest Reform Jewish congregation in France, gathered on rue Copernic in the sixteenth arrondissement of Paris since 1907 and known to most Parisians simply as the Synagogue Copernic.
HinduismVaidyanath Jyotirlinga
· India · temple
One of the twelve Jyotirlingas, the most sacred abodes of Lord Shiva, with three Temples in different states of India claiming to enshrine the same self-manifest linga.
HinduismVamana Temple, Khajuraho
Khajuraho · India · temple
A compact eleventh-century shrine to Lord Vishnu in his Vamana form, standing apart from the grander Temples of Khajuraho's Western Group in the quieter Eastern precinct of the UNESCO-listed monument complex.
HinduismVaraha Cave Temple
Mamallapuram · India · temple
Carved into pink granite on the hilltop at Mamallapuram, the Varaha Cave Temple is a late seventh century Pallava rock-cut shrine whose four sculpted panels, most famously Lord Vishnu lifting the earth as Varaha, rank among the finest works of early Pallava art. It forms part of the UNESCO-listed Group of Monuments at Mahabalipuram.
HinduismVazhappally Maha Siva Temple
Changanassery · India · temple
Near Changanassery in Kerala's Kottayam district, Vazhappally Maha Siva Temple is an ancient Shaiva shrine counted among the 108 Temples tradition attributes to Lord Parashurama, sheltering seventeenth century wood carvings and one of the oldest surviving Malayalam inscriptions.
HinduismVeerabhadra Temple
Lepakshi · India · temple
In the village of Lepakshi in Andhra Pradesh's Sri Sathya Sai district, the Veerabhadra Temple is a sixteenth century Vijayanagara shrine to Lord Veerabhadra, a fierce form of Lord Shiva, celebrated for its hanging pillar, a vast monolithic Nandi, and ceiling murals said to be among the largest in Asia.
JudaismVercelli Synagogue
Vercelli · Italy · synagogue
At Via Foà 70 in Vercelli, Piedmont, the Vercelli Synagogue is an Orthodox Jewish sanctuary completed in 1878 to the Moorish Revival designs of the Vercelli-born architect Marco Treves, its banded stonework and onion-domed turrets among the most striking in northern Italy.