Pali

Cradled in the Aravalli hills, the Jain temple at Ranakpur counts among the grandest buildings in all of Marwar. It was raised during the reign of Maharana Kumbha of Mewar by Dharna Shah, remembered by tradition as the Maharana's minister. The story goes that Dharna Shah dreamt of Nalinigulma, the celestial flying chariot of the gods, and had the temple's plan drawn from what he had seen in his sleep. The four-faced shrine is said to rest on 1,444 pillars, and the wonder of it, so the telling goes, is that every one is carved differently — search as long as you like, no two match.

Beside the Pali–Jodhpur highway stands a shrine said to be like no other: instead of an idol, a 350cc Royal Enfield Bullet receives the prayers. By most accounts Om Singh Rathore of Chotila village crashed at this bend and died in 1988, though sources differ on the year. Villagers say that each time the police took the motorcycle away to the station, it found its own way back to the spot overnight. That was read as a sign, a shrine grew up around the machine, and by local reckoning hundreds of thousands of drivers pause here every year to ask Bullet Baba for a safe road ahead.

High in the Aravallis, at a height usually given as around 3,990 feet above sea level though accounts differ, a temple sits hollowed into the living rock. Devotees hold that Parashurama cut the cave out with his axe and sat here in fierce penance to Shiva. Inside, a Shivling has formed naturally from the stone, and water is said to drip onto it from the roof right through the year, whatever the season outside. The cold, dark chamber and the stiff climb needed to reach it have together earned the shrine its affectionate title, the Amarnath of Rajasthan.

On the road between Falna and Sanderao stands a Shiva temple whose story, by local telling, reaches back to the age of the Mahabharata. Belief holds that Kunti, mother of the Pandavas, sheltered here during the years of exile and worshipped Shiva each day. She is said to have installed a Shivling in the shade of a neem tree, and one popular telling traces the name Nimbo Ka Nath — lord of the neem — to that tree, though others give the name a different origin. Travellers who stop here still hear the old tale told and retold.

The great dam on the Jawai river is called the Amrit Sarovar of Marwar, the lifeline of western Rajasthan, and it earns the name. Maharaja Umaid Singh of Jodhpur set the work going on 12 May 1946. Black granite hills ring the water; leopards den in their caves, while heavy crocodiles drift in the reservoir below. The most cherished thing here, though, is the peace of it — it is said that for generations the Rabari herders have shared this ground with the leopards without conflict, and the morning and evening safaris let you watch that balance up close.

Right in the middle of Pali town lies Lakhotia Garden, the loveliest spot in the city for an evening walk. Water lies along nearly every side, so the garden reads almost like a peninsula — sit on the steps and it seems to float. Within it stands the Lakhotia Mahadev temple, said to be very old, which the people of Pali hold in deep affection. Temple bells in the morning, lamplight scattered across the water at dusk: between them, this small garden has become the heart of the town.