Gommateshwara - Shravanabelagola

According to Jain Scriptures, Bahubali (also known as Gommateshvara) was the second of the one hundred sons of the first Tirthankara, Lord Rishabha and king of Podanpur. A statue of Lord Bahubali is located at Shravanabelagola in the Hassan district of Karnataka State. Shravanabelagola is a sacred place of pilgrimage to Jain with a splendid and lofty statue of stone on top of a hillock there. When standing at the statue's feet looking up, one sees the inspiring vision of the saint against the vastness of the sky. The figure is lofty like the
sky, and the serenity of the face is unique and incomparable in its beauty. This statue of Gommateshwara Bahubali is carved from a single stone fifty-seven feet high. The giant image was carved in 981 A.D., by order of Chavundaraya, the minister of the Ganga King Rachamalla.
Bahubali is another name for Gommateshwara.

In Jainism, a Tirthankar is a human being who achieves enlightenment (perfect knowledge) through asceticism and who then becomes a role-model teacher for those seeking spiritual guidance. A Tirthankar is a special sort of arhat, a person who has totally conquered base
sensibilities such as anger, pride, deceit, or desire.After achieving enlightenment, a Tirthankar shows others the path to enlightenment. The Tirthankar's religious teachings form the Jain
canons. The inner knowledge of all Tirthankars is perfect and identical in every respect, for the teachings of one Tirthankar do not contradict those of another. However, the degree of elaboration varies according to the spiritual advancement and purity of humans during
that period. The higher the spiritual advancement and purity of mind, the lower the elaboration required.

Jainism posits that time has no beginning or end. It moves like the wheel of a cart. There have been an infinite number of time cycles before our present era and there will be an infinite number of time cycles after this age. The beginning of the twenty first century is approximately 2,530 years into the fifth era of the present half cycle.
As Tirthankars direct us to enlightenment, their statues are worshipped in Jain temples by Jains aspiring to achieve enlightenment. Tirthankars are not God or gods. Jainism does not believe in the existence of God in the sense of a creator, but in gods as beings, superior to humans but, nevertheless, not fully enlightened.

Beliefs

Every living being has a soul.Every soul is potentially divine, with innate qualities of infinite knowledge, perception, power, and bliss (masked by its karmas). Therefore, regard every living being as yourself, harming no one and be kind to all living beings.

Every soul is born as a celestial, human, sub-human or hellish being according to its own karmas.

Every soul is the architect of its own life, here or hereafter. When a soul is freed from karmas, it becomes free and attain divine consciousness, experiencing infinite knowledge, perception, power, and bliss.

Right View, Right Knowledge and Right Conduct (triple gems of Jainism) provide the way to this realization.There is no supreme divine creator, owner, preserver or destroyer. The universe is self-regulated and every soul has the potential to achieve divine consciousness (siddha) through its own efforts.