Batu Caves is a complex of limestone caves set into a hill just north of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and the principal Hindu pilgrimage site of the Tamil diaspora in Southeast Asia, drawn to a limestone formation roughly four hundred million years old that was little known outside local communities until the American naturalist William Temple Hornaday publicized it in 1878. K. Thamboosamy Pillay, a leader of colonial era Malaya's Tamil Hindu community, founded a shrine to the deity Murugan inside the caves in 1891, inspired by the resemblance between the cave mouth's shape and the tip of the vel, the spear Murugan traditionally carries.
The caves' main chamber, known as Cathedral Cave or Temple Cave, sits at the top of a flight of two hundred and seventy two steps and houses the principal shrine; the climb itself has become part of the pilgrimage experience, undertaken by visitors and devoted pilgrims alike as a physical expression of devotion rather than merely a means of reaching the temple above.
A colossal gold painted statue of Murugan, 42.7 metres tall and among the largest statues of the deity anywhere in the world, was unveiled at the base of the steps in January 2006 after three years of construction using 350 tons of steel, and now stands as the site's most photographed and most immediately recognizable feature, visible from a considerable distance before a visitor ever reaches the steps themselves.