The colossal statue of Bahubali at Shravanabelagola in Karnataka, carved from a single block of granite in the tenth century and standing some eighteen metres tall, is the clearest public statement the tradition has made about kayotsarga, since the sculpture depicts the posture literally rather than merely referring to it: Bahubali stands motionless with vines and creepers carved climbing up his legs and arms, a detail read directly from the tradition's own narratives about Bahubali remaining in kayotsarga so long, absorbed in withdrawal from bodily concern, that plants grew over him and birds nested in his hair before he attained liberation.
The statue is the centrepiece of Mahamastakabhisheka, a grand head-anointing ceremony held roughly once every twelve years, in which the statue is ceremonially bathed from a scaffold erected around its head with milk, sugarcane juice, saffron paste, sandalwood, flowers and gold and silver coins, a ceremony that draws hundreds of thousands of pilgrims and considerable public attention in Karnataka each time it is held, most recently in 2018. The pairing is deliberate and instructive: the tradition's most monumental public celebration is built entirely around a figure whose defining religious act was total physical stillness and withdrawal from exactly the kind of bodily attention, comfort and adornment that Mahamastakabhisheka lavishes on the statue itself, a juxtaposition Jain commentators have themselves noted as fitting rather than contradictory, since honouring the achievement of bodily indifference is not the same as practising it.