Divinity Atlas

Sacred Correspondences
Regions

Gujarat

Also Known As Gujarati

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Gujarat is the western Indian state whose coastline and trade routes made it a meeting point for several traditions at once. It holds a large Jain population and the temple complexes of Palitana and Girnar; it received the Zoroastrians who left Iran and became the Parsi community; and it is the region of the Krishna devotional traditions centred on Dwarka. Its merchant communities carried all of these outward along the Indian Ocean routes, so Gujarati religious life is documented as much in the diaspora as at home.

Facts
Geography
Latitude
22.3 degrees north 1
Approximate reference point, rounded to one decimal place; a large or historical region has no formal center, so this coordinate is conventional, not a precise boundary claim.
Longitude
71.2 degrees east 1
Approximate reference point, rounded to one decimal place; a large or historical region has no formal center, so this coordinate is conventional, not a precise boundary claim.
Modern Area
The Indian state of Gujarat, with the territory of Daman and Diu, and Gujarati communities of long standing in Mumbai, East Africa and Britain. 1
Traditions
Principal Religious Traditions
Jainism, with the temple cities of Palitana and Girnar; Vaishnavism in the Krishna traditions centred on Dwarka and in the Pushtimarg; the Swaminarayan movement, founded in the state early in the nineteenth century; Zoroastrianism, in the Parsi community that settled from Iran; and Islam among long-established trading communities. 2
Sacred and Liturgical Languages
Sanskrit and Ardhamagadhi Prakrit for the Hindu and Jain traditions, Gujarati for the devotional and Swaminarayan literature, Avestan for Parsi worship, and Arabic for Muslim worship. 3
Learn More
A Coast That Received and Sent

Gujarat sits where the Indian landmass meets the Arabian Sea, and its religious composition reflects a coastline that has been in continuous long-distance trade for three thousand years.

It holds one of the largest Jain populations in India, together with two of the tradition's principal pilgrimage landscapes: Palitana, where several hundred temples cover the ridges of Shatrunjaya hill, and Girnar, a mountain associated with the twenty-second Tirthankara. Jain merchant families in the region funded temple building, manuscript libraries and the copying of the canon on a scale that preserved a great deal of the literature.

It is also where the Zoroastrians who left Iran after the Arab conquest settled and became the Parsi community, according to their own traditional account landing at Sanjan and receiving permission to stay on conditions. The sacred fire that community maintains at Udvada is held to have been kept burning continuously since it was consecrated, and Parsi religious life in India developed its own institutions while remaining in contact with the Zoroastrians who stayed in Iran.

Krishna devotion centres on Dwarka on the western tip, described in the Mahabharata as his city. The Pushtimarg tradition founded by Vallabhacharya, with its distinctive service of the image as an honoured guest, has been strongest among Gujarati merchant families, and travelled with them to East Africa, Britain and North America.

Bhakti in Gujarati, and a Diaspora That Carried It

Gujarat's devotional literature is in Gujarati rather than in Sanskrit, and that choice is the point. Narasinha Mehta, working in the fifteenth century, composed songs to Krishna that entered ordinary household singing rather than temple liturgy, and the stories told about him turn on his rejection of caste restriction: the best known has him singing in the quarter of an untouchable community and being expelled by his own. One of his hymns, on what makes a person genuinely good, was among Gandhi's favourites and is sung at public occasions in India to this day.

Neelima Shukla-Bhatt's study of that material makes a point that applies well beyond Gujarat. The songs and the stories about the singer travel together and shape one another, so the figure of the poet saint is not a biography that later acquired legends but a single tradition in which the life and the verses do the same work.

The other Gujarati religious fact of global consequence is emigration. Gujarati merchant, artisan and farming communities settled in East Africa, and after the expulsions of the 1970s many moved on to Britain, North America and elsewhere. They carried Jain, Swaminarayan and Pushtimarg institutions with them, and the very large temple complexes built by the Swaminarayan movement in London, Chicago and Abu Dhabi are the visible result. Gujarati religion is therefore documented as fully in the diaspora as it is at home.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Associated With

This source names Gujarat directly: "Hiravijaya had traveled on foot from Gujarat to Akbar's court at Fatehpur Sikri in 1582 at the emperor's invitation, joining Muslim, Hindu, Zoroastrian, Christian and Jewish representatives Akbar..."

Source The JainsPaul Dundas

This source names Gujarat directly: "priest Dastur Meherji Rana of Navsari, Gujarat, to the Ibadat Khana, the hall of worship he had built at his capital, Fatehpur Sikri, where Hindu, Jain and Christian representatives already debated..."

This source names Gujarat directly: "Asaram appealed; the Gujarat High Court refused to suspend his sentence on 31 August 2024, and his appeal against the conviction itself remains pending before that court."

Bhil, Pantheons

This source names Gujarat directly: "deities of the Bhil peoples of Gujarat, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh in western India, among the largest Adivasi communities on the subcontinent."

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

This source names Gujarat directly: "At a council convened in Valabhi, in what is now Gujarat, India, the monk Devarddhi-gani Kshamashramana gathered the surviving Svetambara acharyas, most sources place the year at 453 CE, some at 466..."

This source names Gujarat directly: "of the Kalpasutra, produced in Gujarat, probably at Patan, around 1475 by an anonymous painter art historians call the Master of the Devasano Pado Kalpasutra after the manuscript itself."

Source Master of the Devasano Pado Kalpasutra (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)The Metropolitan Museum of Art, curatorial catalogue entries

This source names Gujarat directly: "of an enthroned Jina, from Akota, Gujarat, India, late 7th century (667-699 CE)."

This source names Gujarat directly: "a copper alloy sculpture from Akota, Gujarat, India, late 7th century (667-699 CE)."

This source names Gujarat directly: "State of Gujarat, which dismissed a protest petition against the Special Investigation Team's 2012 closure report clearing Narendra Modi and 63 others of a criminal conspiracy in the 2002 Gujarat..."

This source names Gujarat directly: "a twelfth century Jain monk-scholar of Gujarat whose learning made him advisor to the Chaulukya king Kumarapala, whom he is credited with persuading toward policies restricting animal slaughter..."

Source The JainsPaul Dundas
Jainism, Religions

Gujarat holds a large Jain population and the temple complexes of Palitana and Girnar.

This source names Gujarat directly: "from the mid-15th century onward, with Gujarat established as a primary center of this manuscript-illustration tradition, and notes that the text is read aloud each year during the Svetambara..."

This source names Gujarat directly: "on Narayan Sai's own arguments to the Gujarat High Court in his appeal against his 2019 rape conviction and life sentence."

This source names Gujarat directly: "report, published 2026, on the Gujarat High Court extending Asaram Bapu's temporary bail in the Gandhinagar conviction to 15 June 2026 on medical grounds, a division bench of Justices Ilesh Vora and..."

This source names Gujarat directly: "his appeal remains pending before the Gujarat High Court."

This source names Gujarat directly: "a Jain Kalpasutra manuscript, India, Gujarat, dated 1461 (Samvat 1519), in ink, opaque watercolor and gold on paper, showing Mahavira, the twenty-fourth Tirthankara, seated and preaching to an..."

This source names Gujarat directly: "a manuscript page from India, Gujarat, dated 1461 (Samvat 1519), in ink, opaque watercolor and gold on paper."

This source names Gujarat directly: "Parsi high priest from Navsari, Gujarat, documenting his 1578 visit to the Mughal emperor Akbar's court, contemporary Mughal chroniclers' record of Parsi priests attending the royal court that year..."

This source names Gujarat directly: "His appeal against the conviction remains pending before the Gujarat High Court; in August 2026 the Supreme Court of India declined to suspend his sentence and directed the High Court to decide the..."

This source names Gujarat directly: "Zoroastrian community at Navsari in Gujarat, to the priests of Yazd in Iran, opening the correspondence later called the Persian Rivayats, more than five centuries after Zoroastrians first migrated..."

The Parsi community formed in Gujarat from Zoroastrians who left Iran.

This source names Gujarat directly: "The official Gujarat state government commission of inquiry into the September 1969 Ahmedabad riots, chaired by Justice P."

This source names Gujarat directly: "founded in 1973 near Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India, by Asaram Bapu (born Ashumal Sirumalani, also known as Asha Ram), teaching a devotional blend of Vedanta and yoga emphasizing celibacy, meditation and..."

This source names Gujarat directly: "(BAPS) on 5 June 1907 in Bochasan, Gujarat, after the established Vadtal and Ahmedabad dioceses of the Swaminarayan Sampraday rejected his teaching that the guru Gunatitanand Swami, and the line of..."

This source names Gujarat directly: "Shree Somnath Trust's governance under Gujarat trust law, citing 2014-15 figures of roughly 31.06 crore rupees annual revenue and 18.35 crore rupees expenditure."

This source names Gujarat directly: "opens from the anti-Muslim violence in Gujarat in 2002, treating it as the book's central case study of religious violence directed by Hindu right organizations against a religious minority, and..."

This source names Gujarat directly: "this second conviction before the Gujarat High Court."

This source names Gujarat directly: "The Tribune's report on the Gujarat High Court, a division bench of Justices Ilesh Vora and Vimal Vyas, rejecting Asaram Bapu's plea to suspend his sentence and grant bail in the Gandhinagar rape..."

Originated Here

Born at Porbandar in Gujarat.

Related To

Gujarat lies on the northwestern coast of the Indian subcontinent.

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Sources
1. Encyclopaedia Britannica (online academic reference)
Encyclopaedia Britannica editors, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 2024View the Source
2. Encyclopedia of Religion
Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.), Macmillan Reference, 2005View the Source
3. The Oxford Dictionary of World Religions
John Bowker (ed.), Oxford University Press, 1997View the Source
The Zoroastrian Diaspora: Religion and Migration
John R. Hinnells, Oxford University Press, 2005View the Source
Narasinha Mehta of Gujarat: A Legacy of Bhakti in Songs and Stories
Neelima Shukla-Bhatt, Oxford University Press, 2015
The Jains
Paul Dundas, Routledge, 2002View the Source
The Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd edition
Oxford University Press, Oxford University Pressdemonym / adjectival formView the Source
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