The Colossus of Lord Gommateshwara stands on Vindhyagiri. The steps lead through two decorative stone-arches and past the first small shrine and the arch as one ascends, they have a panoramic view of the village below with its fine temples, sacred lake and graceful palm.

Shravanabelagola occupies the top place among the holiest shrines of Jains. The 58.8 foot image on Shravanabelagola’s Vindhayagiri hill is the tallest monolithic statue in the world. King Vrishabhadeva, was ruling in Ayodhya. He had two wives, Marudevi and Sunanda. Marudevi bore 99 sons and a daughter. Bharatha was the eldest among them. Sunanda had only one son and a daughter. His name was Baubali, he was also known as Manmatha because of his exceedingly good looks. No one was considered more handsome than him.

Observing his growing son Bahubali in Sunandadevi’s lap, King Vrishabhadeva is greatly elated.While dancing in Vrishabhadeva’s court, the celestial dancer Neelanjana suddenly disappears, as her time on earth comes to an end. Devendra, through his maya, sees to it that the dance continues. But having realised the truth about the uncertainity of mortal life, Vrishabhadeva develops aversion towards all material things.

Bharata sends a messenger to the courts of all his brothers telling them to accept him as an emperor. Bharata’s brothers were disgusted, they decided to give their kingdom and follow in father’s footsteps. All 98 of them performed keshalochana and joined their father in tapas. But Bahubali becomes very angry and sends back the ambassador challenging his brother to face him in the battle field.The two powerful armies of Bharatha and Bahubali come face to face on the battle field. Before the battle starts, the elders on either side advice the brothers to opt for one to one combat in three

In the first round called ‘Drishti yuddha’ (combat of staring at each other), Bharata loses.In the second round called ‘Jala yuddha’ (splashing water on each other while standing in chest deep water), Bharata is the loser again.In the final round, wrestling too, Bharatha is no match to Bahubali. Invincible Bahubali lifts his elder brother Bharatha over his head effortlessly and proceeds to smash him to the ground. But, at that moment, a great revelation occurs to him about the futility of material life and he lowers his brother gently to the ground.

Having lost all three rounds of the combat, Bharata feels humiliated and attacks Bahubali with Chakra. But, the Chakra circumambulates Bahubali three times and stops beside him instead of harming him.Bahubali renounces all material things in life and goes to the forest to do ‘Tapasya’. But, he does not get ‘Kevalagyana’ because he thinks that the ground on which he is doing tapasya belongs to his brother Bharata.Realising his brother’s feelings, Bharata places his crown, sword and royal insignia along with precious gems and jewels at Bahubali’s feet and bows to him and says when the whole universe belongs to Bahubali, he need not feel that he is doing penance on the land that belongs to his brother.

Bahubali gets Kevalagyana after severe penance.  Emperor Bharata caused to create a beautiful statue of Bahubali and started performing poojas. This epic story is narrated by Acharya Sri Jinasena in his Mahapurana. Mahapurana being composed by Bhagawat Jinsenacharya.After listening to the story of Bharata and Bahubali from Sri Nemichandra Acharya, Kalala Devi (mother of Chavundaraya,prime- minister and defence minister in the court of Talakadu Gangas) felt deep desire to see such an idol. She decides to abstain from consuming  any ‘rasa vastu’ till she sees the massive statue of Bahubali erected by Bharata.

Unable to figure out a way to fulfil his mother’s desire, Chavundaraya, sought the guidance of Guru Sri Nemichandra Siddhantaveda, who was staying at kalvappu teertha(Shravanabelagola).The sage described the difficulties of reaching Paudanapura and to have darshan in this Kaliyuga.Chavundaraya with his mother stayed on that night at smaller hill(Chikka betta-kalvappu/katavapra). On that night Yakshi Kushmandini devi appears in Chavundaraya’s dream and tell him to shoot an arrow from Chikkabetta to Doddabetta, so that an idol of Bahubali will rise there.

In the presence of Acharya Sri Nemichandra Siddhanta Chakravarti and Kalaladevi, Chavundaraya shoots an arrow in the direction of Vindhyagiri from  Chandragiri. The arrow hits the gigantic rock on the top of Vindhyagiri and three of them see a vision of Bahubali.The great sculptor, Arishtanemi, carved the gigantic monolithic statue of Bahubali at the top of Vindhyagiri.