If you ask a Jain which are the main centres of active Jain worship in Raj as than, he is likely to reply with the local names for three important ‘temple complexes’: Kesaria-ji in Udaipur District, Mahāvlr-ji in Sawai Madhopur District, and Nākoḍā-ji in Barmer District. We could add to this list Padampura, near Jaipur, which is, as it were, a temple complex in the making. But in terms of the general pattern of Jain religious organisation these are all highly unusual places. They are not situated where there is a concentration of Jain population, but rather in the rural hinterland. They are attended by people of all Jain sects; indeed they are open to scheduled castes and tribes, people who normally never pass the austere portals of Jain temples. Each of them has as its focus a celebrated mūrti, the image of a Tīrthankar, which is attributed with miraculous powers, foreign to the proper Jain understanding of the nature of the Tīrthankar. All of these temples are strongly linked by virtually identical myths to particular territories. And at each of these sites we find that there is an annual fair (mela) of enormous popularity and regional economic importance.

Non-Jains are attracted to the mela for religious as well as economic reasons: the opportunity to take darshan of the miraculous image, to make requests for miraculous boons, and participate in its ritual procession (Jatra) with which the fair culminates.