The plural Deccan — Sikh takhts on the Godavari, colonial-era cathedrals at Bolarum and Medak, Parsi fire-temples at Secunderabad, ancient Jain shrines at Kulpak.
Home›Sacred Sites of the Deccan›Other Sacred Sites of the Deccan
Beside its masjids, dargahs and temples, the Deccan plateau has long held smaller but no less important communities of Sikhs, Christians, Parsis, Jains and (more recently) Bahá'ís. From the gurdwara at Nanded, where the tenth Sikh Guru lived his final years, to the basalt cathedral at Medak — one of the largest in Asia — this page records the principal sacred sites of these other faiths.
On the bank of the Godavari at Nanded, the gurdwara of Takht Sachkhand stands where Guru Gobind Singh — the tenth Sikh Guru — spent his final days and named the Guru Granth Sahib as his eternal successor in 1708. The white marble shrine, built and re-endowed by Maharaja Ranjit Singh and the Nizams, is one of only five Takhts of Sikhism and the only one outside Punjab and Bihar.
Built by the Wesleyan missionary Charles Walker Posnett of Manchester through the great Telangana famine of 1914 — partly as a famine-relief work, paid out at a chittack of rice per stone laid. Its 175-foot Gothic spire, mosaic floor and English stained glass make it the largest cathedral in India after the Mar Thoma cathedral at Calcutta.
The seat of the Archdiocese of Hyderabad, St. Joseph's Cathedral at Gunfoundry was completed in 1875 in Italian neo-Gothic — its twin spires a fixed point on the Abids skyline. Its bells, brought from Italy, rang for the consecration in 1892.
The garrison church of the British Cantonment of Secunderabad, consecrated in 1847. Holy Trinity's regimental colours, memorial brasses and stained glass record the long British military presence in the Deccan. The church is built in plain Gothic to a design typical of Anglican mission stations.
Built for the British troops of Trimulgherry cantonment by Captain T. F. Hill of the Madras Sappers and consecrated in 1860, All Saints is a tall basalt Gothic structure with a fine pipe organ and one of the oldest pulpits in southern India still in continuous Anglican use.
Built for the residents and merchants of British Hyderabad, the small but elegant St. George's at Abids has stood since 1867 — its narrow apse, stained glass and memorial plaques preserving the parish life of the 19th-century European community.
Secunderabad has held a small but continuous Parsi community since the early days of the Hyderabad subsidiary force. The Parsi Anjuman maintains an Atash Behram (fire-temple), a dharamshala and a dakhma at Secunderabad — the principal Zoroastrian sites of the Deccan plateau.
At Kulpak (Kolanupaka) in Telangana, the Shri Adishwara temple — one of the great Shvetambar Jain pirths — holds a 5-foot jade idol of Rishabhanatha said to have been worshipped by the Pandavas. The shrine is mentioned in inscriptions from at least the 7th century and was extensively rebuilt in Rajasthani marble in the 1980s.
The Mahaveer Jain temple on S. P. Road in Secunderabad is the principal Digambar Jain shrine of the city — its white marble shikhara visible above the bazaars of the cantonment, its 1928 consecration commemorated each year on Mahaveer Jayanti.
Hyderabad has been a centre of Bahá'í life in India since the early 20th century. The Bahá'í Centre at Banjara Hills, opened in 1968, serves the Hyderabad community and the wider Telangana–Andhra region, with regular study circles, devotional gatherings and feasts.
Hyderabad had a small but settled Bene Israel community through the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with a synagogue (Magen David) at Banjara Hills used until the 1960s. Most of the community has since emigrated to Mumbai and Israel; their few graves at the city's Jewish cemetery still mark the community's presence.
Around the Burhanuddin dargah at Khuldabad — the so-called "Valley of the Saints" — lie the tombs of Aurangzeb, his son Azam Shah, the Bahmani vizier Malik Ambar, and a half-dozen other Sufi saints. The walled enclosure is a kind of inter-faith necropolis, the most condensed sacred landscape in the Mughal Deccan.
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