Location and history:

• The temple is located in the western part of Lakkundi, now a small town. Lakkundi is about 12 kilometers southeast of Gadag-Betageri twin city, between Hampi and Goa. It can be reached by India's National Highway 67.
• Prior to the 14th-century, Lakkundi was a large, major historic city referred in pre-14th century texts and inscriptions as Lokkigundi – serving as a capital of the Hoysala dynasty. The city was destroyed in the Sultanate raids and wars that began in the 13th-century but rose from the ruins during the Vijayanagara Empire. The end of Vijayanagara Empire brought further social and political chaos to this region. Lakkundi was reduced to a galaxy of abandoned and mutilated ruins, spread over a cluster of small rural villages with a combined population of few thousand residents in the 19th-century.
• This ruined temple was among the dozens in this Lakkundi area that were rediscovered in the 19th-century by British archaeologists and scholars such as Henry Cousens who remarked, this temple as "deserted, in disuse, interior in filthy condition and deep in bat's dung". Broken parts of the temple, defaced and beheaded statues of this and other Lakkundi area Jain and Hindu temples lay here and all over the village area. The temple was thereafter cleaned up and partially put back together.

Features:

• Brahma Jinalaya is the oldest major Jain temple in this village and region. The nearby Naganatha temple in Lakkundi is another original Jain temple that was dedicated to serpent deity and mythologies of Jainism (long abandoned, but now a Hindu temple). These Jain temples belonged to the South Indian Digambara Jain subtradition. It was likely a part of a medieval era Jain Basadi (a Jaina settlement, Digambara).
• The Brahma Jinalaya temple consists of a ranga mandapa (open gathering hall), mukha mandapa (closed large internal mandapa), an antarala and a square-plan garbhagriha (sanctum). The ranga mandapa has twenty-eight polished pillars.
• The temple spire (shikhara or sikhara) has three talas (stories), with first tala taller than the other two. The architectural elements are same as those found in Hindu texts on temple architecture. The outer walls are plain.
• The door connecting the open mandapa to the closed mandapa has Gajalakshmi, a Hindu motif, on its lalita-bimba. The interior of the temple is largely plain, with Jaina deities and apsaras in niches. Two original large statues are inside the closed mandapa. One is of finely carved Brahma and facing him is a damaged Saraswati (rediscovered in toppled state by Henry Cousens). The items they hold in their hand correspond to the Hindu iconography for Brahma-Saraswati pair.
• The closed mandapa leads to the sanctum, on whose lalita-bimba is a seated Mahavira. Inside is a large statue also of standing Mahavira on a pedestal with lion icon. The temple is active and the sanctum services are offered by a Jain priest.
• The temple architecture is Chalukyan.
• It has two important inscriptions. One is from early 11th-century which helps date this temple's construction. Another is found on the north side pilaster near doorway of closed mandapa, and this is from 1172 CE with a seated Jina, moon, sun and a bent sword.
• Near the main temple is a smaller temple, whose mandapa was destroyed sometime after the 13th or later century. The foundation of the mandapa can still be seen. A beheaded Mahavira statue is on display outside.
• Elsewhere in the temple compound are broken parts of the damaged temple and a portion of a mandapa pillars and gateway on display. The broken parts of the temple show both Jain and Hindu images, such as those of Padmavati, Vishnu and others. Near this temple is the Lakkundi Heritage Center and Museum.