The carvings date back to the 8th-9th centuries. According to legend, Lord Shiva was on his way to Kashi with one crore gods and goddesses. They stopped here for the night, but only Shiva woke up before dawn. He cursed the others to become stone images, resulting in 'one less than a crore' deities.
The Archaeological Survey of India lists the rock-cut reliefs of Unakoti among the monuments it maintains, and it first published an account of them in its Annual Report for 1921-22. India submitted the site to the UNESCO World Heritage tentative list on 13 December 2022 under cultural criteria (i) and (iv). The UNESCO submission places Unakoti about 8 kilometers from Kailashahar and 185 kilometers from Agartala, the state capital.
