Temples of Kumbhariya

SR No.: 001571
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: M A Dhaky, U S Moorty
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad
Publication Year: 2001
Total Pages: 394
Language: English
Classification: Book_English & Art
File Size: 34 MB

Page 109

Description of Temples
16 Vidyādevīs surrounding a central Jina figure with a figural belt around it. Four ceilings which follow this, show figures set in boxes (Plates 120-126) as in the corresponding ceilings in the Mahāvīra temple. The first ceiling in this eastern series probably depicts Jinas' parents set in panels (Plates 117, 118).
The eight devakulikās each at the east and west side, and four devakulikākhattakas each along the right and left wings of the northern side possess nothing specially interesting. The ceilings of the pattaśālā-cloister are of the lantern type with its deepest square (or rectangle as the case may be) showing a lotus set in a squarish frame decorated with a creeper carving (Plate 129). At the south end of the eastern wing of the pattaśālā, leaving a gap due to the eastern opening in the southern side of the kota-wall, stands a four-doored chapel containing an Astāpada (Fig. 8; Plates 127, 128) dated A.D. 1206 and is one of the very few surviving examples of the concrete representation of this mythical mountain.
While proceeding to leave the temple complex through its rather unremarkable north mukhacatuski opening, one notices a symbolic representation of a rotating Svastika (Plate 130) carved on the floor in the mukhālinda between the rangamandapa's nave and the northern cloister. Also may be mentioned, the sketch engraved on the floor-stone in the western aisle is elevation of the sikhara of the temple. (And somewhere around either in this or the Mahāvīra temple is a sketch of the right side of a parikara design.)
The Pārsvanātha Temple
The temple, with all its adjuncts, is supported by a taller jagati having an open mukhamandapa connected at the south with a nāla or entry-channel containing a stairway leading up through the jagati (Fig. 10), and a balānaka-hall constructed above the mukhamandapa (Fig. 9; Plate 4). Inside are the mūlaprāsāda connected with a gūdhamandapa, the trika, the rangamandapa, and the surround of 24 devakulikās with the pattaśālā-cloister which, in the complex's southern section, as in preceding two temples here, give way to the kota or wall enclosing the three sides (Fig. 9), leaving empty space between as in the case of the earlier two temples.
The mūlaprāsāda is some 16 ft. wide. It has a karnapītha with unadorned mouldings (Fig. 4c). The vedibandha as well as the janghā are also without the figural decoration. The sikhara is without the jāla-beehive and possesses 93 andakas and four tilakas (Plates 131, 132). It may be old (even if perhaps not contem