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ART AND ARCHITECTURE
167
The temple Architecture
Among the Jainas, icon or image worship had been found prevailing since the beginning of historic times, hence the practice of building temples and shrines dedicated to the worship of the Jinas or Arhats must have been started in very remote times. Apart from Jaina traditions to the effect, the original Pāli canon of the Buddhists has references to the existence of Arhat caityas (shrines) at Vaiśālī and elsewhere for instance, in the Parinibbana Suttanta the Buddha is said the have once remarked, "So long as the Vajjians honour and esteem and revere and support the Vajji caityas in town and country, and allow not the proper offerings and rites, as formerly given and performed, to fall in desuetude... so long may the Vajjis be expected not to decline, but to prosper."
Thus, the Vajjis, that is the Licchavis, among whom Mahāvīra was born, probably a few decades prior to the birth of the Buddha himself, and who had been the followers of the creed preached by the preceding Tirthankara, Parsva, had their own shrines and temples in which they worshipped the images or other symbolic representations of the Jina.
From the evidence of the existence of Jina images in Orissa and Magadha in the times of the Nandas and Mauryas, we may safely presume that there were Jaina temples in those regions in the fifth, fourth and third centuries B.C. A toraṇa inscription from Mathura, recording its dedication by the śravaka (lay hearer) Uttaradasaka, the son of Vatsi mother and disciple of the Saint Mahārakṣita, for the temple of Jina, has been assigned by Buhler to about the middle of the second century B.C., on the basis of its archaic characters and the pure Prakrit language used in it. It has been inferred from this discovery that a very magnificent Jaina temple must have been constructed near the Deva-stūpa at the Kankālī Țīlā site of Mathura some time before 150 B.C. A pilaster, with inscription it characters
| SR No. | 002009 |
| Book Title | Religion and Culture of the Jains |
| Original Sutra Author | N/A |
| Author | Jyoti Prasad Jain |
| Publisher | Bharatiya Gyanpith |
| Publication Year | 1999 |
| Total Pages | 258 |
| Language | English |
| Classification | Book_English, Religion, & Culture |
| File Size | 16 MB |