Jain Shwetambar Tirth Antriksha Parshwanath

SR No.: 005202
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Antriksha Parshwanath Sansthan Shirpur
Publisher: Antriksha Parshwanath Sansthan
Publication Year: 1972
Total Pages: 154
Language: Gujarati
Classification: Book_Gujarati
File Size: 17 MB

Page 90

of these identical pretensions will emerge in the sequel.
The cases so put forward were litigated at great length and over many years, first in the court of the Additional District Judge of Akola, and on appeal before the learned Judicial Commissioner of the Central Provinces. At the trial, many witnesses were called on both sides and many exhibits produced; 600 of these were put in on the plantiffs' side alone. In the result, on the cases so made, the findings of both courts are concurrent and are expressed in judgements of great eleboration and meticulous care. Broadly, the findings are in favour of the Swetambaris. These had all along been in actual management of the temple and idol: their title and right of management had been exclusive. and they had been worshipping the image with jewels, ornaments and paintings, the male organ of the deity being covered with the waist-tie and band for a period, which could not be definitely ascertained but at any rate from 1847-48. The Digambaris had also been allowed to worship in their own way in the temple; but the witnesses of the Digambaris on the point of the ownership of the temple and its management were not believed.
Rek.
As the result, however, of the evidence taken, the period of association, gaurdedly dealt with by both disputants, assumed a significance more decisive than either of them had been prepared to acknowledge. It was disclosed that at the commencement of the present century, the management of the temple, although nominally in the hands of the Swetambaris, had been in fact usurped by the servents of the temple known as Polkars, who for many yeary had exercised independent control and had become "perfect masters of the situation" as the learned Trial Tudge expressed it. They set their employers at defiance and to, consolidate their own position, tired to play off the Digambaris against the Swetambaris They also inaltreated and plundered the pilgrims. The two sects united to face a common enemy, and in order to deprive the Polkars of the powers they has usurped, the Digambaris, at the instance of the Swetambaris, agreed to co-operate, with the result that in May 1901, a joint committee of equal numbers of
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