Structural Temples of Gujarat

SR No.: 006728
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Kantilal F Sompura
Publisher: Gujarat University Ahmedabad
Publication Year: 1968
Total Pages: 868
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 31 MB

Page 108

The Development of the Regional Phases of the Temple
practice of the Jains themselves of pulling down their temples when decayed and erecting new ones in their places, many of the walls bearing evidences of this, as they reveal stones of earlier structures having been built into them. As, they exist at present, these religious sites are surrounded by embattled walls, with their interiors divided up into tuks or wards, like the inner courts of fortified cities, each tuk having massive circular bastions at its angles, entry being obtained through storng gateways."
These temple-cities, are laid out on no specific plan, the buildings being arranged on such level spaces as the contours of the hill naturally provide. They contain several hundreds of edifices. Although many of the temples may seem complicated in appearance, each is designed as a rule, on the principles common to the relegious architecture of the late medieval period, the elaborations being due to such factors as the addition of numerous supplementary shrines, to the application of double stories, and to the practice of imposing pillared cloisters around larger examples. In the jain temples one variation in the general scheme of the temple is noticeable and that is the frequent production of a class of temple known as Chaumukha or four faced. The chaumukha is a quadruple image, or a group of four images either of one Tirthankara, or of four different Tirthankaras placed back to back so as to face the four cardinal points. Such a plan necessiated a shrine chamber with four door ways which effected both the design of the sanctuaries and the shape of the vimana as a whole 10
Two of the most important temple cities are on mountains in Saurastra, one being on Satrunjaya11 and the other on Girnar. 12 The largest of all is that of Satrunjaya, south of town of Palitana. Out of large number of shrines of various shapes
9. IABH. p. p. 162.
10. IABH p. p. 162.
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11. IABH p. plt. CIV. A
12. IABH. plts. CIII Fig. 1 CIV. Fig. 2.