Unknown Pilgrims

SR No.: 007014
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: N Shanta
Publisher: Sri Satguru Publications Delhi
Publication Year: 1997
Total Pages: 820
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 19 MB

Page 227

The Followers of the Ever Growing One
207
b) Out of the exuberance of Khajuraho
In the depths of the countryside, among some thirty temples dedicated to Siya and Visnu, are to be found three important Jaina temples and about six others in varying degrees of preservation. The temples of Khajurāho, whose architecture and location combine to impart to them a harmonious overall effect and an extraordinary delicacy of detail, belong to the age of the kings of Candella's line who ruled for a period of about one hundred years, 950-1050 A.D.206 of the three major Jaina temples, one is dedicated to Pārsvanátha, a second to Adinātha and the third is called Ghantāi, from ghantā: a bell, on account of the motifs in the shape of chains of small bells carved all over its pillars.207 A fourth temple and certain sanctuaries are dedicated to Santinātha. 208
The temple of Părśvanātha, which is of great beauty, includes (from the base upwards) three panels, one above the other, of sculpture-work representing gods, goddesses, apsarās (nymphs), divine consorts and pairs of vidyādharas, fairy-like beings that possess magical powers.209 Thus, a temple dedicated to an arhat who both followed and taught the way of asceticism blends harmoniously in jis lay-out and in its wealth of sculptured figures with the temples dedicated to Siva and Vişnu. This exuberant vitality and expression of rapturous enjoyment of all kinds, which emanates from the whole group of Khajurāho temples, in no way detracts from the message of the ascetics. We know that the world of the gods is a world of pleasure, the nature of the pleasure depending on the category to which the gods belong. But this state of imperfect happiness
considerably later date. We must also note that: "In contradistinction to the 'ācaryā', a monk is never represented with a book. Nuns are distinguished from monks by the fact that they are dressed. Monks and nuns are always represented as miniature-figures." Bruhn, 1969, p. 24.
206 Cf. Agrawala, 1976, p. 26.
207Cf. Deva, 1975, p. 261.
208 Ibid. p. 257.
209 Ibid.; pp. 257-258.