Jaina Art and Architecture Vol 03

SR No.: 011014
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: A Ghosh
Publisher: Bharatiya Gyanpith
Publication Year: 1975
Total Pages: 403
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 25 MB

Page 211

CANONS & SYMBOLISM
(PART IX
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home on the top is
oncs are the component parts of this type of temple, but a flag on the top is '. not allowed. Moreover, above all, the expenses incurrod must be met out of legitimate earnings. Likewise, a temple made of wood may also be allowed only if it is a miniature, such as a portable one, to be carried along a journey after which it may be preserved in the ratha-fald or in the temple, for further use.
COSMOGRAPHY AND ARCHITECTURE
Literary sources no doubt provide us with a lot of information regarding the canons and symbolism of architecture, but the cosmographical literature is much fuller of such information and various suggestions. A brief sketch of Jaina cosmography would, therefore, be helpful in this context.
Cosmogony has been altogether refuted in Jainism, whereas ,both cosmology and cosmography occupy a fairly large place in mythological scriptures. The cosmos, eternally existent by nature, is comprised of six types of dravyas or the substances categorized as fiva (living) and a-jiva (non-living). The faculty of knowing and perceiving and the sensations of pleasure and pain, which can inhere only in something and cannot be the function of pure non-entity, must be regarded as states of something which exists, and it is this something which may be called the jiva substance. The non-living continuum comprises dharma or the medium of motion, a-dharma! or the medium of rest, akāśa or the space, pudgala or the matter and energy and kālas or the time.
The cosmos, materially too mathematical and geometrical in the whole as well as in parts, is shaped like a man standing akimbo with the legs spread sidewards (fig. XLIV). The space inside the cosmos is called the lokākāśa and outside a-lokākasa wherein the cosmos is supported by three zones of air or the våta-valayas, the inner zone being humid (tanu), the middle dense (ghana)
Dharma and a-dharma have in Jaina cosmography been used in a technical sense entirely different from their ordinary meaning.
. For an analytical study of this substance, see G.L. Amar, 'Darsana aur vijñāna ke aloka men Pudgala Dravya', Muni Sri Hazarimala Smrti-grantha (Hindi), Beawar, 1965, p. 368-88.
3 The Svetāmbaras regard this substance as a modification of fiva and a-jiva, and not as an independent one.
*This and the following paragraphs are based on the Tattvartha-sürra with Rajavärttikälarhk dra (Sanskrit Hindi), Kasbi, 2 parts, 1953-54.
5 The universe is denoted by the word loka in Jainism where the words visva and brahmunda, though virtual synonyms of loka, are not much common.
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