Encyclopaedia of Jaina Studies Vol 01 Jaina Art and Architecture

Author(s): Sagarmal Jain, Others
Publisher: Parshwanath Vidyapith

Page 115

Jaina Temple Architecture : North India
93
inner jamb is plain. The middle jamb is in the form of stambhaśäkha carved with stencilled scrolls and flanked on each side by a band of bakula flowers. The outer jamb is treated as padma incised with lotus petals. On the lower part of jambs is a beautiful three-flexured standing figure of river-goddess Gangā on proper right and Yamunā on proper left, each accompanied on the outer side by a dvārapāla holding club and serpent. The doorsill depicts a full-blown half-lotus in the centre and a figure of dwarf on either end. The door-lintel continues the decorative bands of the sakhās, but they are interrupted by three niched figures of seated Jinas, one in the middle and one on each side. The overdoor is ornate as it carries three decorative bands of scroll, saw- tooth pattern, and carved diamonds alternating with beads.
The temple of Patian Dai once had an elaborately carved image of the Jaina goddess Ambikā which is now housed in the Allahabad Museum. The goddess having all of her four arms broken off stands on a pañcaratha carved pedestal. She wears rich jewellry and a karanda-mukuta and has a halo of stellate lotus flower. Above her head was carved the foliages of a mango tree which are now gone. She has two youths as attendant figures. Below the feet of the attendants are two devotees flanked by four standing goddesses, two having been labelled as Prajñapti and Vajraśțnkhalā. Below these goddesses are tiny figures of Astagrahas. The accompanying pilasters and the lintel depict other Jaina goddesses, all labelled. The top of the stele represents a seated figure of Neminātha in the centre and a seated and a standing Jina on each side. The sculpture has been assigned to the 11th century A.D. (Pramod Chandra, Stone Sculptures in the Allahabad Museum, Poona, 1971, p. 162, No. 470).
The temple is datable to c. A.D. 900. GYARASPUR
Gyaraspur is situated twenty-four miles north-east of the district town of Vidisha in Madhya Pradesh. It is a picturesque site with a Jaina temple standing on
the slope of a hill and going by the name of Mälädevi. The temple-site seems to have some association with a Jaina saint who possibly lived there and performed penances, and it was on account of this that a Jaina temple was erected there to make it a sanctified place. The temple is partly rock-cut and partly structural and stands on a large terrace cut out of the hill side. In fact, it has been carefully nestled against a natural crevice and its north-western rock-cut portions adjusted to the structural parts. This east-facing temple is built of sandstone and is in a dilapidated condition.
The temple (Fig. 58; Pls. 22-23) is a sāndhara rectangular structure consisting of sanctum with an inner ambulatory, antaräla and a mandapa, the whole enclosed by a common solid wall with an entrance porch on the shorter east side. Internally, the solid running wall is straight and uncarved. Externally, its sides have been indented into large projections alternating with smaller ones, separated by narrow recesses. There are thus three large and three small projections on the south face, two small ones on the east, and only a small projection on the west and two big and two small projections on the north due to the presence of natural ledge; each projection is broken into five planes. The larger projections have each a balconied window on the jangha-wall and a niche on the basement, while each of the smaller projections carries two niches, one on the wall and the other on the basement at the same level as that below the balcony. But the niches in the north-west corner of the sanctum were never built as the wall is here consisted of the rocky ledge of the hill. The balconied windows are fitted with stone grilles that admit only faint light into the interior.
The exterior wall of the sanctum is dvi-anga consisting of bhadra and karņa, each broken into five planes. The basement above the terrace consists of khura, tall kumbha, kalasa and kapota. The kalasa is replaced by tulāpītha (a string of rafter ends) on the bhadras, decorated with floriated vyālas and kirttimukhas. The kapota shows adornments of caitya-gavākṣas on the
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