________________
19
Delvādā] five shrines and a special Repairs Committee is appointed with a budget of Rs. 22 lacs. The Pedhi deserves compliments for this new enterprise which is already started last year.
Residential quarters of the natives of Delvāļā Village are situated all around the shrines and adjacent to them ; these as well as the Dharmashālās and Hotels have rendered the whole locality very crowded and dirty. It is therefore intended to remove the village hutments, the buildings of the Karkhānā, the Dharmashalas etc. and rebuild them at some distance away from this area. This area might be converted into a decent garden with a compound or left open and clean which would give a more beautiful appearance of the shrines even from a distance.
The Digambara shrine already referred to is at the beginning of the road to Achalagadh from Delvāļā. There is besides a Digambara Jaina Dharmashālā and a Digambara Jaina Kārkhānā as well. There is a new water-shed (Parab in Gujarāti) built by a Sheth Trikambhāi Sutariā of Ahmedabad.
Just opposite to this Digambara Dharmashālā are quarters for Government Officers such as the Police Inspector, other chokidars and an office where formerly the Pilgrims-tax was collected.
There is an inscription dated in V. S. 1494,1 preserved in the Digambara shrine which says that there were three Shvetāmbara shrines already existing at Delvādā,—the shrines of Shrī Ādinātha (i.e. Vimala Vasahī), of Neminātha (i.e. Lūņavasahī) and the Pittalahara shrine (built by Bhīmāshāha, with the brass idol)-when Samghavī Govinda led here a Jaina Samgha ( group of Jaina laymen and women, monks and others on a pilgrimage ) in company
1 Ābu, Vol. II, inscription no. 462.
