Jain Journal 1977 10

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 18

52
meaning was also evidently conveyed by citya or citi the original word as it appears being the Vedic cayana. After studying the brilliant works of V. R. Ramachandra Dikshitar and Pandit Hamsaraja Shastri it will be felt that, though caitya originally signified a fire-altar or agnicitya gradually acquired a greater meaning. Thus, it also referred to sacred trees (caitya-druma) memorial structures, relics, shrines or edifices containing the bimba of Yaksas or Devatas, sacred symbols or objects and stūpas. The wider meaning of the word caitya is often revealed in literature. While discussing about festivals in honour of ceiyas as mentioned in the Acaränga sutra U. P. Shah recalls, that at another place of the same text "we find the use of the word where ceiya is used in the sense of a structure or edifice (a piled-up thing) erected and offered for residence to the Jaina monks." (Ibid, p. 49). In the context of the Vedic tradition and the elucidation of cults in various texts, Brahmanical, Jaina and Buddhist it will be evident that the stupas of distinctive ideology and design achieved an immense popularity in ancient India and beyond and, thereby, at times found a grand expression in architecture. The stupa represented by a hemispherical body, or an elongated dome or a cluster of stupis arranged on terraces transmute through a symbolic dimension the doctrine for the liberation of soul symbolising as it were the nirvana of the Buddha or the Jina. The main components of a Buddhist stupa are the vedika (railing), the medhi (terrace), the sopāna (stairs) the anda (literally 'egg' i.e. the spherical part), the harmikā (balustrade) the chatra (umbrella), the yaşți (pole or mast) and vase (varṣasthala). The two famous Jaina Āyāgapaṭas from Mathura, the one dedicated by Sivayasa and another by Vasu, daughter of Lonasobhika visualise comparable stūpas in accordance to the sculptural idiom of 1st-2nd century A.D. The ideal of the stupa with its processional paths found a different expression in the plans and designs of the samavasaraṇa and what may be described as the jaruka or eḍuka. On the basis of arguments produced by V. S. Agrawal and U.P. Shah there remains little doubt that the latter were counterparts of the Sumerian Ziggurats some of which still stood during the ascendancy of Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar and Nabonidus. Actually, the jaruka was a terraced structure like the Ziggurat of Ur-Nammu. It is held that, the legend of mount Aṣṭāpada has the "underlying conception of the first Jaina shrine being an eight terraced mountain, an eight-terraced Ziggurat, or an eight-terraced stūpa". (U. P. Shah, Ibid, p. 128). According to the legend, Bharata carved eight terraces on the Kailasa also known as Haradri and Sphatikadri from foot to the crest to commemorate the attainment of nirvāṇa on this mount by his father Rsabhanatha, the first Tirthankara. On various grounds it is evident that, there is an underlying resemblance between the Ziggurat, the stupa and samavasarana in their inspiring glory
JAIN JOURNAL