Jain Journal 1989 07

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

Page 25

JAIN JOURNAL
performed their genuflexions privately. Another narrow marble jambed door leads to a darkened room that was once the hallowed sanctrum of Gorecha, the lord of the temple of Gori. As I stepped in the stench of guano hit me in the face and the supercilious perpetrators of this sacrilege began to flap about in the beam of my torch, squeaking in protest. The niche where the icon of Gorecha once stood was empty as it has been for almost 300 years now. A couple of oil lamps burned against the sooty wall gives the empty niche a dim, eerie glow. In the quietness of the gloaming light I heard the sound of bells and the chanting of Jain mantras that took place centuries ago.
Captain Raikes, Magistrate of the Thur and Parkur in the 1850, wrote in his memoir on the district that an image of the Jain god Parasnath was purchased by Mejah Sha, a rich Wania, from a Turk in 1376 to be installed at Gori Temple and named Gorecha after it. This image, it is said, was studded with a large diamond between its eyebrows and two smaller ones on the breast. The value of these stones was supposed to be incalculable.
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