Jain Journal 1989 07

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

Page 27

24
Virawah, confiscated the diamond-studded idol and took it to Virawah to exhibit it to rich Wanias against heavy payments. Fairs were held at Virawah and Palanpur whenever assurance of sufficiently large payments could induce the Sodhas to remove the statue from its hiding place whose secret was zealously guarded and passed down the line from father to
son.
JAIN JOURNAL
In about 1830, the Talpur rulers of Sind made an incursion to Virawah, fired ostensibly by the iconoclastic fervour of Islam but overtly for the acquisition of the statue. Punjajee, the ruling Sodah, was captured and eventually done to death presumably for not revealing the secret of the hiding place. His death lent an immortal latency to the statue and to this day, it is said, the diamond studded image of Parasnath lies entombed somewhere in the wastelands around Virawah. But the faithful-mostly Hindus-still occasionally resort to Gori to pay homage to the Jain god and light incense and oil lamps in the empty niche for his appeasement.
There is only one daily visitor, the old keeper, who unfailingly lights the oil lamps, but he is convinced that Parasnath was a Hindu swami and not a Jain god.
from The Telegraph, June 4, 1989