________________
From Form to the Formless Let our eyes loiter through these pages lavishly adorned with charming forms, figures and photographs. At times, quite a few charming forms will flabbergast us. And we shall stand dumbfounded. In this moment of silence, the beauty of the form will lead us towards the formless. This would also be a moment of deep egagement with the self and a moment of supreme bliss. You can have a feel of it, but cannot frame it in words.
These forms and figures printed on paper look so charming - But what must be their charm where they really are in the temple complexes at some serene and secluded places as the integral parts of the temples themselves ? When you happen to look at these domes, recesses, pillars, celestial damsels and wooden beams adorned with exquisite carvings, words simply recede back and you enter into the domain of direct and unmediated experience.
I have experienced this in the temples adorned with beautiful wooden sculptures at Patan. I could not just take my eyes off the domes and recesses. These sculptures can vie with the delicate ornamental sculptures we find in the royal havelis at Jesalmer. I could not but continue to look at them for hours together.
While walking around for hours in the havelis at Jesalmer clad under the thin film of age old dust, I have inlhaled the smell of the dust or the smell of that age as I kept on looking at those sculptures. Bholabhai Patel's travelogue Vidisha, I hope I remember the title right, made me go through that experience once again. And so did the books of the renown photographer Raghu Rai, while I was leafing through their pages containing the photographs of these havelis.
A centuries-old Jain temple is seated with a lot of experiences burried deep inside it....... the thrills and agitations that revive the experiences.......
Once I went to a village that has a small but beautiful temple in a cave. I sat at the exquisite idol of the Lord. Divine waves so engulfed me that my devotion as if began to flow freely in a cascade. My devotion as it was riding on the helm of the waves and it began to stride forward effortlessly.
In the afternoon, the leaders of the Sangh came to me with a proposal to rebuild the temple and sought my opinion about it.
Jain Kashthapat Chitra : 5
Jain Education Intemational
For Private & Personal use only
www.jainelibrary.org
