Jain Shwetambar Tirth Antriksha Parshwanath

Author(s): Antriksha Parshwanath Sansthan Shirpur
Publisher: Antriksha Parshwanath Sansthan

Page 86

પ્રિવી કાઉન્સીલના ચૂકાદાની મૂળ કાપી
Privy Council Appeal No. 69 of 1927 Honasa Ramasa Lad Dhakad and others... Appellants.
Vs Kalyanchand Lalchand Patni Gujrathi and others... Respondents From :
The Court of the Judicial Commissioner of the Central Provinces.
Judgement of the Lords of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council delivered on the 9th July, 1929.
Present at the Hearing, Lord Blanesburgh, Lord Tomlin. Sir Lancelot Sanderson. (Delivered by Lord Blanesburgh.)
At Shirpur, in the District of Akola, there has stood for five hundred years end it may be for much longer, the Jain Temple of Antriksha Parshwanath. The Jains are roughly ranged into two main divisions Digambaris, represented in this suit by the appellants, and the Swetambaris, represented by the respondents. One of the essential religious differences between the two is that Digambari idols are worshipped in a state of complete nudity, while the idols of the Swetambaris are revered draped and decorated with jewellery and ornaments. This deep-seated doctrinal or liturgical difference between influential sections of the Jain community lies at the root of the dispute which has ripened into this portentious litigation.
In the temple at Shirpur there is an ancient idol, "Shri Antariksha Parasnath Maharaj," believed by the Swetambaris to be self-existent. The deity is held in deep veneration by them, also by the Digambaris It has apparently been a subject of controversy time out of mind whether it is a Swetambari or a Digambari idol, and whether as originally existent it was covered at the waist by a tie or band carved out of the stone or sand of which it is composed as the Swetambaris assert or whether it, being apparently agreed that the private parts are not visible to the worshipper, this resulted not from any tie or band or the physical covering but from the acual posture of the idol itself as is the contention of the Digambaris The Swetambaris had
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