Jain Shwetambar Tirth Shree Antariksh Parshwanath

Author(s): Jambuvijay
Publisher: Sumtilal Ratanchand Patni

Page 69

[48]
શ્રી અંતરિક્ષ tambaris. For all this the plaintiffs claimed Rs. 15,003 as damages. But the scope of the suit was not limited to that claim.--. It became the medium for vindicating Swetambari pretensions ranging for beyond its immediate occasion. By their plaint the plaintiffs asserted that the property in and right of management of the entire temple was and always had been exclusively in the Swetambaris. On that footing they claimed substantive relief against the defendants as representing the 'Digambaris. And the defendants were not slow to take up the challenge so thrown down, for althougb from time to time objecting to the regularity of the suit during its progress in India, they joined, without regret apparently in this prolonged conflict, which, after nearly 23 years of litigation in India, has at length been brought before His Majesty in Council for final adjudication.
The Swetambari case as put forward by them can be shortly stated. Both the Temple of Shri Antariksha Parasnath at Sirpur and that idol therein belong to their sect of the Jain community. It had been the uninterrupted privilage of the sect from time immemorial to worship the idol with the part showing the male organ covered up by a waist-tie and band and jewels and pastings on the body. The Swetambaris alone had uninterrupedly managed the