Jain Spirit 1999 10 No 02

Author(s): Jain Spirit UK
Publisher: UK Young Jains

Page 45

WORSHIP
understanding of the role of the temple for each community. Honolulu is not the same as Houston. Innovate! Temples must not be built as ego trips for the rich and famous, nor as comfortable country clubs for birds that get high on pluming and preening their own coloured feathers. We must transcend the tradition's historic error of being at ease in the temple and (like Buddhism) must reach out to the larger community. If people do not come to the temple, the temple must go out to the people. Each family then becomes an outpost of the temple, even within the forest of skyscrapers! I recall, it was Dr. Sulekh Jain who, at our first encounter, virtually conscripted me to deliver a speech at Morristown (near Detroit), where I called for the jain community to build temples not just of bricks but of brains, which then sparked Sulekhji and others to found JAFNA (Jain Academic Foundation of North America). That man's initial compassion for me accounts for all of my involvement in the Jain community, though I am not a Jain.
Detail - Mt. Abu
Second, temples are not simply structures of stone and mortar, but are living shrines of Jain values, with their dominant quality of compassion.
called Chaturmukha (lit. four-faced) Jain Temple of Rishabdeva, was given this shape by four devotees" (37). Though its space is wide, with forty-feet-high pillars, "there is perfect architectural balance and harmony in shape. Artistic engravings and sculptures give it a feeling of ecstasy and divine bliss" (37). Jain mythology declares humans must undergo 8,400,000 births before attaining salvation; "the figure of 84 shrines in the temple is a symbolic reminder of these 84 lakh births and deaths" (37).
Third, Jain temples unite nature with spirit, the sacred with the secular, and mutually hallow the affairs of heaven and earth.
The challenge to us today is to break new ground in respect of an
The bottom line is that building temples is significant to the extent that the builders have their eyes on the Lord and not on a cheering public. Nothing must come in the way of that beatific vision. The magnificent Ranakpur temple enshrines this truth, for though it is erected of 1,444 pillars, not a single pillar obstructs the view of the Lord from any nook or corner!
Detail - Mt. Abu
This bird's-eye view of some famous Jain temples through the lenses of Bhattacharya and Chawla provide useful information and insights in respect of the significance of temples in the Jain tradition, and their meaning for today.
The Crawford family has long roots in India, going back to 1761, with Henry Crawford serving as governor under Lord Hastings. He currently teaches at the University of Hawaii and publishes in the area of Indian medical ethics.
Opposite: Visitors at Delwara temple
First, though part of the Indian mainstream, Jain builders were not afraid to to be inventive and strike
out on their own. 44 Jain Spirit . October - December 1999
Photos: Nemu Chandaria, M.D. Sharma & Chandu Shah
Jain Education Interational 2010_03