Jain Temples of Rajasthan

Author(s): Sehdav Kumar
Publisher: Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Art Abhinav Publications

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total of Indian knowledge it forms part of Revelation, the Veda, to which it belongs as applied knowledge.?
In the creation of a temple, with so many people working together with their hands, skills and imagination, in traditional Indian society, the public had special obligation towards an artist and a craftsman. It is laid down in Manu's code that the hand of a craftsman engaged in his work is always ritually pure.' The Arthasastra decrees capital punishment for any person who causes a craftsman the loss of a hand or an eye.
For the kalās to flourish, there is a continual need for the connoisseur, the rasik, of the arts, for delight is not mere pleasure; It is not self-indulgence; it requires discipline. The keener the perception the greater the delight. In various carvings in the Jain temples, like other temples in India, there is a profuse cele-bration of the performing artists: dancers, musicians, lovers Whatever other ambience the temples may have, there is always an aura of celebration of life, with all its mythopoeic reference. The devotee is thus expected to be a rasik of the spiritual and the aesthetic life alike, for in the rangamandapa, 'the hall of celebrations', all these kalās came together to invoke the greatest kalākār - the artist-architect of the universe himself.
1969
Possibly chief architect Deepa paying homage to de ity in the Adikvara temple, Ranakpur.