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CHAPTER 11 EAST INDIA
MONUMENTS
EAST INDIA IS POOR IN SPECIMENS OF JAINA MONUMENTS AND SCULPTURE OF the period under consideration. It is likely that with the resurgence of Brahmanism and Buddhism Jainism suffered an eclipse in the region. There is definite evidence to show that during this period and a little later certain Jaina establishments changed hands. For instance, one of the Sonbhandár caves at Rajgir was requisitioned by the votaries of Vişnu; likewise, at a later date, in the eighth century, the Jaina monastery at Paharpur was converted into & Buddhist vihara by Dharmapala. Such transitions might have effected the quantitative remains of Jaina art also in the land which had been the cradle of the faith.
The Jaina literary tradition of the period contains fantastic details pertaining to different types of structures and motifs of art and encompasses religious as well as civil architecture in enumerating vimdnas, toranas, pillars, arches, palaces, parks, audience-halls, stadia, galleries, etc. The surviving examples of the Jaina monuments have apparently little to match those descriptions either in the profusencss of form or in varicdness of content. A few monuments of the period existing at Rajgir mainly form the basis of our study. These consist of a ruined temple on the Vaibhåragiri and the twin Sonbhandar Caves cut on the southern scarp of the same hill (both described below, pp. 118 and 120) ascribed to this period.
* Cf. M.H. Kuraishi and A. Ghosh, Raigh, fourth ed., Delhi, 1956, p. 24. * K.N. Dikshit in Spigraphia Indica, XX, 1929-30, p. 60.
• Jaina image of the period might have been recut and shaped to represeat deities of other cults. One such example is available at Dharpal (Bankura), where a Parsvanatha image was converted into that of Vippu. Cf. AK. Bandopadhyaya, Bankurdr Mandir, quoted by D.K. Chakravarti la Rabu Chhotakal Jain Smrk Grantha, Calcutta, 1967, p. 49. Chakravarti also points to the evolution of Saiva cults is Bengal from Jainism, ibid., p. 49.
*S.C. Mukherji. "Cultural heritage of Bengal rodation to Jainism, Babu Chhotelal Jain Sar# Grantha pp. 145; B. Saraswati, Jaimien in Bengal, totd., pp. 141; K.S. Rebarn, 'A stote on Jainism in Orion', tbid., pp. 165.
