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CHAPTER 29]
THE DECCAN
and many are ornamented to an extent they may seem almost fantastic'.1 An interesting feature of the Tribhuvana-cūḍāmaṇi-basti is that around its base runs a band of sculptures in bas-relief depicting various scenes perhaps from Jaina literary works.
Another group of structures of a peculiar and beautiful form consists of tombs of the priests in the neighbourhood of Mudbidri (plate 251). 'They vary much in size and magnificence, some being from three to five or seven storey in height; but they are not, like the storeys of the Dravidian temples, ornamented with simulated cells and finishing with domical roofs. The division of each storey is a sloping roof, like those of the pagodas at Kathmandu, and in China or Tibet. In India they are quite anomalous. In the first place, no tombs of priests are known to exist anywhere else and their forms, too, are quite unlike any other building now known to be standing in any other part of India'.'
At Karkal, 15 km. north of Mudbidri, there are some very interesting examples of Jaina temples. Some six of them, including a Tirthankara-basti, are located in the suburb of Hiriyangadi. One of them, viz. the Santināthabasti, is stated in an inscription, dated 1334 of the period of Hoysala Ballāļa III, to have received donations from a number of persons including some pious women of nobility. A piece of fine architectural workmanship is the manastambha standing in front of the largest basadi at the place. At Karkal proper, there is the famous Caumukha-basti (plate 252A), built in 1586-87. Each of its four doors opens on three black-stone figures of three Tirthankaras, Ara, Malli and Munisuvrata, of identical size and shape. The temple has pillars of simple workmanship, has the sloping eaves made of long stone slabs overlapping one over the other and topped by a double frieze-like part. Interestingly the temple has no superstructure and may be said, therefore, to be an example of muṇḍa-prāsāda of the sarvatobhadra class. Temples of this class are rare.
At Venur, 20 km. from Mudbidri, there are a few Jaina temples, of which the Santiśvara-basti with the earliest inscription dated 1489-90 is of special interest (plate 252B). This all-stone temple has a sanctum on the first floor also, and this sanctum has an image of a Tirthankara and a roof of a somewhat pyramidal shape. This method of placing a sanctum over sanctum in
1 J. Fergusson, History of Indian and Eastern Architecture, II, 1910, pp. 76-77, wood-cuts 303-305; Brown, op. cit., p. 156, plate CIIA, fig. 1.
2 Fergusson, op. cit., pp. 79-80.
'K.V. Ramesh, History of South Kannara, Dharwar, 1970, p. 298.
4 Srinivasan, op. cit., p. 79, fig. 1.
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