________________
ANTARIKSHA PARSVANATH CASE
193
the Swetambaris, with the counter-assertion, by themselves, of rights over the temple and the idol as extensive and as absolute as those put forward by the Swetambaris. Their case is to be found in the written statement of defendant No. 8, which was adopted as their own by the other delendants.
In the course of that statement the charges of the plaintiffs with reference to the alleged mutilation of the idol by defendants are repudiated, and the views of the Digambaris with reference to the original form of the idol are put forward. With reference to these charges it may at once be stated that the plaintiffs' allegations as to the defendants' responsibility were not established at the trial, and their claim for damages, which was resisted by the defendants on the technical as well as on substantial grounds, has failed and is no longer persisted in.
For the rest, the case presented by the written statement referred to was that the temple in question originally and absolutely belonged to the Digambari Jains, the Digambaris at Shirpur doing all the management, with the help and advice of other followers at Khamgaon and Karanja. The association between the two sects referred to in the plaint was stated to have been brought about by an invitation from the Digambaris to some respectable gentlemen from among the Swetambars to join in a committee of management under an arrangement which continued until 1908, when the Treasurer and Vice-President of the Committee, both Swetambaris, with a view of with-holding the entire wealth of this Digambari temple, had kept back the accounts which, when called upon, they had agreed to present ; in consequence of which conduct, as appears to be implied in the written statement, the association, itself originated by the Digambaris, came to an end at their instance. In confirmation of the assertion that the temple and the idol were Digambari, it was pointed out in the statement that the Deity in question was Digambari in its position, having been installed by a Jain Digambari King in a temple of Digambari style and construction, and that, itself a principal idol, it was surrounded by Digambari idols worshipped only by Digambaris. The Swetambari had never worshipped this deity with the chaksu and
25
Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
www.umaragyanbhandar.com
