Jaina Monuments and Places First Class Importance

Author(s): T N Ramchandran
Publisher: Veer Shasan Sangh Calcutta

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JAINA MONUMENTS
Ajitanātha, built by Kumārapāla. The most remarkable of such Tirthas, however, are the great temple cities - cities not built for human habitation, but consisting of temples alone - piolu esquely situated on the hills of Girnār in Kathiawad and SatruñJaya 01 Pälitänä in Gujrat. At Gurnār the great temple of Neminātha is certainly oldier than 1278 A.D., when it was repaired, another, built by the brotheis Tejahpāla and Vastupāla, foundcrs of the second temple at Mt. Abu dates about 1230 AD. The lormer stands in a colonnaded court of some seventy cells, tho latter is a triple shrine arranged in Chālukyan fashion about a central hall. At Satruñjaya the total number of shrines, in even separate enclosures, exceeds five hundred Somc date back to the eleventh centmy, the majority range from 1500 A.D. to the present day. One of the largest is the temple of Ādinātha in the Kharataravasi Tuk, built by a banker of Ahmadabad in 1618, this is a shiine of two storeys, with a well proportioned Sikhara, and with a verandāh of which the pillars bear capitals richiy carved with figures of inusicians and dancers. A small shrine built by the Nagar Seth, or Head of the Guilds of Ahmadabad in 1840, is a pillared hall of unique design with external verändāls; the floor is divided by twelve piers into nine smaller squares, those of the angles having domed roofs, those of the centre and sides being crowned by towers; the five principal icons represent sacred mountains,
10-11. RANPUR AND PĀRASNATH: Other picturesquely sittiated Jaina temple groups are found at Rānpur (especially the chaumukha temple, A.D. 1458) in Jodhpur State, and Pāraśnáth in Bengal,
12. PAWAPURI : The Jainas built small temples in almost all the hills of Rajgir, installing the images of the Tirthankaras