Jaina Tirthas in India and Their Architecture

Author(s): Sarabhai Manilal Nawab
Publisher: Sarabhai Manilal Nawab

Page 14

AND THEIR ARCHITECTURE
There is no connection between these stupas and the modern Brahmanical temples, because the latter were built for deities and not in commemoration of the deceased as the former.
The construction of a cave may be briefly stated to consist of a spacious hall and small cells round it. In short they provided the same facilities as a hut to the Jaina and Buddhist saints. The big hall was used for religious discourses and the cells for rest and as storerooms. This assumption is supported by the description of the gandha-kuti of the Buddha which we get in the Buddhist literature.
The only common point cave architecture has with temple architecture is that the hall was meant for the devotees who came for paying homage or for listening to religious sermons and the adjoining antechamber was used as the shrine. Still both the types of architecture differ in many points. The caves were the resting places of monks and the stupas were erected over the sacred relics of the great Buddha or on the spots consecrated as the scenes of his acts. Whereas temples enshrine deities and are surmounted by spires indicative of their grandeur. It is known that temple architecture existed prior to the epoc of Emperor Asoka.
The Arthasastra of Chanakya lays down rules for the allocation of sites for temples of various deities and their construction in a town-planning scheme. This shows that temple architecture was in vogue even before the times of Chăņakya. Kộishna worship was preva. lent in the days of Pāṇini (800 B. C.) as also in the days of Chandragupta.
Many things point towards an earlier and independent development of Brahmanical temple architecture. The spire is copied from summits of mountains. Mountains like Meru, Mandāra and Kailāsa were the abodes of gods. Along with them Gandharvas, Kinnaras, Apsarases and other denizens of hills are represented in temple sculptures. Brahmanical scriptures have pointedly laid down that temple architecture should contain sculptures representing Apsarases, Siddhas and various designs. These decorative features were so firmly settled in architecture that architects could not work without them. Thus when the Buddhists and the Jainas started the practice of enshrining holy relics, shrines and mansions without such decorations were not considered holy and religious. This resulted in the construction of