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JAINA TIRTHAS IN INDIA highly decorated and sculptured shrines for the worship of the images of even the self-controlled and all-renouncing Buddhas and Tirthankaras. Thus it would not be proper to class temple architecture as a special school and to discuss its art. The dexterious delineation and the workmanship that we notice in every sculpture and temple is the creation of expert sculptors and artists of their times. The patrons of art may be millionairs, or religious heads or others, but the workmanship is assuredly inspired by the sculptors who even after many centuries have immortalised in mute forms of art the prowess and the emotional greatness of their patrons.
The work of these sculptors scattered all over India. The Bhuvaneśvara and Koņàrak temples from Orissa, the Khajurāho shrines in Bundelkhand, the monuments from Ujjain, Dhāra, Mathurā, Nālanda, Benares, as also the richly carved monuments of southern Chaulukyas, Hoysalas and Cholas, have made India a wonder to the whole world.
Gujarāt architecture and Art are well-developed and rich heir of a variety of political and religious movements. One would commit a great blunder if one identified the cultural boundaries of Gujarat with its present-day political limits. Hence in discussions of art it is said to belong to the Rajasthāna-mandala. Thus we find architecture and art of the same style exist in Gujarāt, Malwa, Mewad, even upto East Khandesh. It will be found that the art of Modhera and Chandrāvati is inherited by Rāṇakpur. The Delwādā temples display a profuse use of marble for architecture. The dancing figures on the ruins of the Rudramahālaya at Siddhapur appear again on the pillars at Delwādā near Mt. Abu. The thousand Siva shrines erected on the banks of the Munasara lake at Viramgam, and the many Jaina figures surrounding the Neminātha temple or Hathibhāi's temple show that the same religious motifs were used by different religious sects. The Rangamandapas, entrance gates, or arches may belong to different sects like the Brahmanical, Jaina or Swāminārāyaṇa, but we can discern the hand of Somapurā sculptors working behind all of them.
This will make it abundantly clear that Mr. Nawah has secured these architectural photographs and has not only illuminated the Jaina culture but has kindled a lamp for the guidance of all the devotees of fine arts. Jainism has saved the chisel of Gujarāt sculptors from rusting and their dexterity from deteriorating. Even before
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