Jainism in Bihar

Author(s): P C Roy Choudhary
Publisher: P C Roy Choudhary Patna

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schism in the fifteenth century possibly being one of the factors responsible for few buildings having survived previous to this date. On the other hand the peculiarly militant appearance of some of these structural complexes as a whole implies that outside force may at one time have subjected them to desecration and pillage, from a repetition of which they are now materially guarded. For as they exist at present these religious sites are surrounded by embattled walls, with their interiors divided up into tuks or wards, like tbe inger courts of fortified cities, the crenellate parapets being loopholed and embrasured, each tuk baving massive circular bastions at its angles entry being obtained through strong gateways."
Percy Brown further observed in the same book under the chapter The Temple-cities of the Jains “These temple-cities, or tirthas (places of pilgrimage) are laid out on no specific plan, the buildings being arranged on such level spaces as the contours of the bill paturally provide. In one or two instances they consist of several hundreds of edifices, but contain no human habitation, as except for an occasional watch-man, they are at night-time entirely deserted, the gods in their shrines being left to the protection of their own sanctity. Each tirtha represents centuries of devotion which found expression in temple-building, and they form the central object of pilgrimages and festivals at frequent intervals. Although many of the temples may seem complicated in appearance, each is designed, as a rule, on the principles common to the religious architecture of the late medieval period, the elaborations being due to such factors as the addition of oumerous supplementary shrines to the application of double stories, and to the practice of imposing pillared cloisters around all the larger examples. In the style of the individual buildings one variation found only in Jain temples is noticeable, and that is the frequent production of a class
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