Jainism in India

Author(s): Ganesh Lalwani
Publisher: Prakrit Bharti Academy

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JAINISM IN INDIA
At Boram, a big village situated four miles south from Jaipur railway station, there are three temples in ruin which are said to be constructed by the srāvakas or the lay Jainas. These three temples are identical in design. These temples have Jaina images and were originally Jaina shrines. To the south about a mile away from Boram there is a shrine where there are images in nudity. The shrine is now taken to be a Hindu temple.
Chandankiari, another village a few miles away from Purulia, the headquarters of Manbhum district, is the place where a large number of Jaina antiquities were found. The collection in Patna Museum of the images of the Jaina Tirthankaras that were found in Chandankiari makes one of the finest collections of the Jaina antiquities in India. The workmanship is delicate and superb. They are all of the 19th century A.D. There are two other villages within five miles of Chandankiari, namely, Kumbri and Kumardaga, where also there are some old Jaina images.
Among the other old Jaina remains in Manbhum district, particular mention need be made about the Jaina temples and sculptures at the small village of Pakbira, twenty miles north-east of Bara Bazar. Besides these temples there are also some mounds which may be the remains of either big temples or may be the remains of stūpas. Jaina tradition is also clearly visible in the remains of a few big tanks and in their vicinity of a few more mounds. It is a pity that the temples and the scattered antiquities have been allowed to decay. Excavations may have revealed an important phase of Jaina culture.
In the neighbouring village of Budhpur there are a number of images which are worshipped once annually in the course of a year. Some of the images are Jaina specimens. Some of the images have been removed by individuals.
At another small village Darika, three miles to south-west of the ruins at Chechgaongarlı, there are also a number of old ruins, tanks, mounds and cells which are clearly of Jaina origin. Beglar had noticed here a Jaina statue in black basalt.
At Charra, about four miles from Purulia, the district headquarters of Manbhum, there are some ruins of old temples. Some of the temples are clearly Jaina in origin. There are numerous votive caityas with mutilated figures of the Jaina hierarchs. In the neighbouring village Bhangarh two broken pieces of an image were found and a