Jainism in Rajasthan

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IV JAINA ART
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Some knowiedge of the style of architecture of the medieval Jaina temples built in Rajasthan.
SOME PECULIAR FEATURES OF JAINA ARCHITECTURE: Most of the medieval Jaina temples of Rajasthan like Brahmanical temples are of "Nāgara style. Their fundamental characteristics are the cruciform plan and the curvilinear Sikhara. Some of the temples built in Western Rajasthan under the patronage of the Chālukyas may be placed under the Vesara style. It borrows the elements and features of both the Nāgara and the Drāvida styles, and it became distinguishable from about the eleventh century A.D. • These Jaina temples cannot be distinguished from the Brāhmanical temples on sectarian basis, because the same artists, who worked for one sect, were employed also by another sect in the same period and in the same region. When we talk of Jaina architecture, it means temples built under the patronage of followers of the Jaina faith. They were so designed in their arrangements as to conform to the ritual of the Jainas and thus they show peculiarities of Jaina architecture. The domical style of stone was exclusively the characteristic of Jaina architecture in Northern India.1 As it was also the essential feature of the architecture of the Muslims before they came into India, they consequently destroyed Jaina temples in order to seize their domes for their conversion into mosques. In an old Jaina temple, we generally find the principal shrine in the centre, porch and subshrines. Besides, the Jainas preferred enclosed compartments instead of open columned halls, thus, ensuring seclusion for their ceremonies 2 Besides, in Jaina temples, we generally do not find amorous figures but only such of them as create an atmosphere of chastity and simplicity.
JAINA ARCHITECTURE THROUGH THE AGES: In Rajasthan, there is hardly any important town where a Jaina temple does not exist. But all of them do not represent any peculiarity of Jaina architecture and, therefore, only the important and representative temples of different times have been selected for description in order to bring into prominence the chief features of Jaina architecture. The Jaina temples of the eighth, ninth and tenth centuries are simple in style, though in several respects they are crude imitations of the later Gupta art. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries AD.,
1 History of Indian and Eastern Architecture, pp 250-51. 2 Indian Architecture, p. 77