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RELIGION & CULTURE OF THE JAINS
tation of a procession, probably on its way to the stupa. About half a dozen other antiquities discovered from the same site bear representations of a stūpa, and remains of several other Jaina stupas have since been discovered elsewhere in the country.
With the rise of Buddhism and the growing popularity of the stupa form of architecture with the followers of that creed particularly since the time of Aśoka (about the middle of the 3rd century B.C.), it began to lose ground with the Jainas, and a time came when all such structures were unhesitatingly attributed to the Buddhists. Fleet rightly observed, "The prejudice that all stupas and stone railings must necessarily be Buddhist, has probably prevented the recognition of Jaina structures as such." Smith also says, In some cases, monuments which are really Jaina have been erroneously described as Buddhist."
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It may be noted here that the practice of maintaining and repairing old stūpas and even of erecting new ones continued with the Jainas till late mediaeval times, especially in places like Mathura and Hastinapur. No remains are, however, traceable of the stūpas raised at Pāwāpur, Rajgir and elsewhere, in honour of Mahāvīra, soon after his nirvāṇa. It appears that the stupa was a feature of early north Indian Jaina architecture, and when, during the post Christ centuries Jainism suffered a decline in the north, simultaneously gaining an ascendancy in the south, the Karnataka type niṣadyā or chatrī, bearing footprints of the saint in whose honour it is erected, gradually replaced the stupa even in the north, as a funerary monument.
The caves
The early Jaina monks being mostly forest recluses and wandering ascetics, natural caves or caverns on the sides or top of hills, situated away from human habitation, served as temporary refuges and places of stay for them. The earliest notable
