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M. A. Dhaky
khattaka (niche) harbouring a seated figure of Jina Parsvanatha. Above the jangha is the customary bharana (echinus), unfluted though in this particular case. (On the bhadra-parts, however, the bharana is replaced by a paṭṭikā bearing a small seated figure of Jina Parsva with attendents. This is followed by a kapōtali and the khuracchadya (ribbed cyma-awning).
The śikhara (spire) is composed of thirty-seven andaka-s, this way summed up:
84
Śriga-s (spirelets) :
Śrnga-s
Urahsṛnga-s (half leaning spires) Mulasṛnga (central or main spire)
1st pańkti (row) : 2nd pankti
:
5 × 4 = 20
4 x 1 =
4
3 X 4
12
1
Total 37
The rathika-s (framed niches) along the bhadra-points show standing nude figures of Parsvanatha with fly-whisk-bearers flanking him on either side, The usual udgama-pedinient (to top the nicho) is absent here". The sikhara is beautifully carved with the jala i.e. the caitya-mesh pattern. The total form of the sikhara seems fairly balanced and the shape of the mulasriga is particularly charming, its curvature delineated like the profile of the lotus-bud, recalling the famous injunction of the vastusastra-s, namely padmakōsaṁ samalikhēts.
The sukanāsa has been rendered in receding stages and its profile-elements show rather simply carved lozenges. The door-frame of the sanctum is partly restored, the left side though seeming older and original; it is composed of bakulikä-padma, bähya and patra type of sakha-jambs.
The dedication, by association of the images of Jina Parsva in significant positions, undoubtedly must have been to Him, as Bhandarkar has also noticed. There are two inscriptions, one of S. 1356/A.D. 1300, and the other of S. 1391/A, D. 1335, referring to the renovation of an alaka (niche). Both refer to the temple as of Parsvanatha and the first mentions Mulasangha of the Digambara sect." But the temple, as judged by its style, is surely earlier. Its wall treatment recalls of the Sas-bahu (ca. 1000), but the structure as a whole seems at least a quarter of a century later than the latter temples. The walls also remind of the Mahavira temple at Sewadi near Phalana, earlier dated by me to after 1000.10 The presence of karnaka in lieu of kumuda in the base makes it posterior to the tenth century temples. While the form of the thakari-s and the jala over the sikhara-faces would favour a date sometime in the second quarter of eleventh century; the style is Maru-Gurjara, somewhat local in inflexion though it seems.
At a later date, possibly in the fifteenth century, the interior of the garbhagṛha was treated as though the temple were an Aṣṭāpada shrine.
