Shatrunjaya Dispute

Author(s): Makanji J Mehta
Publisher: Jain Shwetambar Conference Mumbai

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selves to Palitana at a much later date. For the immediate protection of the pilgrims and their property more effectively by some locally stationed force, the Jains entered into a contract with the ancestors of the present Palitana Durbar in A.D. 1651, whereby the latter guaranteed protection to the Jain pilgrims coming to the Hill, and undertook to recompense them for any property that may be lost. The Jains, in return, agreed to make them certain payments. This definite agreement clearly shows that the ancestors of the Palitana Durbar had not, and did not claim, any sovereign or controlling powers over the Shatrunjaya Hill, but that they merely undertook the protection of the Jain pilgrims from molestation by freebooters or knights of the highway in consideration of a money payment for rendering such services.
A PERMANENT AGREEMENT.
Contractual relations of this character were continued between the Jain community and the Palitana Durbar after the establishment of the Kathiawar political Agency in 1820. Fresh contracts of the same kind were entered into from time to time through the intervention of the British Government, as the bulk of the Jain community were either British subjects or subjects of other Indian States. On the oth Decem