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તીર્થાધિરાજ શ્રી શત્રુંજય (૨) વહીવટ અને વિસ્તાર 32. The fashionable shrine, on which at the present day the greatest
amount of wealth is lavished.
It is now being covered with new temples and shrines which rival the old buildings not only in splendour, but in the beauty and delicacy of their details, and altogether form one of the most remarkable groups to be found anywhere-the more remarkable, if we consider that the bulk of them were erected within the limits of the present century. To the philosophical student of architecture it is one of the most interesting spots on the face of the globe, inasmuch as he can there see the various processes by which cathedrals were produced in the middle ages, carried on on a larger scale then anywhere else, and in a more natural manner. It is by watching the methods still followed in designing buildings in that remote locality that we become aware how it is that the uncultivated Hindu can rise in architecture to a degree of originality and perfection which has not been attained in Europe since the middle ages.
--History of Architecture ( ed. 1867), vol. II, pp. 630, 632.
The grouping together of their temples into what may be called “ Cities of Temples” is a peculiarity which the Jains have practised to a greater extent than the followers of any other religion in India. ... Neither of these religions, however, possess such a group of temples, for instance, as that at Satrunjaya, or Palitana. ... ... It is a city of the gods, and meant for them only, and not intended for the use of mortals. ... ... All these peculiarities are found in a more marked degree at Palitana than at almost any other known place, and, fortunately for the student of the style, extending over a considerable period of time. Some of the temples may be as old as the 11th century, but the Moslim invaders of 14th and 15th centuries made sad havoc of all the older shrines, and we have only fragments of a few of them. ... ... Among the Satrunjaya temples there is every variety of form and structure, and a monograph on this group, fully illustrated, would be of great architectural, antiquarian, and mythological interest. ... ... The
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