Some Early Jaina Temples in Western India

Author(s): M A Dhaky
Publisher: Z_Mahavir_Jain_Vidyalay_Suvarna_Mahotsav_Granth_Part_1_012002.pdf and Mahavir_Jain_Vidyalay_Suvarna_

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SOME EARLY JAINA TEMPLES IN WESTERN INDIA : 301
manded respect, if not always won love from the votaries of Brahmanism, priests and princes alike. This should not delude us to believing that Jainism had no hard times or occasions to suffer humiliation; nor that all kings looked upon Jainism with equal reverence or sustained respect. Prabandhacintamani records that the flags of all the Jaina temples (together with those of non-Šaivaite temples) at Siddhapura were ordered (by Jayasimha Siddharāja) to be lowered down whenever a (new) flag was hoisted on the great temple of Rudramahālaya there, in imitation of the custom observed at Ujjain in regard to the non-Šaivaite temples vis-à-vis the temple of Mahākāleśvara. Had Siddharāja foreseen the ominous course of destiny which had ordained that the flags of all the temples between sākambhari and Bhșgukaccha, whether Brahmanical or Jaina, would have rolled down in dust at the closing hours of the thirteenth century, he could have preferred humility and refrained from insulting the friendly, benevolent Jainas who had served, and were serving, the State with great competence and dedication. But more outrageous was the policy adopted by the tyrant Ajayapāla, a nephew of and successor to Kumārapala. Like the eastern Śaśāmka of whom he was the western image, he displayed the same hostility, animosity and hatred, in his times, to Jainism. Not satisfied with the perfidious assassination of his Jaina prime minister Kapardi and minister Amrabhatta, he next went to lay his demonic hands on muni Rāmacandra, disciple of Hemacandra, whose physical extermination he brought about so cruelly, by burning him on a red-hot copper-sheet. That was not all. Out he went to destroy Jaina temples, particularly those founded by Kumārapala and by ministers who supported the late King. The cathedral of Taranga, sacred to Ajitanātha, founded by Kumārapāla in 1165, a colossal temple equalling in size to the great temple of Somanātha (built by the same monarch in 1169), was saved with difficulty, by putting the evil king to shame through allegoric histrionics. Ajayapāla had some personal reasons for his wrath toward Jainism, though no moral justification for a flagrantly vindictive onslaught. In days of Kumārapāla, the preaching of non-violence had gone to the other extreme which involved very subtle violence and disregard for certain basic humanistic values. The construction of Yükāvihāra by confiscating the property of a man who killed a flea, or Undiravihāra in memory of a dead mouse, are, by all standards, examples of religious zeal which had lost the company of wisdom. And too much familiarity of the Jaina monks with the Court had its points of danger too. When Jainas planned to have a successor of Kumārapāla who must likewise, respect Jainism, they invited a nemesis in