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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302 : SHRI MAHAVIRA JAINA VIDYALAYA GOLDEN JUBILEE VOLUME
Ajayapāla. The price was paid by the Church for meddling in the affairs of the temporal power. But it also disrupted, from within, the great harmony of faiths and sub-cultures in Western India, partially restored by Vastupāla in the thirteenth century, just enough to hold the fort against the menace of the invading Muslims, till the collapse came at the end of the thirteenth century.
Barring these unpleasant incidences, the overall picture for Jainism in the Middle Ages is colourful, bright, and vibrant with life indeed. The murmurs and mutterings of the jealous Brahmins at the courts were normally not heeded to or encouraged by the ruling kings. That was not the fate of the Digambara Jainas, for example, elsewhere in India of those times. In the South, Digambara Jainas were persecuted by the bigoted convert Pallava Mahendravarman and afterwards by Viraśaivas in Karnāta. In Central India there are instances of the destruction of Jaina sanctuaries by the Brahmanists.25a Here they also had to encounter the philistinism of Krsna Miśra whose Prabodhacandrodaya (late 11th cent.) is a shameless document of religious intolerance wherein no holds are barred against those sects which did not conform to the tenets preached by author's own. These perversive impulses were anticipated in the sacred architecture as well. At Khajuraho they had materialized in some of the atrocious erotic sculptures on the walls of the Lakşmaņa temple (954) and Jagadambi temple (early 11th cent.) where the Digambara Jaina saints are portrayed in actions that defy all sense of descency.26 Evidently, such sculptures have no sanction of the vastuśāstras. They are the impositions by corrupt, deformed, envious, frustrated minds of the fanatics who misused the holy sanctum walls for displaying their evil ego and destructive urges. The disfigurement and disgrace of such Khajuraho temples, unfortunately marked for ever, are as outspoken as their art is splendid.
Digambara Jainism is, perhaps, on its side, partly responsible for what all had happened. The theory of niscaya naya-absolutismcentral to its philosophy, rejects all other systems of thought, and dismisses all other paths of salvation advocated by other religions in
25a Jaina temples at Dudahi, Padhavali, and perhaps Budhi-Chanderi
for instance. 26 TRIPATHI, LAKSMI KANT, The Erotic Scenes of Khajuraho and their
probable explanation, 'Bhārati, Research Bulletin of the College of Indology' No. 3, Banaras Hindu University, 1959-60.