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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306 : SHRI MAHAVIRA JAINA VIDYALAYA GOLDEN JUBILEE VOLUME
Mathurā and Mālava might all have their share. Central India in the tenth century possessed a fairly large number of Digambara centres in all its sub-divisions--Mălava, which included a portion of the present day Mewad and Uparmal tracts of Rajasthan-Gopagiri, Jejàkbhukti, and Dāhala of the Cedis. The adjacent Rajasthan tracts where Digambara Jainism prevailed, remain united with the greater and more expansive and extensive movements of the Digambaras in Central India. Digambara Jainism seems to have suffered eclipse soon after twelfth century in Eastern Rajasthan as well as in Central India. It, however, prospered fervently during the fifteenth century when it penetrated into Idar area of Gujarat as well. But these are the times which lie outside the range of our discussion.
Moving backward and forward along the vast space-time continuum in Western India with special reference to Jainism, we had a sweeping, very fleeting glimpse indeed, of an intricate drama of the people--Jainas in their historical setting, as well as their architectural undertakings interlaced, embedded and projected on it. The group of temples we pledged to discuss forms an infinitesimal fraction, a mere ripple in a colossal current of architecture that once surged without inhibition in Western India. It nevertheless can be significant for two facts : consider, for instance, that all the temples at Sākambhari and Candrāvatī, Bhillamāla and Ajayameru, Anhilapāțaka and Anandapura (Vadnagar), Karṇāvati and Stambhatirtha, Bhrgukaccha (Broach) Satruñjaya, and Prabhāsa—the pivotal centres of the Jainas as well as, with the exception of Satruñjaya, of the Brahmanists-have been swept away, some places with no traces save literary references to give the barest idea of what they had been; what is more, with the only exception of the Ādinātha temple at Anandapura, which preserves an original socle and the lower wall mouldings of late tenth century,29 Gujarat sector has no early Jaina temple of consequence now left with it: 30 second, the group under reference covers temples that fully represent the three different, major architectural styles which once prevailed in and are characteristical of Western India. It also helps to comprehend, to a limited extent though, the evolution of a western Indian Jaina temple plan.
29 DHAKY, M. A., The Chronology of the Solanki Temples of Gujarat,
"Journal of the Madhya Pradesh Itihasa Parishad' 1963, p. 22. 30 The small Ambikā shrine near Than datable to late eighth or early
ninth century is not of much consequence.