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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324 SHRI MAHAVIRA JAINA VIDYALAYA GOLDEN JUBILEE VOLUME
The original date and the chronology of different structures associated with the temple of Osian Mahavira have so far remained in confusion. Jaina writers of the middle ages were themselves in darkness. The Upakeśa gaccha paṭṭāvali postulating fifth century B. c. for the cult image and the town of Osia is nothing but mythical. On the strength of all available historical and archaeological evidences, Osia, it would seem, did not exist before eighth century. Kakkasūri in his Nabhinandana Jinoddhāra (1337) mentions that the temple was founded in 961, a statement also paralleled in Oswal utpati." But that date is nearer to the one of the Jindaka's renovation of the Valānaka and not applicable to the foundation of the Main Temple.
The writers of the present century are only a little more informed than the mediaeval chroniclers. BHANDARKAR'S observations, the earliest ones available, may be examined at the outset. "The temple is, like most ancient Jain temples, enclosed both at the sides and the back by a raw of subsidiary shrines, which, to judge from their style, are not contemporaneous with the temple but belong to tenth century. They were probably constructed at the time when the nal mandapa was repaired by Jindaka."45 The Devakulikäs are doubtless late; but the matter is not so simple at that. None of them seems to be of Jindaka's time; they belong to different dates as we will have demonstrated Commenting on the sikhara of the Main Temple, BHANDARKAR observes: "The spire of the temple has obviously been rebuilt with the old materials. I gathered from the villagers that it was in ruins a hundred years ago, and was rebuilt of fallen pieces. This is also seen from the fact that under amalasara there is a human face on each of the four sides, a characteristic found in almost all modern temples in Gujarat and Rajasthan."46 A closer examination of the sikhara reveals facts which contradict BHANDARKAR'S deductions in their main part. The sikhara is for certain old, though not original. It is a replacement at some date in the early eleventh century for an eighth century superstructure. This is proven by the jala type, the andaka types (which include karmaśṛngas), gavākṣas, etc. In fact KRISHNA DEVA who surveyed this temple very thoroughly in about 1959, had reached the same conclusion.
44 SHAH, AMBALAL PREMCHAND, Jaina Tirtha Sarva-Samgraha', Vol. I, pt. 2, (Gujarati; 1953), p. 173.
45 BHANDARKAR, D. R., Annual Report of the Archaeological Survey of India 1908-9, (Calcutta 1912), p. 108. 46 Ibid.