Temple of Satrunjaya

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 16

SATRUNJAYA
AND ITS TEMPLES
KATHIAWAD AND THE JAINAS
The peninsula of Kathiawad, or Saurashtra, in Gujarat, is the holy
land of western India. Among its sacred places Mount Girnar, the ancient Ujjayanta, must have been at a very early period a place revered by the Buddhists, who founded their monasteries on its summits, whilst their great patron Asoka- the beloved of the gods-engraved his celebrated edict of mercy and toleration on the rock at its foot. Somnath, on the south-west coast, where tradition says Krsna died, was the site of the temple of Somesvara, 'Lord of the Moon', the first of the twelve Siva Lingas in India, and the history of its destruction by Mahmud of Ghazni is familiar to every reader of Indian history. Dvaraka or Dvarika, in the extreme west of the peninsula, is the most celebrated of the shrines of Krsna, and where he is fabled to have slain Taksaka and to have saved the sacred books. And not to mention Tulsi Syam and places of less note, the sacred hill of Satrunjaya, near Palitana, has probably been a sacred place from the earliest times of the Jaina worship, -a great tīrtha-'the first of places of pilgrimage'.
The last of these more immediately concerns us for the present, but before referring to its history or buildings, it may be necessary for
1 The others were Mallikarjuna at Srisailam in Telengana ; Mahakala at Ujjain ; Omkara on the Narmada; Amaresvara near Ujjain; Vaidyanatha at Deoghar in Bihar ; Ramesvara at Setubandha in the island of Ramesvaram in Madura, Bhimasankara, most probably at Dracharam in Rajamuhendry ; Tryambaka near Nasik ; Gautamesa, unknown; Kedaresa on the Himalayas ; and Visvesvara at Benares.