Temple of Satrunjaya

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

Page 74

with a sort of canopy over the head of each, form second and larger brackets. The floors of the larger temples are of beautifully tessellated marble-black, white, and yellowish brown. The patterns are very much alike except in details, and consist chiefly of varieties and combinations of the figure called by the Jainas nandyāvarta—a sort of complicated square fret, alreaday represented, as the cognizance of the eighteenth Tirthankara.
The porches on each side of the gambhārā project a little beyond the verandas, and are approached by a few steps. They are carried up to the top of the next story in which they have a balcony window on each of the exposed sides-the balconies being each supported by four neat madalas or brackets. They are crowned by semi-domes, the bases of that on the west side being oblong in plan. Above this the tower has still another story with a projecting window on each of the four sides.
The verandas at the north-west and south-west corners have each seven small ornamenteal domes and a small śikhara or spirelet on each face, and on the east side of the north porch stair leads to the upper story of the vimāna or spire, where we find eight more marble images of Adinatha Caumukhji. The upper part of the spire or sikhara appears to have been comparatively recently recoated with plaster at least—if not extensively renewed. All the lower portion of the west end of this building has an older appearance and is of more elaborate workmanship than the rest.
Over the principal mandapa, hall, or antarāla, and its three porches there are plain low domes with small finials; and the three open sides of the porches are arched.
Plates 13, 14 : Temples in the Kharataravasi Tuk
Besides the cells that line the northern wall of the enclosure there are many other temples of various sizes and ages from A.D. 1618 downwards. At least seven were built at the same time with the principal temple : one near the south-west corner, dedicated to Santinatha, of whom, with other Tirthankaras, it contains forty-eight images; two towards the west, built by the Sanghvis-Khimji Somji and Lalaji Siva or Ahmedabad, who dedicated them respectively to Parsvanatha and Santinatha, with between seventy and eighty images each; another by Lalaji Siva, near the cloister (bhāmati), enshrining three images of Dharmanatha etc., and four pairs of feet; a Caumukh temple built by Rupaji Samaji, a Sanghvi of Ahmedabad, over two pairs of feet. It is "near the