Temple of Satrunjaya

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

Page 84

XI
TEMPLES IN THE VIMALAVASI TUK
The only entrance to the enclosure on the southern summit is by the
gateway near the south-east corner of the Motisah enclosure, and which bears the name of the Sugala pole in commemoration of the munificence of a banker of Bengal.136 Close to it is a pretty large tank "excavated by Nogan, the first Gohil of Palitana". 137 To the right hand is the Vaghano pole or "Tiger gate", at which are a Tigress, Bhairava
numana, covered with oily vermilion. We are now at the end of a sort of ascending street lined on either side with temples, of which there are about sixty of all sizes and styles in this outer enclosure of the Vimalavasi tuk. We need only notice a few of them, and that very briefly.
Plate 31 : Temple of Hirachand Raykaran
To the left, on entering the gate is a temple of considerable size with three sprires, built in 1803, by Hirachand Raykaran of Daman and dedicated to Santinatha. It has square porches on either side of the mandapa, but is not in any way remarkable. Near it is a small shrine by the same merchant.
Plates 32, 33 : The Bhulaoni
Immediately to the west of Hirachand's temple is the much larger old temple known as the Bhulaoni or Labyrinth with a double row of small spires; it is separated from the preceding by a passage on a much lower level, spanned by two porticoes at the entrances totwo small shrines in the Bhulaoni building,-the first of Sri Cakresvari Mata, established by Dosi Karma Sah of Chitod, at the same time as he restored the great temple of Adisvara Bhagavan about 1530 A.D.; the second was dedicated in 1764 by Tarachand, a Sanghvi of Surat, to Vaghesvari Mata who is represented sitting on a tiger. The entrance to the Bhulaoni proper, however, is some way up the street already alluded to; it is evidently an old building, though often restored and furnished afresh with images; and in the lap (pälarthi) of one of them Sri Suparsvanatha, there is an inscription apparently ascribing the building to the Sanghvi Rupaji Somaji of Ahmedabad in A.D. 1618. Fragments of building of very
186 137
Tod, Travels, p. 282. lbid.