Temple of Satrunjaya

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

Page 94

Of the numerous temples in this square only a very few can be noticed. An arch connects the porch on the south side of the great temple with the fort of the temple of sesakuta or sahasrakuta, built in 1639 by a Sanghvi named Govindji of Diva. It contains a large square block of yellowish marble, carved with small images in thirteen lines, the lower five broken to make room for a larger figure. On the whole block there are a thousand and twenty-four images, and there are eleven separate ones in niches of the temple. The temple similarly situated on the north side is that of the Ganadhara paglan or feet of the first teachers. It contains a sort of altar of bluish marble slabs raised one above another, the upper one covered with the regulated number of fourteen hundred and fifty-two pairs of feet.
Plates 42, 43: Temple of Samet Sikhar and Marble Temple
To the west of the temple of Sesakuta is a small Caumukh temple built by Rupchand of Surat in 1791, and to the west of this again, is the temple of Samet Sikhar, a pavilion, or mandapa over an octagonal stūpa, having on the top of the pedestal, on alternate sides, three and two pairs of feet, or in all twenty,-with twenty-six marble images at the angles, etc. Behind the great temple, are many little temples over caraṇa or paglan, and to the north-west the eye is arrested by a small shrine of the purest white marble, erected by Dalpatbhai Bhagubhai of Ahmedabad over two feet, very large ones, of Adisvara Bhagavan. This is the restoration of a shrine consecrated by Dosi Karma Sah of Chitod on the 6th of Baisakh vadi. S. 1587 or A.D. 1530. The temple is overshadowed by the Rana or Rayana tree, "believed by the faithful to be a never-dying scion of that which shaded the first of their prophets, and which now overshadows his sanctified padukā".146 Near it is a temple of Sri Hira Vijaya Suri, so often mentioned already. It was built in 1595 to contain one pair of feet.
Returning to the square in front of the great temple, we find on north side of it the temple of Mandira Svami-who is sometimes apprently considered as a Tirthankara, though his name has no place in the modern orthodox lists.147 This temple also goes by the name
146 Tod, Travels, etc. p. 286.
147
He is apparently of Digambara introduction, as he figures in the Buddha, vilasa, in which he is represented as being five hundred bows' legnth or two thousand cubits high, and inhabiting Videha-ksetra or Videha-varsa, where they say he was visited and worshipped by Muni Kunda Kunda Acarya, who lived about S. 749 or A.D. 692. It is probable the number of the Tirthankaras has been altered at different times; and the sect of Ramasena even made new ones.Conf. Delamaine, Trans. R. Asiat. Soc., Vol. I. p. 418.
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