Temples of Kumbhariya

Author(s): M A Dhaky, U S Moorty
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 80

40
after that date, were either relatively forsaken or much less frequently visited:25 At least no Jina images (with a single exception of the one in the present day Sambhavanatha temple) or other related objects of worship such as the pattas etc., were set up in the 15th or the 16th century. Could it be that an invasion, hitherto unreported but some date soon after A.D. 1338, was responsible for the destruction of all original images ??? Bhandarkar, however, felt that it was some time after A.D. 1619 that Ārāsana may have been attacked, the town laid to waste, and its temples were desecrated.28 Cousens, in his remark on Bhandarkar's statement, places this happening during the period of one of the Sultans of Gujarat and hence in the 15th century." Whatever may have happened, temple's original cult images and the main images from the subsidiary shrines have all, for certain, disappeared. The tiny Jina images carved on the Aṣṭāpada (A.D. 1210) enshrined in a corner chapel in the Säntinätha (Adinatha) temple complex are all woefully mutilated (Plate 128), just as the Samavasarana in a caturmukha chapel in the Mahāvīra temple complex is in a damaged condition (Plate 73), providing as they both do a further and very palpable evidence on the visit of an iconoclast to the site at some point in late medieval times.
The Temples in Kumbhāriyā
32
According to the 'pattavali' of Dharmasagara of Tapagaccha, in late 16th century, at the instance of Vijayasena sūri, chief disciple of the illustrious jagadguru Hiravijaya süri whom the Mughal emperor Akbar held in high esteem, the temples in Ārāsana were renovated." However, it is not clear as to what was involved in the renovation. At least there is no epigraphical endorsement to that effect known from any of the five temples. Within decades next, however, Vijayadeva süri, chief disciple of the aforenoted pontiff Vijayasena sūri, consecrated the cult images of the main sanctuaries in the Mahāvīra, Pärśvanätha, and Neminatha temples, that was in (V.)S.1675/A.D. 1619 (Insc. 145-148). The administration of the temple was next entrusted to the Fraternity of Posīnā. As years went by, the condition of the temples had deteriorated as apparently the jungle once more began marching and gaining control of the temples' surroundings. In late 19th century, the administration of the temple was taken over by Seth Premacand Raicand of Bombay and next the Jaina mayor of Ahmedabad is reported for some time to be in charge of the temples. They were next taken over by the Samgha of Data. In view, however, of the deplorable state of the temples, in 1921, at the instance of Vijayanemi süri, the temples' charge were transferred to Seth Anandji Kalyānjī, a religious institution which from that date on is their custodian. They soon started the clearance of the site and effected. essential repairs to the temples, as records report, from 1923 onwards. A building