Temples of Kumbhariya

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

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CHAPTER 4
Western Indian Jaina Temple: Generalities
The full-fledged western Indian Jaina temple complex, built according to the tenets of the Maru-Gurjara architectural style, has a typical ground plan/floor plan and, as its consequence, the design involving the presence of specific components and their characteristic internal organization and corresponding external appearance which distinguish it from a contemporaneous Brahmanical temple. It also remains distinguished from the extant medieval Jaina temples of eastern, upper, central, and southern India. This distinction, as evident in several medieval examples in Gujarat as well as in Rajasthan, is also noticeable in the case of the Jaina temples in Kumbhāriyā which, in terms of configuration and characteristic visual appearance, reflect the same type of manifestation. The aspects and features associated with the medieval western Indian Jaina buildings may next be considered, to begin particularly in relation to the typical instances and to notice how far the Jaina temples in Kumbhāriyā correspond with, or conform to the conventionally fixed pattern.
(1) Floor plans
Out of the five Jaina temples in Kumbhāriyā, the earliest three—those of Jina Sānti (Rşabha), Mahāvīra, and Pārsva-are of the 'Caturvimśati-Jinālaya' class, the fourth, that of Jina Neminātha has, excepting for its two large bhadraprāsādas, the surround of linked devakulikās without the usual partitioning cell-walls within and it is only from the number of śikharas, several built in recent decades, seen from outside that the figure of the intended sub-shrines is inferable. The sixth or the Šiva temple follows the standard plan known of a Brahmanical sacred building of relatively smaller size in medieval Gujarat, which comprises the prāsāda linked with a semi-open rangamandapa as met with at the Munibāvā temple at Thān (c. A.D. 975), the Khimel-mātā temple at Dhinoj (c. A.D. 1027-30), the Siva temple at Sander and the main shrine of the pañcāyatana temple at Gavādā, both of the second quarter of the 11th century, the Nīlakantha-Mahādeva temple at Sunak (c. A.D. 1075) all