The Jain 1988 07

Author(s): Natubhai Shah
Publisher: UK Jain Samaj Europe

Page 63

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THE
=Jain
will be centrally situated facing towards four entrances to the temple. Sometimes, as at Ranakpur, the images are of the same Tirthankara, sometimes of different ones.
Whilst Jain temples are often situated in towns and villages where they serve as places of worship for the local Jain community, many others are located at places associated with events in the lives of the twenty-four Tirthankara, or having other sacred associations. Often the sacred location, or tirtha, is on the top of a mountain or hill, frequently in a location of wild and secluded natural beauty. From the medieval period at least pilgrimage to these places has been an important feature of Jain piety. On some of these holy hills veritable temple cities have been erected containing hundreds of temples and smaller shrines, not laid out on any ordered plan but constructed wherever a level or potentially level space presents itself. With few exceptions the temples as they stand today date from the fifteenth century AD or later and most of the earlier ones have been reconstructed. Strong walls surround these aggregations of temples, and also the inner tuk or courts within which groups of shrines stand, a precaution against vandalism and destruction, perhaps, in earlier troubled times.
One of the most famous temple cities is Satrunjaya, south of Palitana in Kathiawar, Gujarat, the place where the first Tirthankara achieved nirvana. The ridges of the two hills, two thousand feet above sea level, are crowded with an incredible collection of temples and shrines of very varied description and size. The holiest part of the mountain tops is occupied by the Sri Adisvara temple, a particularly ornate building dating from 1530 AD but situated on the site of a very much earlier temple dating from the tenth century and perhaps before. There is a fine caumukha temple dedicated to Rsabha, built in 1618, also on the site of an earlier one. The eastern entrance to the vimana,
sanctuary, leads from the main hall, whilst the other three open through elegant two-storied porches into the courtyard. About a hundred miles away to the west, near the town of Junagadh, stands the notable collection of temples at Girnar. They are not so numerous as those at Satrunjaya but at least one, dedicated to Neminatha, the twenty-second Tirthankara, dates back before the thirteenth century. Very interesting and unusual is the Vastupala temple. An inscription claims that the wealthy ministers Vastupala and his brother Tejpala had erected a crore of temples in various places. Allowing for considerable exaggeration, the brothers were certainly very generous patrons of temple building and restoration in the thirteenth century. The Vastupala temple is unusual in having a central shrine leading from the east side of the main hall, dedicated to Mallinatha, whilst two further shrines on the north and the south sides of the hall contain massive representations of the sacred mountains Sumeru and Sametsikhara.
Although the temples of Girnar, Satrunjaya and Mount Abu follow the style of the northern or nagara temples of the Hindus, they are built of marble which the wealthy Jain businessmen who founded many of them were able to afford. Moreover it was usual to establish a committee to see to the upkeep of the Jain temples so they are often kept in particularly good repair. Mount Abu, just on the Rajasthan side of the boundary with Gujarat, rather more than fifty miles west of Udaipur, is noted for the famous Delwara temples. One of the large temples there was founded by the brothers Vestupala and Tejpala mentioned above. The temple has a large outer hall or rangamandapa. To keep a wide space clear of pillars the low dome has pushed to the extreme the technique of constructing such a dome with overlapping stone slabs and the technique of support which has allowed the structure to stand for many centuries is something of a puzzle to modern architects. Mount Abu was already the site of a temple erected two hundred years earlier by Vimala Shah, a minister of the king of Gujarat. It is said that he built it as a penance for the blood shed when he was sent as a military commander to quell a rebellion. The outstanding feature of the Mount Abu temples is the extraordinary intricacy of the marble carving. Practically every surface and every structural detail is covered with figures and delicate tracery.
Jainsim has made a considerable contribution to the architectural heritage of India, not only in the splendours of the great temple cities but also in countless other edifices, great and small throughout the length and breadth of the sub-continent. New temples, some of them very splendid, keeping to the traditional forms. are still being erected. Unhappily there are old temples in areas where