Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c35.3

c35.3

In one respect however the Jains made a departure, when at some remote age, having appropriated certain "mountains of immortality" as sacred sites, they proceeded to erect on their summits a considerable aggregation of religious buildings, so that these formed what may be termed temple-cities. To use their own words they "ornamented these holy hills with a crown of eternal Arhat chaityas (tabernacles of saints) shining with the splendour of jewels." In spite of the known antiquity of these mountain sanctuaries few of the temples comprising them are earlier than the fifteenth century, and most are much later. Various causes have been responsible for the older buildings having been obliterated, one being the practice of the Jains themselves of pulling down their temples when decayed and erecting new ones in their places, many of the walls bearing evidences of this, as they reveal stones of previous structures having been built into them. Again, the creed during its long history has not been free from internal dissensions, an iconoclastic schism in the fifteenth century possibly being one of the factors responsible for few buildings having survived before this date. On the other hand the peculiarly militant appearance of some of these structural complexes as a whole implies that outside forces may at one time have subjected them to desecration and pillage, from a repetition of which they are now materially guarded. For, as they exist at present, these religious sites are surrounded by embattled walls, with their interiors divided up into *tuks* or wards, like the inner courts of fortified cities, the crenellated parapets being loop-holed and embrasured, each *tuk* having massive circular bastions at its angles, entry being obtained through strong gateways. It is a little incongruous to see projecting above this grim screen of defensive masonry a forest of graceful fanes belonging to so peaceful and humane a cult as that of the Jains. (Plate CXXI, Fig. 2).