The Antiquities of Orissa v2.c16.s2.87

v2.c16.s2.87

**Jain Temple :—**Ascending now the top of the hill, we come to a Jain Temple which forms the most picturesque feature of the place (Plate XXV). In itself a structure of a recent date, being only about eighty-years old, and in style having nothing to commend it to particular attention, being small, insignificant and totally devoid of ornament, it is nevertheless the most prominent and attractive object on these hills. Perched on the very crest of the hill, and commanding a wide view as far as the eye can reach, with the low hills of Domapārā on the one side, and the Great Tower of Bhuvaneśvara on the other, and an open country all round, whose sterile, ungrateful, laterite soil is relieved here and there by topes of mango and bamboo, and tolerably large patches of cultivation, the temple enjoys one of the finest and most romantic sites which could be selected in this part of the country for raising the mind of man from its mundane surroundings to an undisturbed contemplation of the author of creation. The Jains have been particularly fortunate in this respect, and all their more important temples have been placed on especially picturesque sites. Like the generality of Hindu temples in Orissa, this temple comprises two parts, a temple proper and the Jagamohan, but both built in the style of the Jagamohan, and plastered over with stucco. The former is twenty-seven feet square and twenty-five feet high, the latter six feet smaller in both ways. The sanctuary contains a standing figure of Mahāvīra in black stone, one foot high, placed on a wooden chair. The temple was built by Manju Chaudhuri and his nephew Bhavāni Dādu of Cuttack, Jain merchants of the Digambari sect. In the front of the temple there is a fine terrace, about fifty feet square, with a raised masonry seat all round. The Jains are very particular about this terrace as an appurtenance to their temples, and invariably have it in front of all their places of worship. Their temples being, with some notable exceptions, small and not fit to accommodate any large number of persons at the same time, these terraces are very useful for the congregation to assemble on. To the north of the terrace there is a very small temple, and on either side of the main temple there are also small buildings with pyramidal roofs, but they were closed when I have visited the place.