A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c7.58

c7.58

In the domain of art the most notable achievements of the Jains are the exquisite marble temples of Mount Ābū, built in the local 'Gūjarāt' style. The Jain temples in Mysore are almost equally ornate in a different fashion. Illustrations of both will be found on subsequent pages. A peculiarity of Jain architecture is the massing of an enormous crowd of temples into a confined space, as at Palitāna in Kāthiāwār and other places. The individual buildings are in the style of their age and locality. Jain figure-sculpture is enslaved by ritual tradition so completely as to leave hardly any scope to the genius of the individual artist, and is much the same at all times and places. It would, consequently, be difficult to specify even one Jain image as obviously deserving to rank as a work of creative fine art. The gigantic colossi of Sravana Belgola and Kanara are, perhaps, the most artistic specimens of Jain sculpture. The extant Jain statues, being usually those dedicated by members of the Digambara sect, who affected nudity, are naked and unashamed. The Jain monastic institutions, although not indifferent to learning, never became centres of art-teaching like those of their Buddhist rivals.