Jainism and Karnataka Culture

SR No.: 011062
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: S R Sharma
Publisher: Karnataka Historical Research Society Dharwar
Publication Year: 1940
Total Pages: 263
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 9 MB

Page 148

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JAINISM AND KARNATAKA CULTURE
portals, fashioned like a sea-monster, and pillars of honour etc.141
A more pecular type of Jaina temples is found in South Kanara, below the ghāts, on the West Coast. Apart from the Betta or shrines consisting of an open courtyard, surrounded with cloisters round about the colossi, are the temples of Mūļbidrê, belonging mostly to the time of Vijayanagara Kings, with their sloping roofs of flat overlapping slats, and a peculiar type of stone-screen enclosing the sides, recalling a Buddhist railing-resemble Himalayan structures, rather than anything else more familiar in India.142 The influence of this style is seen not merely in South Kanara, but also, further South along the coast. Mr. Logan observes, “The Jains seem to have left behind them one of their peculiar styles of temple architecture ; for the Hindu temples, and even the Muhammedan mosques of Malabar are all built in the style peculiar to the Jains, as it is still to be seen in the Jain bastis at Mūdbidrê and other places in the South Kanara district.” How the Muhammedans came to adopt this style for their mosques, he explains by stating that some of the original nine mosques were built on the sites of temples (or bastis) and perhaps the original buildings were retained or they set the model to later mosques. 148
Of the various styles we can only choose a few typical instances, and dwell more on the peculiarities of Jaina art as a whole.
The bastis on the Candragiri Hill (Śravaņa Belgoļa ) are fifteen in number. They are all of the Dravidian style of
141 Fleet, Ratta Inscriptions, JBBRAS X, p. 285. 149 Cf. Coomaraswamy, op. cit., pp. 118-19; Fergusson, op. cit., p. 75 1.
This resemblance with Nepalese or Himālayan architecture is generally explained by saying that " Similar conditions produced similar structtures." But those who say this forget or are unaware of the existence on a number of Nepalese jogis at badri (Mangalore ) from unknown times, in the vicinity of whose Math, are a number of tombs said to be those of Gorakh-Nath and his followers from the Himalayas. It this fact does not wholly explain, it certainly lends support to the
hypothesis af actual Northern influence. 143 Logan, Malabar, pp. 186-88; cf. Fergusson, op. cit., pp. 7, 669.