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 159

CONTRIBUTIONS TO LITERATURE, ETC.
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monks, must largely account for the fact that although, like the Buddhists, the Jainas had a monastic organisation "it never attained power like that of the Buddhist order." 161 As Burgess has pointed out, the Jaina caves in Western India do not exceed 4 per cent of the whole. The figures given by him are Buddhist 720; Brahmanical 160; and Jaina only 35. The earliest of these belong to the 5th or 6th Century A. D., and the latest perhaps to the 12th century A. D. They are all Digambara, and include one or two very fine specimens. Like the Brahmanical caves they are also built after the plan of the Buddhist vihāras, probably "as a means of dressing their candidature for a larger share of popular favour." 162 Chota Kailas or smaller Kailas, at Ellôrä, a curious example of the imitation of the works of one sect by the votaries of another. "For there can be no doubt, says Burgess, this was undertaken in imitation of the great Brahmanical temple of Kailasa, but on a much smaller scale. He also adds, "these two temples cannot be far distant in date" (9th cent. A,D,).163
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By far the most interesting caves of the Jainas in this part of the country are, of course, the groups called the Indra Sabha and Jagannatha Sabha. They constitute a maze of excavations leading from one into another, and Havell observes, "The name of the two temples, and the orientation of their shrines indicate that, unlike most of the other shrines at Ellôra, it was not the tamasic aspect of the Trimurti that was here invoked, but the blessings of the Rain God, represented by Vişņu, the preserver, and his s'akti, Laxmi, the bringer of prosperity. Only as the temples belonged to the Jaina sect they appealed specially to their saints, the Tirthankaras, to whom analogous divine powers were attributed. With this qualification of the symbolism of the structure and ornament has the same
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161 Cf. Ibid., p. 11.
162 Burgess, Cave Temples of India, pp. 170-71.
163 Ibid., pp. 193-96,
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