Jaina Monuments Of Orissa

SR No.: 022826
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: R P Mohapatra
Publisher: D K Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 384
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 20 MB

Page 93

Survey of Jaina Monuments of Orissa
The Jaina Temple (Fig. 34).
The crest of Khandagiri hill is crowned by a modern temple with a porch in front. An image of Rşabhanātha, carved in white marble is now under worship in the sanctum of the temple. Both the structures are built in pidha temple style and plastered with lime. The former (temple) is twenty-seven fect square and twenty-five feet high, the latter (Jagamohana) six feet smaller in both ways. the temple was built by Manju Chandhuri and his nephew Bhavani Dadu of Cuttack, Jaina merchants of Digambara sect.? In the front of the temple there is a fine terrace, about fifty feet square. To the north of the terrace there is a small temple and on either side of the main temple there are also small buildings with pyramidal roofs.
In side the sanctum, on the altar are arranged on both sides of the main, marble image, sixteen small chlorite sculptures and one sand stone image of Rşabhanātha, besides a damaged chaumukha, all much earlier in date than the present temple itself. The chlorite image comprise, three of Rsabhanātha, two of Sāntinātha, one each of Sumatinātha and Amra and three slabs containing groups of Tirthankaras, all robeless. Most of the sculptures are executed with fine taste.
The standing chlorite image of Rşabhanātha in the right niche is of comparatively large size. On its back slab, the whole range of twenty-four Tirthankaras have been carved. In the left niche is a seated couple of Ambikā and Gomedha under the mango tree above whom is their Jina with cognizance, the wheel.
The four old images of Tirtharkaras of which two are Pārsvanātha and one of Rşabhanātha reported to have been kept in the Jagamohana are no more found.8
Five more miniature robeless Tirthankaras, one of them in chlorite may be seen in a small temple within the premises.
All the loose images in chlorite stones have been collected from the hill and its neighbourhood.
The colossal image of Pārsvanātha, in black marble, which is installed in the marble shrine located to the right of the temple is reported to have been of modern origin and installed in the year 1950.
Devasabhā
To the south-west of the temple there is a large, open, smooth piece of ground of terrace devoid of any vegetation, gently sloping towards the west which bears the name Devasabha or the "Assembly of the Gods". On the surface of this terrace, a
7. R.L. Mitra, The Antiquities of Orissa, Vol. II, p. 64. 8. D. Mitra, Udayagiri and Khandagiri, p. 64.