132. Pillars at Chandrávati. (From Tod’s ‘Western India.’)
On the octagon so formed rests the dome, the springing of which is shown in Woodcut No. 130 (p. 236). In this instance a single block in the angles of the octagon suffices to introduce the circle. Above the second row of ornaments sixteen pedestals are introduced supporting statues, and in the centre is a pendant of the most exquisite beauty; the whole is in white marble, and finished with a delicacy of detail and appropriateness of ornament which is probably unsurpassed by any similar example to be found anywhere else. Those introduced by the Gothic architects in Henry VII.’s chapel at Westminster, or at Oxford, are coarse and clumsy in comparison. It is difficult, by any means of illustration, to convey a correct idea of the extreme beauty and delicacy of these pendant ornaments, but the woodcut on page 237 (No. 131) from a photograph will explain their form, even if it cannot reflect their beauty.
As before hinted, there never seems to have been any important town on Mount Abu. It was too inaccessible for that purpose; but a few miles to the southward on the plain are the remains of an extensive city, called Chandrávati, where there are extensive remains of Jaina temples of the same age and style as those on the mount, some of them probably more modern, but still all of the best age. The place, however, was destroyed at the time of the Mahomedan conquest in the middle of the 14th century, and has since remained wholly deserted. It has in consequence been used as a quarry by the neighbouring towns and villages, so that few of its buildings remain in a perfect state. The fragment, however, shown in Woodcut No. 132, may serve to illustrate the style in which they were erected, but as no two pillars are exactly alike, it would require hundreds to represent their infinite variety of detail.
Parisnath.
The highest point of the Bengal range of hills, south of Rajmahal, has characteristically been appropriated by the Jains as one of their most favourite Tirths. Its original name apparently was Mount Síkhar, and no less than nineteen of their twenty-four Tirthankars are said to have died and been buried there, among others Parswanatha, the last but one, and he consequently gave the hill the name it now bears.
Unfortunately, no photographer has yet visited the hill, nor any one who was able to discriminate between what was new and what old. Such accounts, however, as we have are by no means encouraging, and do not lead us to expect any very remarkable architectural remains. The temples on the hill are numerous, but they seem all modern, or at least to have been so completely repaired in modern times that their more ancient features cannot now be discerned. Something may also be due to the fact that, since the revival of that religion, Bengal has never been essentially a Jaina country. The Pala dynasty of Bengal seem to have remained Buddhist nearly to the Mahomedan conquest (A.D. 1203), when they seem suddenly to have dropped that religion and plunged headlong into the Vaishnava and Saiva superstitions. Whether from this, or from some other cause we cannot now explain, Jainism never seems to have taken root in Bengal. At the time that it, with Buddhism, took its rise in the 6th century B.C., Behar was the intellectual and the political centre of India, and Buddhism long held its sway in the country of its birth. Before, however, Jainism became politically important, the centre of power had gravitated towards the West, and Jainism never seems to have attained importance in the country where it first appeared. Were it not for this, there seems little doubt but that Parisnath would have been more important in their eyes than Palitana or Girnar; but it is not so, and it consequently occupies only a very slight corner in an architectural history of India.
Besides the effect the Jains sought to obtain by grouping their temples on hill-tops, the love of the picturesque, which they seem to have cultivated more than any other sect in India, led them to seek it in an exactly opposite direction. Some of their favourite Tirths are found in deep and secluded valleys. One at Muktagiri, for instance, near Gawelghur, is situated in a deep well-wooded valley, traversed by a stream that breaks in its course into numerous picturesque waterfalls.
Another example of this love of the picturesque is found at Sadri. In a remote valley piercing the western flank of the Aravulli, there is a group of temples, neither so numerous nor perhaps so picturesquely situated as those at Muktagiri, but of more interest architecturally, and situated in a spot evidently selected for its natural beauties.