141. Porch of Jaina Temple at Amwah, near Ajunta. (From a Photograph by Major Gill.)
One of the most interesting Jaina monuments of the age is the tower of Sri Allat,[280] which still adorns the brow of Chittore ([Woodcut No. 142], next page), and is one probably of a great number of similar monuments that may at one time have existed. From their form, however, they are frail, and trees and human violence so easily overthrow them, that we ought not to wonder that so few remain. This one is a singularly elegant specimen of its class, about 80 ft. in height, and adorned with sculpture and mouldings from the base to the summit.[281] An inscription once existed at its base, which gave its date as A.D. 896, and though the slab was detached this is so nearly the date we would arrive at from the style that there seems little doubt that it
142. Jaina Tower of Sri Allat, Chittore. (From a Photograph.)
was of that age. It was dedicated to Adnath, the first of the Jaina Tirthankars, and his figure is repeated some hundreds of times on the face of the tower, but, so far as I could perceive, not that of any of the other Jaina saints.
The temple in the foreground is of a more modern date, being put together principally of fragments of older buildings which have disappeared.
