Were it not for this, the Arhaí-dín-ka Jomphra, at Ajmir—so called—might be, and has been, described as a Jaina temple.[290] So might a great part of the mosque at the Kutub, Delhi. That at Canouge, however, was originally a rearrangement, and has been much altered since I knew it; that at Dhar, near Mandu, is of comparatively recent date; while the Jaina pillars, so frequently used at Ahmedabad in the 15th century, are all imported, and used in positions for which they never were intended.
The astylar temples of the Hindus were useless to the Moslems except as quarries—a purpose to which they were frequently applied; but the light columnar style of the Jains not only supplied materials more easily adapted to their purposes, but furnished hints of which the Moslem architects were not slow to avail themselves. The architecture of Ahmedabad, for instance (A.D. 1396 to 1572), is derived far more directly from the Jaina than from any style familiar to their co-religionists in any other part of the world. The same may be said of that of Juanpore, though in the last-named city there is hardly a stone that can be said to be derived direct from any previously existing building.
The process by which this conversion of a Jaina temple to a Moslem mosque was effected will be easily understood by referring to the plan of that of Vimala Sah, on Mount Abu ([Woodcut No. 129], p. 235). By removing the principal cell and its porch from the centre of the court, and building up the entrances of the cells that surround it, a courtyard was at once obtained, surrounded by a double colonnade, which always was the typical form of a mosque. Still one essential feature was wanting—a more important side towards Mecca; this they easily obtained by removing the smaller pillars from that side, and re-erecting in their place the larger pillars of the porch, with their dome in the centre; and, if there were two smaller domes, by placing one of them at each end. Thus, without a single new column or carved stone being required, they obtained a mosque which, for convenience and beauty, was unsurpassed by anything they afterwards erected from their own original designs.
CHAPTER V.
JAINA STYLE IN SOUTHERN INDIA.
CONTENTS.
Bettus—Bastis.
A good deal has been done lately in the way of photographing the monuments of the Jains in southern India, but nothing, so far as I am aware, has recently been written that gives any statistical account of their present position in the country, nor any information when their establishments were first formed in Mysore and Canara.[291] What is even more to be regretted for our present purposes is, that no plans have been made of their buildings and no architectural details drawn, so that altogether our knowledge of the subject is somewhat superficial; but it is interesting from its extent, and curious from the unexpected relationship it reveals with other styles and countries.
Mr. Burgess’s report has proved that Jains did exist at Aiwulli and Badami (supra, p. 261) as early as the end of the 6th, or certainly in the 7th century; but after that there is a pause or break of four or five centuries, when the style reappears in strength at Belgaon and in that neighbourhood in the 11th and 12th centuries. In the same manner southern Jains seem to have pressed northward as far as Ellora in the 7th or 8th century, taking their Dravidian style with them (supra, p. 261); but there again we stop, in so far as any direct evidence has been found, till the great outburst of Jaina magnificence at the end of the 10th century, which then seems to have continued in the north till disturbed by the Mahomedan invasion. It is by no means clear whether the destruction of their temples, as at Ajmir and Delhi, and the persecution of their faith generally, may not have been the cause that induced the Jains to migrate southward. It certainly was about that time when its greatest development in the south took place. Of course it existed there before, and some of the early kings of Hoisala Bellalas were Jains nominally at least. All their buildings, however, so far as we know them, either at Somnathpur, Bellûr, or Hullabîd, belong to the Vaishnava or Saiva faiths.
Another circumstance which is perplexing, or at least unusual, is, that the Jainism of the south does not seem to be founded on any pre-existing Buddhism. No important Buddhist remains have yet been discovered south of Poona, with the single exception of the Amravati tope and a few caves in its immediate neighbourhood. More may probably exist, or have existed; but the rapid manner in which Hiouen Thsang passes through these countries, and the slight mention he makes of Buddhist establishments,[292] render it doubtful if any important communities belonging to that faith existed in Dravida-desa.[293] In the capital, indeed, Konkanapura, which seems to have been situated somewhere in Northern Mysore, there may have been some extensive Buddhist establishments; but as they have left no memorials on the spot, and no monuments, we may be allowed to suspect they were not so important as he describes them to be in the 7th century.
If, however, there was no Buddhism in the south on which Jainism could be based, there are everywhere traces of the prevalence of Serpent worship in those districts where the religion of Jaina now prevails. Sculptured serpents, with many heads and in all their conventional forms, are found everywhere about and in the temples; and Subramuni, below the Ghâts, is still one of the principal seats of Serpent worship in southern India. It is not, unfortunately, easy to say how far Tree worship was mixed up with the latter faith. Trees perish more easily and quickly than sculptured stones, and when the worship ceases its traces disappear more readily. There are some indications that it did prevail here also, but, till purposely inquired after, it is impossible to say to what extent or how far the indications can be relied upon. Enough, however, is known, even now, to justify the assertion that Tree and Serpent worship did exist antecedently in those districts in which Jainism prevailed in the south, but did not appear in the more purely Dravidian countries where the people are now devoted to the worship of Siva and the Hindu Pantheon.