Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 1Eliot, Charles
Religion
Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 1
Eliot, Charles
Asia -- Religion; Buddhism; Hinduism
As single edifices illustrating the beauty of Jain art both in grace of
design and patient elaboration of workmanship may be mentioned the
Towers of Fame and Victory at Chitore, and the temples of Mt Abu. Some
differences of style are visible in north and south India. In the former
the essential features are a shrine with a portico attached and
surmounted by a conical tower, the whole placed in a quadrangular court
round which are a series of cells or chapels containing images seated on
thrones. These are the Tîrthankaras, almost exactly alike and of white
marble, though some of the later saints are represented as black. The
Śvetâmbaras represent their Tîrthankaras as clothed but in the temples
of the Digambaras the images are naked.
In the south are found religious monuments of two kinds known as Bastis
and Bettus. The Bastis consist of pillared vestibules leading to a
shrine over which rises a dome constructed in three or four stages. The
Bettus are not temples in the ordinary sense but courtyards surrounding
gigantic images of a saint named Gommateśvara who is said to have been
the son of the first Tîrthankara[288]. The largest of these colossi is
at Sravana Belgola. It is seventy feet in height and carved out of a
mass of granite standing on the top of a hill and represents a sage so
sunk in meditation that anthills and creepers have grown round his feet
without breaking his trance. An inscription states that it was erected
about 983 A.D. by the minister of a king of the Ganga dynasty[289].
But even more remarkable than these gigantic statues are the collections
of temples found on several eminences, such as Girnar and
Satrunjaya[290], mountain masses which rise abruptly to a height of
three or four thousand feet out of level plains. On the summit of
Satrunjaya are innumerable shrines, arranged in marble courts or along
well-paved streets. In each enclosure is a central temple surrounded by
others at the sides, and all are dominated by one which in the
proportions of its spire and courtyard surpasses the rest. Only a few
Yatis are allowed to pass the night in the sacred precincts and it is a
strange experience to enter the gates at dawn and wander through the
interminable succession of white marble courts tenanted only by flocks
of sacred pigeons. On every side sculptured chapels gorgeous in gold and
colour stand silent and open: within are saints sitting grave and
passionless behind the lights that burn on their altars. The multitude
of calm stone faces, the strange silence and emptiness, unaccompanied by
any sign of neglect or decay, the bewildering repetition of shrines and
deities in this aerial castle, suggest nothing built with human purpose
but some petrified spirit world.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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