History of Indian and Eastern ArchitectureFergusson, James
History
History of Indian and Eastern Architecture
Fergusson, James
Architecture -- India; Architecture, Asian
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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