Architectural Science in Jain Poetry: The Descriptions of Kumārapāla's Temples
After his conversion to Jain faith due to the influence of his spiritual teacher the famous Śvetāmbara monk Hemacandra, the Caulukya king Kumārapāla (r. 1143-1173) ordered Jain sanctuaries to be erected throughout his dominion. This ambitious monumental programme was duly praised by Hemacandra in th...
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
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| Published: |
2017
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| In: |
International Journal of Jaina Studies
Year: 2017, Volume: 13, Issue: 4, Pages: 1-30 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Summary: | After his conversion to Jain faith due to the influence of his spiritual teacher the famous Śvetāmbara monk Hemacandra, the Caulukya king Kumārapāla (r. 1143-1173) ordered Jain sanctuaries to be erected throughout his dominion. This ambitious monumental programme was duly praised by Hemacandra in the concluding section of the Triṣaṣṭiśalākāpuruṣacaritra. Indeed, in that work, he made Mahāvīra himself predict that Kumārapāla, “with unlimited power, will make this earth adorned with temples of the Jinas in almost every village” (translation Helen Johnson). Many other Jain writers from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries extolled Kumārapāla as a great builder, and some of them, in order to insist on his lavish patronage, even described in detail the most impressive temples set up on his order, beginning with the great religious complexes of his capital city Aṇahillapāṭaka. Trained as they were in the subtleties of Sanskrit and Prakrit poetics, these authors undoubtedly unleashed their imagination and pictured the temples with many conventional embellishments for the sake of their glorification. However, as shown in this paper, they also made use of technical terms which hint at a genuine knowledge about architecture and make their descriptions reliable to some extent and possibly more accurate than the theoritical ones which can be found in slightly later treatises. In sum, these poems give us an insight into the features of the Jain temples from the middle of the twelfth century all the more precious since, according to the Jain chronicles, most of them were destroyed within the years following Kumārapāla’s death. |
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| ISSN: | 1748-1074 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: International Journal of Jaina Studies
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