| It would be apt
to quote the following observations from that book. "These temple-cities, or
tirthas (places of pilgrimage) are laid out on no specific plan, the buildings being
arranged on such level spaces as the contours of the hill naturally provide. In one or two
instances they consist of several hundreds of edifices, but contain no human habitation,
as except for an occasional watchman, they are at night-time, entirely deserted, the gods
in their shrines being left to the protection of their own sanctity.
Each tirtha represents centuries of devotion, which
found expression in templebuilding, and they form the central objects ofpilgrimages and
festivals at frequent intervals. Although many of the temples may seem complicated in
appearance, each is designed, as a rule, on the principles common to the religious
architecture of the late medieval period, the elaboration’s being due to such factors
as the addition of numeroussupplementary shrines, to theapplication of double stories, and
to the practice of imposing pillared cloisters around all the larger examples. In
the style of the individual buildings one variation found only in Jain temples is
noticeable, and that is the frequent production of a class of temple known as chaumukh, or
four-faced. |
