Mewar afforded a refuge to the followers of the Jain faith, which was the religion of Balabhi, the first capital of the rana's ancestors, and many monuments attest the support this family has granted to its professors in the vicissitudes of their fortunes.
Rajasthan and Saurashtra are the cradles of the Jain faith, and three out of their five sacred mounts, namely, Abu, Palitana, and Girnar, are in these countries. One of the beat preserved monu mental remains in India is a column in Chitore, most elaborately sculptured, full 70 feet in height, dedicated to Parswanatha. The noblest remains of sacred architecture, not in Mewar only, but throughout Western India, are Buddhist or Jain ; and the many ancient cities where this religion was fostered have inscriptions which evince their prosperity in these countries, with whose history their own is interwoven, and to their having occupied a distinguished place in llajput society ; the libraries of Jeysulmir in the desert, of Anhil wara, the cradle of their faith, of Cambay, and other places of minor importance, consist of thousands of volumes. These are under the control, not of the priests alone, but of commun ities of the most wealthy and respectable amongst the laity, and are preserved in the crypts of their temples, which precaution ensured their preserva tion, as well as that of the statues of their deified teachers, when the temples themselves were destroyed by the Muhammadan invaders, who paid more deference to the images of Buddha than to those of Siva or Vishnu.
The shrine in Hindu temples is always dark, and entered only by the single door in front ; Jain temples, on the contrary, have very frequently several entrances. The patterns are very much alike, except in details, and consist chiefly of varieties and combinations of the figure called by the Jains Nandavarta,—a sort of complicated square fret,—the cognisance of the eighteenth Jaina.
The grouping together of their temples into what may be called cities of temples,' is a peculiarity which the Jains practise to a greater extent than the followers of any other religion in India. The Buddhists grouped their stupas and viharas near and round sacred spots, as at Sanchi, Manikya]a, or in Peshawur and elsewhere ; but they were scattered, and each was supposed to have a special meaning, or to mark some sacred spot. The Hindu also grouped their temples, as
at Bhuvaneswar and Benares, in great numbers ; but in all cases, so far as is known, because these were the centres of a population who believed in the gods to whom the temples were dedicated, and wanted them for the purposes of their worship. The Jains seem, almost more than any other sect, to have realized the idea that to build a temple, and to place an image in it, was in itself a highly meritorious act, wholly irrespective of its use to any of their co-religionists. This is a similar view to that held by their sister Buddhist creed.
Vasi, north of Dwaraka in Kattyawar, has a very ancient Jain temple. In S. Canara, at Kar kala, there is a colossal Jaina statue ; and Comat eswara, a Jain figure of colossal size, is in front of a temple at Sravana Belgola.
The fragment of a little temple at Amwah, near Ajunta, shows it to have been a Jaina shrine of Sri Allat, the twelfth king mentioned in Ted's Rajasthan (i. p. 802).
Sonaghur, near Dutteah in Bundelkhand, and Muktagiri, near Gawilghur, in Berar, show the most modern styles of Jain architecture. Sona ghur is a granite hill covered with large loose masses of rock, among which stand 80 to 100 temples of various shapes and sizes. The sikra is rare, and the foliated pointed Muhammadan arch is the usual opening. Muktagiri is a deep romantic valley, and its largest group of temples are on a platform at the foot of a waterfall that thunders down from a height of 60 feet above them. The temples are only remarkable from showing their adoption of the Muhammadan style. At Dehli is a Jaina temple of much beaut The background of the strut of its porch has pi ed foliated tracery of the most exquisite device. t Khandagiri, near Cuttack, are Jaina caves, an there is one at Badami without any inscription. But there are three Brabmanical caves, one of which has the date 500 Saka (A.D. 579). The Indra Subha and Jaganath Subha groups at Ellora are supposed to be of the same age as the Badami cave temple. At Ajmir the Arhai-din-ka Jompra has been described as a Jaina temple. So also is a great part of the mosque at the Kutub, Dehli.