Jaina: Temple Architecture in India: The Development of a Distinct Language in Space and Ritual

Julia A B Hegewald

ISBN 10: 8188769711 / ISBN 13: 9788188769711

Published by Hindi Granth Karyalay, 2019

About this Item

Contents: Preface. 1. Introduction: Questions of Jaina identity and style. 2. Jainism: a brief introduction. 3. Religious images and sacred objects. 4. The Jaina temple: its architecture, associated buildings and ritual accessories. 5. North-West India: courtyards and continuity. 6. North and East India: an exercise in centrality and circumambulation. 7. Central India: compactness and complexity Jaina history and art in Central India. 8. South India: caves and temple complexed. 9. The Jaina temple: a spatial paradigm unravelled. Glossary. Appendices. Bibliography. Index. Jaina Temple Architecture in India is the first comprehensive study of the development and uniqueness of Jain temples. It analyses Jain temples and caves in all regions of the Indian subcontinent. It covers the oldest Jain temples, built centuries Before Common Era, up to temples built today. It identifies a distinct approach to the shaping of ritual space in Jain temple edifices, which often involves complex spatial layouts on numerous vertical levels as well as conglomerates of interconnected sanctums and building elements on various horizontal levels. These accommodate a multitude of venerated sacred objects that mirror specific Jain ritual needs, patterns of worship as well as the translation of specific Jain mythological and cosmological concepts into architecture. These aspects of multifaceted spatial planning are shown to be equally common to Jain temples in the diaspora outside India. The author spent a number of years in India researching and photographing the country's most outstanding and beautiful Jain temples and places of worship like Sammed Shikharji, Shravanabelagola, Girnarji, Shatrunjaya, Tarangaji, etc. The book is richly illustrated with 966 colour illustrations and 366 maps & drawings. It is a world class publication.

Seller Inventory # 131978

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Jaina: Temple Architecture in India: The Development of a Distinct Language in Space and Ritual
• Publisher: Hindi Granth Karyalay
• Publication Date: 2019
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 8188769711
• ISBN 13: 9788188769711
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

Language: English
Pages: 705 (Throughout Color Illustrations)

Preface
On innumerable travels throughout the Indian subcontinent over the past eighteen years, I saw large
numbers of Jaina temples. Due to my particular interest in the ritual use, as well as the philosophical and
religious meanings attached to architecture, I was frequently impressed by the enormous complexity and
striking distinctiveness of the temples. It was with great surprise and disappointment that I usually found
nothing or surprisingly little written about these often highly unusual and intricate Jaina structures, which
in grandeur and splendour surpassed so many of the other buildings discussed at great length in travel
guides and art-historical studies. The reason for their absence from the available literature seemed not to be
due to a lack of artistic ability on the side of the builders and sculptors of Jaina temples, but due to a lack
of awareness and interest in Jainism and its material culture on the side of the writers. This shortcoming
provided the impulse to collect and assemble the data to present a first comprehensive overview of Jaina
sacred architecture in India, and to emphasise its typical and unifying aspects in the various regions of
the subcontinent. It is as part of my Habilitation, submitted to the Rheinisch-Westfalische Technische
Hochschule (RWTH) in Aachen in October 2006, which was examined in January 2008, that this goal has
been addressed and put into practice.

In the period between 1998 and 2006, I returned to many sites I had seen on previous research
visits, and during more than eighteen months of fieldwork, I complemented these with a large amount of
new material from Jaina sites found in every corner of the subcontinent.