More Beautiful Than The Taj Mahal

Gayatri Priyadarshini Nayak

More Beautiful Than The Taj Mahal

Only if people knew it's no less than the seven wonders of the world. The structure made of marble except for Taj Mahal with extraordinary marble stone carving is a sure delight for the eyes. Especially when a place like this gives solace to your soul and you can easily get calm here. A perfect destination for an architectural lover is the finest Jain temple in the world.

Dilwara Temples; Image Source: Flickr

In India, the most beautiful building is the Taj Mahal. Entirely built up of white marble, it surely is an attractive spot for tourists and the story is so romantic that it has also become a place to confess your love to your lover.

But hardly a good number of people would have known about another wonder of Indian architecture completely made up of white marble.

A place of Jainism pilgrimage; situated on a beautiful hill station in Rajasthan. It is quite surprising to see that Mount Abu is a religious land with plenty of temples to be built there. The Dilwara temple is a complex of five temples with its own different story. The architecture of the temple is of ‘maru-gurjara’ which is famous for its design on white marble. The most astonishing fact is that the Dilwara temples are neither built by the same person nor under the patronage of the same kings. The temples are even built during different times.

The first temple Vimal Vasahi was built by Vimal Shah the minister of King Bhima I of the Chalukya dynasty in the year 1032 CE. The temple is dedicated to the first Jain Tirthankara Adinath Ji. The temple has beautiful designs carved in marble.

It has been said that the land on which the Dilwara temples are built used to belong to the Brahmins. Vimal shah wanted to build a Jain temple. Since the brahmins used to live there, they denied him saying that the land belonged to Hindus for a long time and they won't let him build a Jain temple unless and until he found a Jain idol there. He spent several days finding the idol but he couldn't. Then one day his cherished divinity Ambika Devi appeared in his dreams and told him "Find the big tree with the Swastik symbol, under which lies the idol."

The reason why he wanted to build a temple was to wash off his sins which he had committed on the battlefield. He was strongly inspired by a Jain acharya so he decided to build a Jain temple. The brahmins allowed him to build the temple which took 14 years with 1200 laborers and 1500 artisans to complete. The specialty of the temple is its intricate design intricate design work with unique patterns on every wall. The most appealing structure is the dome-shaped ceiling, with a chandelier-like structure but is carved out of marble with gods made on it.

The 3rd temple was built by Bhima Shah, minister of Sultan Begada of Ahmedabad. Unfortunately, the temple is incomplete to date. The temple is devoted to Adinath. The main attraction of the temple is the 400 kilos idol of Adinath which is made up of 5 elements but the main element was peetal (brass), so the name is Peetalhar.

The 4th temple was built in the year 1458 by Sanghvi Mandlik and his family; devoted to Lord Parshvanath. It is the tallest one in the complex with three floors. According to the folks there, it was built by the workers free of cost by using the discarded stones and marbles from the previous temples. The ground floor is in the memory of Vimal Shah, the second floor is dedicated to Tejpal and Vastupal and the third one is for Bhima Shah. One can even find the different stones which give the idea that it was built by workers in different time zones.

The last one of the complex is dedicated to Mahaveer Swami, the 24th Tirthankara and the last guru of Jainism. It is a small temple with not many fine and intricate carvings. It surely has carvings of flowers, pigeons, dancing girls, and other scenes.

The entire temple is surrounded by massive walls and is at its simplicity from the outside. The reason for the dome-shaped structures and simplicity of the temples is to avoid the eyes of the invaders and keep them safe.

The 2nd temple of the complex, Luna Vasahi is built by two brothers Tejpal and Vastupal, they both were ministers of Vaghela ruler in Gujarat in 1230 CE. It is devoted to the 22nd saint of Jainism named Shri Neminath Ji. This temple is beyond beautiful when compared to Vimal Vasahi. It has a more intricate design than the first one. Originally the two brothers came to visit the Vimal Vasahi temple. But seeing its beautiful engravings they were determined to build another temple. It has been said that the brothers wanted very fine and precise work on the temple and gave workers silver and gold equal to the marble dust which they produce. And later on, the craftsmen just said that if a little bit of pressure is put on it the marble will be broken into pieces.

The specialty of the Dilwara temple is the beautiful designs made, from pillars to door frames and everywhere. One can also find the Jethani (elder brother-in-law’s wife) and Devrani (younger brother-in-law’s wife) gokhale inside the temple. And the never-ending fight between a Devrani and a Jethani has been ages long and a glimpse of that is seen here too. They kept fighting to make their gokhales more beautiful than the other one which ended up breaking it six times and due to which the temple’s work was not progressing. Fed up with this fight of their wives, the brothers ended up hiring two craftsmen from outside to build the gokhale. The artist built identical gokhles with a little bit of superiority for the Jethani; to show the respect given to the elders in Indian culture.