The Jain temple at Ranakpur in Rajasthan honours Adinath, the first Tirthankar. I read about it in Kiran Nagarkar's novel Cuckold and made up my mind to make it the first halt in my next trip to Rajasthan. Here is how he describes it.
'The temple was built during the golden age of architecture in Mewar. .. At the extreme corner of the building are round bulwarks as at any fort except these are much shorter. Ranged across the entire plinth are enclosure walls that are really a series of miniature temples housing subsidiary luminaries from the Jain pantheon. Four beautifully proportioned central gateways interrupt the shrines on all four sides. It is impossible to gauge how stupendously large and complex the temple is until you get to the very heart of the edifice. And yet, that too is a limited and partial view for one has not yet climbed to the first and then the second storey.
Jain saviours in the panels stand or sit, stiff and erect, compellingly directing one's attention to their large, shining, unblinking eyes. The quadruple image of Adinath in the core chamber at the very top is no exception. You may close your eyes but you always know that the Tirthankar's eyes are within you, not outside.
In Hindu temples... the garbha griha, the sanctum sanctorum where the image of the deity resides, is almost always the heart of darkness. It symbolises the impenetrable mystery of divinity. It is the primal womb, a tight and closed blackness, a claustrophobic and intimidating place which only the intermediaries between the deity and the layman, the brahmins, may negotiate. The Jain temple turned the Hindu concept on its head. It brought things out in the open. Instead of the subterranean and the secretive, light and air were the elements of the divine here. The white marble was part of that openness. It had the swirl and speed of milk being poured. 
The Ranakpur temple may be dedicated to Adinath. And yet if you ask me, it is a celebration of the Sun god. It's thrust and impulse are light and its goal is enlightenment. It is unlike any temple I know'.
#indianarchitecture#jaintemples #indiantemples