The Ancient temples of Pawagarh, Gujrat, Part -2

The Curious case of Temples in India.

Temples are scattered in India. They are everywhere. In nan estimate there are more temples per sq km in india than anywhere in world. What does it tell us ? I guess Indians are God fearing people. There should be no sins ( If there is anything like sins) commited in india as PLaces of worship is present everywhere in india. But the pradox is, the more t he places of worship, more is the crime rate.
I feel like people has shut god in these houses and start calling them Places of worship.
There are so many Gods, So many religions, so many branches of philosphies. All these philosphies started as fresh approach to the existing problems, but with passage of time, they themselves have become the PROBLEM.
But none the less these temples are very pretty. Have a look.

The Jain temples of pavagarh

Located en route to the Kalika Mata Temple, these Jain temples are believed to have been discovered and revered by Tolemi, the Greek geographer in 140 AD. Surfaced during the time of the 20th Tirthankara, these temples have been through constant destruction and renovation between the 800 AD and the late 1930s

The shrine is believed to be a “Siddhakshetra” (a place where self-realization occurs) .

On this mountain besides this temple, there are seven other Digamber Jain temples, At the base in the village of Champaner also, there are two Digamber temples.

In several old temples, the ruins are lying scattered on this mountain where many specimen of art have been found which are attractive. As for natural scenery and beauty of surroundings, one can feel satisfied only if one visits the temple.

I visited a lot of them and they are beautful. here are the pictures of them

The trail and Pictures

Well this is not much of a trail. Though the accend is beautiful, but it is commercialised like anywhere in india, where there are temples. There are lot of shops and cows. Where you can buy food to feed them. I personally dont believe in harrasmant of any living being, but we are human and we think that its okay to harras others as a race.

In last post I had described that you have to take a cable car to reach the middle point from where it takes about 30 minutes of hike/walk to reach the top

(Picture from the cable car)

with in the fifteen minutes you reach the pond on the mountain, whcih is very interesting. as we are really near to the top of the muntain and there is a pond there.

Now here the view of the low lands from the high up in the walk. (Picture below)

Cows are the integral part of Indian Culture, here is one sitting just beside the way. Do you know Hindus worship cow, and belive that inside cow, gods are living, while cow in itself is a goddess.
In my views cows can digest complex cellulose, whcih humans cant but still some people are giving it compler sugar like sugar powder ( Makes her more human than humans with access to refined sugar)

Now after Cows, all i wanted to see a Donkey, Because we symbolise donkeys with lack of brain matter in our cranium. So here is a donkey standing in front of a 2000 years old temple. which is ironic, because we now a days behave like one. But i think donkeys will take offend in this. May be this is mule.

If ou are not satisfied by it, here is a herd of them, just like human congress of highly intelligent, they are doing nothing but walking.

Temples

If we talk about temples, the architecture is al mixed up, due to renovations. But the architecture looks about 8th AD. wtih some of them being rececntly renovated in 1930, which is about 90 years ago. So theya re all ruins. Couple of them is still used for worship and regious purpose.
The use of stone is really good and workman ship is exlempary. It is snot as good as Jain temples of Udaipur, Dilwara or rankapur. But it is really good. The ambience is also really peacefull.
Mostly temples are totaly ruins, but they had 5 mandapas, which means inner santum or sanctum santoram is 5 levels deep.
Outer sculptures and iconography is typical jain. and dates back to 8AD.

(inner dome of a temple)

See the idols carved in the outer wall of the temple.

Image of the shikhar of the temple.

There is iconography at the upper wall of temple whcih is as ood at the lower walls.

( A outer view of temple, you can see the construction is geometrically done)

( iconography on the outer walls of temples is really fine and you can see the expression of goddesses and gods there)

So this is all abut pavagarh I have, i hope to show you around a new place. and write more detailed. I mean it is already quite some words here in this post. I hope you find this fun to read.

Will post more abut this very soon.
You can find me on instagram as 2frameman.
till next time.
Sid 😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀