chanderi

Chanderi, district Guna in Madhya Pradesh, thirty-seven kilometres west of Lalitpur (see map p.100) and renowned for the Chanderi Handloom Saris manufactured by a Jaina family enterprise, is an inviting town to visit. The fort on the hill lies in ruins but the approximately five hundred year old Jaina temple is kept in good repair and used for daily worship. It houses a large variety of Jina images as well as a great number of other sacred icons. A nineteenth century shrine, built next to the old temple, statues of all twenty-four Tirthankaras.

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Memorial stele (left) commemorating the death of an important person. The three incised metal plates called yantras symbolize holy scriptures and are auspicious objects of worship. The stele is one of the many art treasures in the Chanderi Digam- bara Jaina Temple (below). On the hill, in the background, the ruined fort.

KHANDAGIRI. Two kilometres south of the temple, past the hillock with the ruined fort on top. lies Khandagiri, Chanderi’s actual pilgrim’s site. Here, carved into the rock of a vertically rising cliff, are found a number of seated and standing Jinas and a small Bahubali, giving testimony of a once impor- tant centre of Jainism.

 (opposite above) and 169 (below). A Digambara muni, having first paid homage to the recently cleaned rock-cut Jinas, attends to the request of lecturing to members of the local Jaina community and a group of pilgrims. A close look at the rock face in the rear reveals, on the left, some of the bas-relief figures and, on the right, the decomposed upper torso of a huge Jina.