whose workmanship dims the memory of the stairway of Christ Church and the roof of the Divinity School in Oxford, and gives the spectator a new standard of beauty. The many pillars that support the dome are all so perfectly carved, that the element of ‘control’ is never lost, and the many curved struts between the pillars recall the days when the Jaina wrought their dreams in wood. No description can give the reader any idea of the dainty elaboration of the carving in white marble: indeed the learner needs to pass many times from the blinding glare of a dusty Indian day into the cool whiteness of these shrines and surrender himself to the beauty and stillness of the place, ere he can hope to unravel half their wealth of legends in stone.
We know that the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth centuries saw the zenith of Jaina prosperity. Not only were kings reckoned amongst the most ardent disciples of this faith, but great wealth poured into the community; and as this acquisition of power and wealth coincided with a time of real religious fervour, it is not surprising that there followed a marvellous epoch of temple-building, in spite of occasional outbursts of fierce persecution. Mount Ābu, bearing on its bosom shrines that are marvels of fretted loveliness, the frowning rock of Girnār crowned with its diadem of temples, and Śatruñjaya in its surpassing holiness, half fortress and half temple-city, bear witness to the fervour of those days, when, for example, even the masons after completing the work for which they were paid on Mount Ābu voluntarily erected another temple as a free-will offering, which is called to this day the Temple of the Artificers.
It has already been pointed out that this the golden age of Jaina temple-building in India is also the period of the great Gothic cathedrals of Lincoln, Salisbury and Wells in England, and of Amiens, Rheims and Chartres in France. Both styles show a complete control of the principle of vaulting and a marvellous inventiveness in the wealth of detail with which the interiors are decorated.
