Soniji ki Nasiyan

Also the Red Temple

A red sandstone temple whose hall holds an enormous gilded wooden model of the Jain cosmology and of Ayodhya.

The Swarna Nagari hall is the reason to come: a gilded wooden tableau, made over decades in the nineteenth century, depicting the city of Ayodhya and the events of Rishabhadeva’s life at the scale of a room.

It is a Victorian-era object as much as a Jain one — the impulse to build an entire cosmology in miniature, in gold leaf, belongs to its moment.

Written for Jain Times. Corrections are welcome — see sources and licences.