CHANGING FAITH: TURNING BUDDHIST CAVES INTO JAINA TEMPLES

Bennett, James (ed.): Realms of Wonder. Jain, Hindu and Islamic Art of India, Adelaide: Art Gallery of South Australia, pp. 20-23; 190-191, 2013

Puravritta 2, 2019

Acharya Shanti Sagar Chhani Smriti Granthalamala,Budhana, Muzaffar Nagar, 2007

Kosala, 2017

2015

Journal of Bengal Art, Vol.22, pp. 31-40, 2017

CoJS Newsletter • SOAS • Issue 6, 2011

International Journal of Jaina Studies, 2010

When we think of ancient and medieval rock-cut sites across the Indian subcontinent, the monuments at Ellora, Elephanta, and Ajanta (Ajaṇtā) immediately come to mind. These sites form a canon in the study of India's rock-cut monuments and have attracted decades of detailed, careful scholarship. The monuments at these sites have been examined for the ways that they mimic the interiors of structural temples as well as for the heightened devotional experience that one encounters when entering into a carved space. Indeed, much of one's experience of cave-temple architecture is shaped through the movement from outside to inside-from a dimly lit pillared hall to a small, dark rock-cut sanctum. There are, however, other types of rock-cut monuments in India that do not exhibit interior spaces or carved architectural features and thus remain outside this established canon. These are "boulder sites" that are found primarily in Tamil Nadu and were created and used extensively by Jains. One such site, located approximately fifteen miles west of Kovilpatti, is Kalugumalai. Like other boulder sites in this region, Kalugumalai features relief-carvings of Jinas and Jain deities across the surfaces of its rock formations. While these carvings still occupy a prominent place in Kalugumalai, they have today received only limited scholarly attention. Contributing to the relative neglect of this type of monument is the remote location (usually at the top of a hill or steep precipice) and the seemingly sporadic program of images that are carved on the boulders. In this essay, I consider how the boulders and reliefs at Kalugumalai define sacred space, though this is a space that one cannot physically enter. From this perspective, we can better understand how this site functioned for medieval Jain communities. My interest in Kalugumalai (and other Jain boulder sites in Tamil Nadu) stems 1 I am grateful to Janice Leoshko, Robert del Bontà, and Peter Flügel for their advice and valuable insights on an earlier form of this paper that I presented at the 2008 Jaina Studies Workshop at SOAS. I would also like to thank Leslie Orr for her comments on this essay and for helping me to better understand the inscriptional evidence and worship practices at Kalugumalai. My research at the site was conducted during the summer of 2007 and was funded by a faculty research grant from the University of North Texas. from previous work that I have conducted on Jain rock-cut monuments elsewhere in India, specifically those found at Aihole (Aihoḷe), Badami (Bādāmī), Dharashiva (Dhārāśiva), Ellora, and Ankai (Owen 2006a). While researching India's Jain cavetemples I discovered that boulder sites are not examined as sacred places for devotional activities but primarily as examples of medieval sculpture. In many survey texts of Jain art and architecture (Ghosh 1975; Sivaramamurti 1983; Hegewald 2009), individual relief-carvings from various boulder sites are selected and analyzed for their iconographical and stylistic attributes. The site of Kalugumalai, for example, is included in Ghosh's (1975: 229) edited volume under the chapter subheading "Sculpture in South Karnataka and Tamil Nadu." The text is accompanied by three photographs of the site: 1) a distant view of one of Kalugumalai's rock formations with surface carvings, 2) a detail of a relief depicting the goddess Ambikā, and 3) a relief featuring the Jina Pārśvanātha