Place · Jain temple hill · India
Taranga hill
Also known as Ajitnath, Ajitnath (Taranga), Mehsana, Taranga Ajitnath, Taranga Ajitnath, Mehsana
The hill temple complex at Taranga in Mehsana district, Gujarat, built by the Chaulukya king Kumarapala in 1165 CE under his conversion to Jainism by his guru Hemachandra, dedicated to Ajitnath — the second Tirthankara. The 42-metre spire is one of the tallest medieval Jain shikharas in Gujarat. The hill is one of several sites where Digambara and Svetambara claims to the same ground have long run in parallel: the Svetambara temples are at the main complex, the Digambara basadis on a separate ridge. Hemachandra composed much of his Trisasti-salaka-purusha-caritra, the Jain universal history, during Kumarapala's reign and under his patronage.
- Function
- Sacred site & pilgrimage
- Tradition
- Jain tradition
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 23.960, 72.760
Connections (2)
- Solanki GujaratTāraṅga Jain temple
Tāranga's Ajitnātha and the Kumbhāriā group are Solanki Jain work of the same generations as Modherā's sun temple and Rāni-kī-Vāv, by the same tradition of masons. Kumārapāla, who built Tāranga, converted to Jainism under Hemachandra — which is why a Hindu dynasty's greatest Jain temple exists at all. Kumārapāla also made Gujarat the one medieval Indian kingdom to legislate ahimsā across its whole territory, banning animal slaughter and hunting by royal order.
- PatronageHemachandra
Hemachandra wrote his grammar of Sanskrit and six Prakrits for Siddharāja Jayasimha of Gujarat and then converted the next king, Kumārapāla, who built Tāranga and banned animal slaughter across the kingdom. A grammarian changing a dynasty's religious policy is unusual enough; the grammar itself is the principal source for Apabhramsha, the stage from which the modern north Indian languages descend.
On these journeys
Sources
Taranga Jain temples
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