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Jain temples

Svetambara Jain images are always decorated ©

There are some beautiful Jain temples in India, although the majority of Jain temples are much plainer structures.

Jain temples contain images of tirthankaras; either in seated meditation, or standing. A seated image or images is usually the focus of a temple interior. Jains make offerings to the images as part of their worship.

Jain temples range from the immense and elaborate to the very plainest of worship rooms.

The two largest Jain sects decorate their temples in different ways.

Digambara Jain temples have tirthankara statues that are undecorated and unpainted.

In Svetambara Jain temples the images are always decorated - with painted or glass eyes and sometimes ornaments of gold, silver, and jewels on the forehead. Further decoration is common.

Digambara Jain tirthankara statues are undecorated and unpainted ©

Svetambara Jains decorate images richly for festivals using flowers, paints, and jewels, and make decorative offerings of flowers, leaves, sandalwood, saffron, camphor, gold or silver leaf, pearls, precious stones or costume jewellery.

These offerings are renewed daily as a gesture of devotion.

Visit to a Jain temple

A visit to a Jain temple

Dom Peter Bowe visited one of the 37 Jain temples in Bangalore. He describes his visit below.

The Jain temple was at a busy city cross-roads; the faithful were coming, as they do each day, for morning prayers and puja, having specially bathed and dressed in clean white clothes, some with the masks which Jains, out of respect for their sacred principle of ahimsa (non-violence), wear to prevent harming living beings in the air with their breath.

Jain temple in Ranakpur, Rajasthan, India ©

In the compact, exquisitely carved, marble temple, with a perambulatory outer raised section and an inner domed shrine open on three sides, a most devotional atmosphere prevailed.

A small group of youths was singing bhajans accompanied by tabela (finger drums) and small harmonium.

The Jains were most hospitable: we were led around the shrines and into the inner sanctum, and Jain beliefs were meticulously explained.

For Jains, like BuddhistsÌý agnostic, the gods and idols are not real in themselves, rather symbols of human attitudes, aspirations and fears, so that worship is really about one's own integration in oneself and with the world around. Purity, right living and service of others are hallmarks of their faith.

© Dom Peter Bowe

Find out more

• Jain worship
• Lay Jain code
• Jainism - Subdivisions