[Reader-list] Alice In Bhuleshwar / Gothic Jain!!

[kaiwan mehta]

Hi,

My 7th posting, detailing one other experience with architecture in
Bhuleshwar, and the string of questions that came strolling down.

Thanks,
Kaiwan

Gothic by Jain …
Or 
Moksha in Bhuleshwar

Manish Modi today runs the Hindi Granth Karyalaya (HGK). A devout
Jain, structuring his life on the various tenets of the religion and
its philosophy, however he makes sure to impress upon you that he is
no blind believer but a critical practitioner. He is clear on the
world views he subscribes to and is also eager to learn others.

Manish Modi is important for two reasons; 1) Hi personal vision of
life and society, from his stand point as a young learned and devout
religious person.
2) His great grandfather was a revolutionary for his times – right in
the midst of Bhuleshwar. The HGK is the oldest publishing house in
this city.

Manish took me on a walk on Sunday evening. I maybe familiar with most
areas he suggested to show me, but as my belief goes, there will
surely be something new he has to share. And I was right! He has a
love for the area and its architecture; he has a good judgment for
form in architecture, although there is nostalgia in the appreciation
of architecture, it was kept to a minimum. That was appreciative
because you did not get the normal rhetoric from him, on how old is
good and new is bad. The areas he took me were the Khotachiwadi and
the various temples in Bhuleshwar. He concentrated on temples and I
realized that what he meant by 'showing me around' the area was a
visit to the temples! However he really appreciates Khotachiwadi and
the Dharamshala, the building which houses his book shop, which are
the only non religious buildings he concentrated on. Khotachiwadi has
these quaint Venetian houses, verandahs, pitched roofs and all that
goes with it. I like them too, but there is too much nostalgia for it
and that is painful. However Manish was not just nostalgic but
appreciative in many other ways… actually he appreciated the various
architectural elements and their use by family, community or
climatically. He was in fact critical of the colours there, found them
gaudy, whereas I love them!

The Dharamshala building has been interesting for me for a long time
now. And now to chat with a historical user or occupant of that
building was exciting. You have various renaissance and Indian
classical motifs and imaginations with the buildings in the area, but
Gothic – I think this is the only one I have seen. Now to discover it
had a staunch Jain heritage!! But it all connects well. He explained
to how the various motifs were out of Jain theology. Some I had
recognized some I could not correctly interpret and some I had thought
of only as decoration. The building is a corner building with pointed
arches along one face and semi-circular along the other. Looks often
like a Dharamshala from Mandvi in Kutch. But the pointed arch side
looks a slice off the Gothic churches, with alligators and trefoils.
At the corner is a circular arch tympanum with a cow and lion eating
out of the one and same basket. This is repeated on the upper floor
too. This is a very popular theme with the Jains and the Buddhist – in
the presence of the 'Great One' opposites come together and there is
all peace and the preaching of non-violence. At the other end of the
gothic face, where the monumental gate to the complex interiors is, is
another tympanum on the upper storey with a tree and a few men around
it. This I learn represents the tree that humans hang from, as animals
try to devour them below and a sword soaked in blood hangs over their
head. Clinging to the tree displays the craving for clinging to life
although its immersed in pain and the tortures around it are the
punishments for this craving. This immediately strikes me gothic! As
medieval Christendom wielded its theological power and control and
threatened people with hell more than attracting them with the
pleasures of heaven (remember The Portrait of an Artist as a Young
Man) so as Manish further narrates how various goblins and alligators
threaten suffering and pain as a punishment to your worldly mistakes,
the Christian gothic psychology of fear applied to gothic
architectural sculpture, makes it clear why the gothic format works
well for a Jain Dharamshala. It was a revelation that excited me,
great to see formats in religion and architecture making a
conversation across continents.

Initially as I waited for Manish to come, I observed that the
springing point of every arch had a specific animal head. This becomes
clear as we move to the next site of Manish's tour. It is a new temple
(name) – a Jain one, just down the street (which I learnt later was
built through a controversial struggle of heritage situations). It was
a clean concrete structure with arches and the topping of a shikhara
to add the heritage or maybe temple value!! Manish took us inside, a
fine building with security (not plastered or carved on the wall, but
a real guy with uniform), an internal courtyard building. We went up
to the first floor which has the main shrine (encaged in glass – like
the Pope's bullet proof box!). Something revealing I notice here,
firstly there is a stain glass mural close to the ceiling – an image
of the lion and lamb drinking from the same pond in a wide landscape.
Then I see the window panes, each with a self stained image of a
different animal. I learn, each animal represents one of the Jain
tirthankaras. Then it strikes me that every circular arch in the
dharamshala building had at its springing point the head of an animal
– and I found it weird then to see a different animal at every
springing point – now the logic was clear.

A string of questions are raised by this encounter. A hundred years
apart two buildings shared their logic of imagination. Their form and
value attached to it were different, but the images within the
building carried on – but even here there was a crucial change of
materials. From plaster to glass. An association of progress or being
up-to-the-mark and wothy of constructing a building to the gods, a
building that matched the contemporary standards. That seemed very
clearly the logic.
Logic of continuation, what is this continuity or ritual that we cling
to? And in architecture? Architecture seems to become this register
then of storing imagination and belief, a manager of continuity.
But how do labour and professionals manage this. At one point guilds
structured themselves on caste or region, but with the domination of a
trained professional what becomes of these registers of memory? In the
recent revival of Greek classicism or American glazed facades of
buildings, what does the register say?

How has society used architectural material to an imagination of the
self (or the gods?)? What role has professional journalism and
education of the professional played in creating an imagination, or
rather furthering an imagination?

It is like Alice in Wonderland – juggling worlds of (confused?) identity.

(The next posting will be devoted to Premiji – Manish's grandfather,
an extremely interesting historical character who lived in Bhuleshwar.
I will try to sketch some parts of his life.)


-- 
Kaiwan Mehta
Architect and Urban Reseracher

11/4, Kassinath Bldg. No. 2, Kassinath St., Tardeo, Mumbai 400034
022-2-494 3259 / 91-98205 56436