THE JAIN TEMPLE AT DILWARA 281
from Hindu folklore. With its statue-like, finely
moulded pillars and arches drooping in flounce-like
folds, the whole temple looks like a marvellous piece
of lacework wrought in stone, to which the sun-
beams glowing through the marble lend an ethereal
lightness.
Entering the cloisters, I examined the niches in
which the patriarchs reposed. The statues are
so much alike that when a worshipper wishes to
identify his favourite prophet among the twenty-
three he has to begin by studying carefully the
decorative patterns round each holy figure, to see
if they include any of the prophet's attributes. But
gradually I grew conscious of a vague feeling that
something was amiss. And it slowly dawned on me
that this temple could not have been originally
intended for the god who now is worshipped in it.
All the figures on the door-posts were of women,
and it did not take me long to discover that the
temple contained no decorative figures that were
not female—a peculiar anomaly, to say the least of
it, in the temple of an eminently chaste religion.
The only male figures were the apostles5 statues, and
they, too, looked as if they had been installed quite
recently, for the mortar at their feet was noticeably
white. Moreover, the postures of the apostles had
not the least resemblance with those of the other
figures. Stranger still, one of the large bas-reliefs
had obviously been amended so as to conform with
the Jain canon. For while the upper, unaltered
portion was definitely in the Hindu tradition, the
lower half had been refashioned and the legs were
crossed ; a typically and classically Jain posture.
Elsewhere, on a pillar, I saw decorative motifs
deriving from the eating-bowl, one of the adjuncts
of images of Kali. And the lotus, which persist-