Shri Panchasara Parshwanath is the great temple of Patan, the old Chavda and Solanki capital. Its moolnayak, a white marble Parshwanath in padmasan beneath a seven-hooded canopy, is counted among the 108 Parshwanath tirth. The temple, also called Vanraj Vihar, is among the largest in Patan, with a sea of white marble shikhars over its many shrines.
Vanraj Chavda and the founding of Patan
Tradition tells that young Vanraj Chavda, whose father had lost his kingdom, grew up under the care of the Jain monk Acharya Shilgunsuri at Panchasar. When Vanraj founded Anhilwad Patan in the 8th century (traditionally 746 CE), he built this temple and installed in it the idol of Parshwanath brought from Panchasar, which gave the moolnayak its name.
A white marble image of Vanraj himself stands in the temple, remembering the king who made Patan a city of Jain faith. Under the Solanki kings Patan grew into a great Jain centre with more than a hundred temples.
The temple
Destroyed in the time of invasions, the temple was rebuilt in the 16th and 17th centuries. Today the main shrine is surrounded by some fifty smaller shrines, each crowned by its own white marble shikhar and flag.
Inside, the domed ceilings rise in concentric rings of carved and painted figures, with musicians and dancers on the brackets and a lotus pendant at the centre. Besides the moolnayak, the temple has an idol of Vasupujya Swami and images of the Acharyas Kakkasuri, Devchandrasuri and Yashodevsuri.
Hemachandracharya Gyan Mandir
Beside the temple is the Hemachandracharya Jain Gyan Mandir, an ancient library named after the great Acharya of the Solanki court. It preserves palm-leaf manuscripts, a paper manuscript of the Parshvanathcharitra, and what is described as the oldest known manuscript of the Bhaktamar Stotra.