Ranakpur Jain Temple Garden – ecoheritage.cpreec.org

Ranakpur Temples are located in the village of Ranakpur near Sadri town in the Pali district of Rajasthan. They lie at a distance of 95 kms in the north of Udaipur city. Regular buses from Udaipur are available. Built in the 15th century, Ranakpur temples are the largest temples of the Jain cult.

The Jain temples at Ranakpur are within an enclosure which has been treated as a garden. The complex is also of interest to gardeners on account of the 600 year-old Sacred Tree in the main temple courtyard. The whole temple is build around this tree, Jain temples are renowned for the sensitivity with which they are designed in relation to the surrounding landscape. So they never cut down the tree and when one see’s this they are overcome with awe at its intricacy and beauty and how well it is a part of the temple itself.

Jainism does not include a belief in a Supreme Being or creator: it sees the natural world as governed by laws based on the interplay of attributes (gunas) of the substances (dravyas) which comprise the cosmos. Jainism teaches that nature is Interdependendent – so that if one does not care for nature one does not care for oneself. This principle is represented by the visual harmony between the Ranakpur temples and their setting.