Bāvan Jinālaya
A temple with fifty-two subsidiary shrines around the main one. The number is not an architectural convention — it is Nandīśvara, copied.
Bāvan is fifty-two. The form places a principal shrine at the centre and rings it with fifty-two devakulikās, one for each of the eternal temples on Nandīśvara. Vimala Vasahi at Mount Abu is built this way, and so are a great many others across Gujarat and Rajasthan.
The island itself is also carved directly — a slab or a bronze plaque showing all fifty-two shrines at once, thirteen to a side, set up in a temple and worshipped. These are what a person actually stands in front of during aṣṭāhnika.
The whole arrangement is a way of visiting somewhere no one can go. A reader who has walked the corridor of a Bāvan Jinālaya has walked a scale model of the eighth continent, whether or not anyone mentioned it at the time.
Measurements and counts
| Shrines | 52, around one |
|---|---|
| Bāvan | fifty-two |
| Copied from | Nandīśvara |
| Example | Vimala Vasahi, Mount Abu |
| Also made as | carved slabs and bronze plaques |