Pari Nagar Jain Temple at Virawah
The Jain temple of the deserted village Pari Nagar is situated at contemporary site of Virawah about 10 km north of Nagarparkar in district Tharparkar, Sindh province of Pakistan. According to Qasim Ali Qasim, Director, Department of Archaeology and Museums, government of Pakistan, it is presumed that the Great Rann of Kutch was once flooded and was a vast shallows of the Arabian Sea until continuing geological uplift closed off the connection with the sea, creating a vast lake that was still navigable during the time of Alexander the Great. So Pari Nagar was established as a seaport in 500 BC and was connected with the trading posts of Kutch Buj, Peer Bandar, Mandlay, Lanka and Sumatra. It is usually supposed that Pari Nagar seaport was destroyed by an earthquake, but according to Tarikh Farishta, Abn-e-Batuta also passed from here and it was destroyed by Jalaluddin Khawariza Shah in 1223 A.D.
Initially there were six Jain temples in the area but today only the Virawah temple is preserved. The building consists of two rooms having a large hall called mandapa besides a small, dark chamber called vehana. These rooms have lost their glory with the passage of time and most of the sculptures and paintings have been defaced or are lost. Despite the fact that the temple is in bad shape due to a host of factors, it is a finished example of building art. Its masonry is orderly and the architectural treatment of the parts is still in a position to show how knowledgeable its builders were. Today, the white marble temple looks deserted and without any guard despite the fact that it's a site of immense heritage value.
Around the temple have cropped up thick bushes while a green solitary tree stands on the left side of the temple as if silently registering the plunder of precious artifacts. Pieces of red bricks are scattered everywhere. Two pillars of Virawah Temple have also been preserved in the Karachi National Museum during the colonial period. Once there were about 800 Jain families in Pari Nagar but after Pakistan achieved independence in 1947 they migrated to India and took many statues with them.
Impressions from Pari Nagar Jain Temple at Virawah
