Take a look at the photos here of the temples at these places. Here's what strikes me. The architecture is completely different from other South Indian (I don't know much about North Indian) temple architecture. There is none of the gopuram stuff at all. These temples strike
me as elegant and stylish. They strike me as really *modern*. The clean straight lines and low roofs are as if they were designed by some cool architect of today. In fact there is a description of a fictional modern worship place in one of Ayn Rand's books that is similiar to these temples.
We actually saw naked Jain monks in Sravanabelgola :-). Quite a striking sight to see groups of naked grown men.
The temple carvings are intricate and gorgeous, the photo below is hardly the height of their achievement. One wonders at the different values they had in those days when hordes of craftsmen would painstaking labour for years over the infinite sculptures and carvings that populate our temples.
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