Digambar Jain Temple Quick Facts
| Place | Chandni Chowk, Delhi (India) |
| Built in | 16th century |
| Famous Festival | Mahavir Jayanti |
| Type | Jain Temple |
Digambar Jain Temple Overview
The Digambar Jain Temple, located near the Red Fort in the Chandni Chowk area of the country's capital Delhi, is the oldest Jain temple in Delhi. This temple is situated at the intersection of Chandni Chowk and Netaji Subhash Marg. This grand temple is also known as Shri Digambar Jain Lal Mandir or Red Temple. This place is very popular among the followers of Jainism. The beauty of the artwork and statues of this ancient temple attracts the attention of the devotees who come here.
Digambar Jain Temple History
One of the largest Jain temples in the country, this temple was built in the 16th century by a military officer of the then Mughal emperor Shah Jahan during the Mughal reign. Initially this temple was also called the temple of agricultural land and the temple of Lashkari.
Some people also used to call it Urdu Temple because of being in Urdu market. It is believed that the place of the temple earlier used to be a cantonment of Mughal soldiers and a Jain army officer had placed an idol of Lord Parshvanath here for darshan. After this, when other Jain officers and soldiers of the army came to know about it, they also started coming here for darshan and gradually this place took the form of a small Temple. Then later in 1935 this temple was renovated and its buildings were given a grand look.
It was not allowed to make shikhara of temples during the Mughal period, so the temple did not have any formal shikaras before Independence.
Digambar Jain Temple Interesting Facts
- This Temple has been constructed with Red sandstone.
- Its main devotional site is present on the first Talus, apart from this the small courtyard of the temple is surrounded by a row of pillars.
- This Temple is dedicated to Lord Parshvanath, the 23rd Tirthankara. In this Temple with 8 altars, the idol of Lord Parshvanath is installed on the oldest altar.
- On another altar, the 23rd Tirthankara Parshvanath's statue of Yakshini Padmavati is also seated.
- Four Idols have been installed in the temple facing all four directions.
- The idol of Lord Adinath, the first Tirthankara of Jainism, is also installed here.
- Inside The Temple, three marble statues were installed by the Jain community in Samvat 1548 (1491 AD) by Jivaraj Papdiwal under the supervision of Bhattaraka Jinchandra.
- The special feature of this temple is that there is no priest to perform the puja in the temple and the devotees do the puja themselves, but there is a person who is called Vyasa to assist in the worship material.
- For those who are curious to know about Jainism, there is a bookstore here, which sells literature related to Jainism.
- Apart from this, souvenirs and rare artefacts related to Jainism are also sold in this temple.
- There are about 170 temples located for the followers of Jainism in India, but this temple built in Delhi has the largest number of devotees.
- The beautiful carvings and grand paintings in the temple display the beautiful architecture here.