Ranakpur Jain Temple Garden

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. Jain temples are renowned for the sensitivity with which they are designed in relation to the surrounding landscape. 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. See also Jain Temples at Palitana.