What the Stone Remembers
Jain Presence and the Sacred Waters of Karoonjhar
by Areesha Khuwaja (Pakkhee)
In this land, stone is not just matter; it is memory.
The Karoonjhar Mountains rise like ribs of an ancient being, carved by wind, rain, and ritual. Among the oldest granite formations on earth, they have held the silence of monks, the scent of rain on pink rock, the echo of chants that once vibrated through stone. In their crevices are caves where Jain monks once meditated, eyes closed, breath stilled, listening to what could not be said. Today, those same caves are scarred by graffiti; sacred silence is overwritten by noise. Still, something lingers.
Among the last few who still remember the Jain presence here is Pandit Chaturlal Nanji Mal Lohano,
a Hindu priest whose family stayed behind after most Jain and Hindu communities migrated to Gujrat. Now in his later years, he walks the old temple paths with reverence, reciting names, rituals, and absences from memory.
His stories are not records. They are remnants and fragments of a world held together by water, trust, and sacred restraint.
What Jainism Meant Here
In Nagarparkar, Jainism was not loud. It did not preach. It practiced. It refined the self through restraint, not just in action, but in the way one stepped, spoke, struck, or didn’t. “They didn’t even strike metal,” Pandit Chaturlal said, remembering. “Because that may harm tiny lives.”
Firelight was avoided at night so moths would not perish. Water was drawn gently, so even the smallest life
would not be harmed. Ahimsa was not a rule. It was a posture, lived through texture, breath, silence.
Some even covered their mouths with thin cloth. To speak without harm, to avoid inhaling tiny lifeforms.
Their speech itself was restrained, gentled. Even breath was moderated in service of non-violence.
Most of Nagarparkar’s Jains followed the Śvētāmbara tradition - a sect that believes women, too, can attain liberation without first being reborn as men. This belief shaped not only theology but daily life. Temples here were often built by and run through community effort, and in some cases, women were caretakers and treasurers, managing rituals, ledgers, and repairs. Faith, here, was not always owned by priests, it was held collectively,
across families, across oceans.
Illustration: Depicting the Rajput masculine memory-making ritual in Nagarparkar, rekindling the memory of Rai Diyach. By Pakkhee.
Carved Into Granite, Held in Water
Six Jain temples still stand in Nagarparkar, carved from the Karoonjhar’s own rose-colored stone.
Their motifs, unlike any others, depict local elephants, desert vines, Tirthankaras under swirling arches that echo the monsoon sky. This was not borrowed architecture; it was rooted. The land itself shaped their form. Most temple was built near water: sacred wells, monsoon-fed stepwells, and the revered pond of Kajlasar. There, Jain women once bathed before dawn. It is said their kohl darkened the water over time, not in pollution but in prayer. The black shimmer of devotion. Further south, the now-silent Parinagar once welcomed sea winds. A Jain port on the edge of the Arabian Sea, it connected Thatta, Bhuj, and Zanzibar. Even after families migrated, they sent cloth, silver, and letters back to these temples. Through the hundi system, trust traveled across oceans. The temples remained alive through absence, sustained by diaspora hands.
Pandit Chaturlal Nanji Mal Lohano, whose family remained in Nagarparkar after the migrations, holds onto fragments, not just of Jain ritual, but of a time when trust shaped daily life. He spoke of when boys and girls played together in temple courtyards, when no one questioned who belonged. There was movement, laughter, mingling.
But now, he said, girls are not allowed outside as freely. Mistrust has replaced familiarity. Where there was openness, there are walls. He names it plainly. This is Kalyug.
He also carries another truth. There were once twenty-four Lohano villages in Nagarparkar. Twenty-two migrated to India. The last two held on for a time, but even those slowly emptied. What remains is not a full community, but a scattering of memory, held together by those who refused to let go.
He remembers the Jain presence not as separate, but as intertwined with his own. The way they refused to strike metal. The quietness of their worship. The care with which they drew water. It was not only their temples that mattered, but the ethic they carried in their breath and footsteps.
During a revival gathering in Palan Bazaar, a woman named Shamoon Kohli began to dance. It was unplanned, barefoot, and entirely present. She moved with the rhythm of something older than choreography. Her body responded to a song “Mara Laal Warjhara Jee Re, Mara Lakhi Warjhara Jee, Ho Mane Lai Halo Ni Gujarat.” It is a folk song of longing for a beloved who is a Banjara, a wanderer. The voice in the song pleads, take me to Gujarat.
This is not just a love song. It is a severed voice. It speaks of families and communities torn apart. Of people left on either side of a border. Shamoon’s dance was not only about the song. It was about those who were made to leave, and those who remained behind to remember.
In my illustration, she stands at the base, her arms lifted in offering. Above her rise carvings from the Jain temples -- Tirthankaras, elephants, flowering stone. And above them all, a goddess emerges from granite. She holds instruments of balance, of remembrance, of continuity. This is not a hierarchy. It is a lineage. It is a continuum between land and spirit, between what was built and what still lives.
Around that same time, Almitra, a Parsi artist in my cohort, shared a song she had written. It told of her ancestors, who also fled sacred soil. In her melody, I heard an echo of the Jain exodus. Two communities. Two departures. One feeling, the slow ache of being asked to go. Not because you wanted to, but because staying no longer felt possible.
This is not just the Jain story. It is Pundit Ji's story. It is Almitra’s story.
It is a thread that runs through Shamoon’s dance, through temple carvings, through folk songs that plead to be taken to a home now separated by lines on a map, but never by the heart.
And in all of it, I hear what Chaturlal said most quietly of all.
Shakti is still here. In all forms. Even in Kalyug.
This illustration, this essay, this remembering, none of it is return. It is recognition. She never left. She is still here. Waiting to be seen.
Illustration by the author. Depicts a visual continuum from living memory to sacred architecture, featuring Shamoon Kohli at the base, temple carvings from Nagarparkar, and a divine feminine figure representing Shakti’s enduring presence.
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