This remarkable volume is the result of some eighteen years of fieldwork and covers more than 500 Jaina monuments in just about all regions of India, a considerably larger number than can be found in any other comparable work. The author, who has to be congratulated on her tireless labours, has been well served by a publisher who has evidently spared no expense in producing a handsome, generously illustrated book. However, it must be admitted at the outset that Hegewald's overriding concern in this encyclopaedic survey is not the stylistic evolution of Jaina religious architecture, but rather the diversity of various building types that was adopted in the different regions of the country over more than 2,000 years. Her formalistic analysis is much aided by diagrammatic ground plans, most of them schematic rather than precisely scaled, but nonetheless useful. All the observations are based on actual visits to the temples, and almost all of the photographs are by Hegewald herself. A more comprehensive treatment of the subject could hardly be imagined.

Before describing individual Jaina monuments the author offers four introductory chapters. The first of these argues for a distinctive Jain identity as expressed in architecture, which indeed is the underlying thesis of the work. Here the author reviews all relevant publications to date. Her second chapter outlines the fundamental beliefs and practices of Jainism, drawing on the work of scholars who have scrutinized Jaina legends and sectarian divisions, as well as temple rituals, pilgrimages and festivals. The photographs of present-day worshippers that accompany this chapter communicate the fervent atmosphere that pertains in many Jain shrines. The third chapter focuses on Jaina religious images and sacred objects, as well as representations of deceased gurus and munis, and various divinities. The author not only describes these diverse sculpted and painted icons, but also documents their spatial distribution within the temple, in the conviction that this gives meaning to architectural form and layout. In the fourth chapter Hegewald offers a broad typology for Jain architecture: thus, cave temples, stupas, sacred pavilions, maṇḍapa-line temples, caturmukha temples, courtyard-house, haveli temples, etc. This classification represents one of the most original aspects of Hegewald's investigation, and may be considered definitive. Of particular interest here is the author's account of the mythological and cosmological architectural forms that constitute an essential component of most Jaina temples. Here, too, the author examines the theoretical texts on building practice, the rituals of constructing and consecrating Jaina shrines, and the ways of transforming temples into sacred complexes with the addition of gateways, libraries, pillars, altars, chariots, etc., together with the integration of such complexes into their natural settings. Nor does Hegewald neglect the historical context of these monuments, since she briefly reviews the different patterns of patronage, and the manuals that came to influence actual building practice.

The next four chapters constitute the core of the volume. Here Hegewald focuses on the Jaina monuments in the north-western, north and east, central, and south zones of the country. It is worth pointing out that a great many of the temples described here date only from the sixteenth century onwards; quite a few indeed are more recent in construction. For some Jaina temples, like those in Bundelkhand in Madhya Pradesh, or Kannara in coastal Karnataka, this is virtually the first ever scholarly treatment. Each of these four chapters opens with a historical overview giving the major phases of activity, accompanied by a regional map locating all the temples. Among her many useful observations here is the assessment of the crucial role of Jaina mercantile communities in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, as under Muslim rule in Gujarat (pp. 223–4) and in Karnataka under Vijayanagara (pp. 482–3). Hegewald then proceeds to her principal concern, the formalistic aspects of individual monuments. Here she offers an abundance of insights into regional variations: temples with aligned maṇḍapas and haveli temples in north-western India; cosmological temples of central India; cave-temples of western India.

While such a scheme is for the most part convincing, Hegewald's insistence on forms and layout being the primary categories for classification does occasionally lead to stylistic confusion, since she tends to group together monuments belonging to different periods. For example, temples at Amar Sagar in Rajasthan and Satrunjaya (Lālcand in the Tunk of Modī Premcand) in Gujarat both have superimposed shrine rooms, but differ considerably in style and in date (plates 491 and 492). There is also the occasional misidentification of style: temples at Papora and Sonagiri (p. 708; plates 708, 791, 731 and 726) are typical of the Bundelkhand idiom of central India, rather than that of the Marathas of the Deccan. Sometimes Hegewald is uncertain of construction dates, as for instance in the case of temples at Firozabad in Uttar Pradesh (plates 646–7) and Varanasi (plates 634–8), which are likely to belong to the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries. There is also the odd identification that is not fully explained; for example, the Jaina affiliation for the triple-storey structure popularly known as a vedi, or throne, in Kumbhalgarh fort in Rajasthan (plate 579), or the temples on Hemakuta hill at Hampi in Karnataka that now shelter Shiva lingas (plate 877). Meanwhile, the triple-shrined temple of certain Jaina affiliation at Amber in Rajasthan, later converted into a Hindu monument, seems to have been altogether overlooked. Such criticisms, however, do not detract from the overall significance of Hegewald's contribution, which should remain the definitive treatment of the Jaina religious architecture in the foreseeable future.

The volume concludes with a consideration of the spatial paradigm of Jaina temples, drawing the reader's attention to the organizing principles that may be detected in almost all the examples that have been described. The author even makes brief reference to the religious monuments of the Jaina diaspora community, showing how these principles have been exported beyond India. The glossary of architectural and iconographical terms, comprehensive bibliography, and index of 31 pages should satisfy the demands of most readers.