In Jainism when the Tirththankar attained Keval Gyan (The Enlightenment) they gave a divine speech called Deshna which was meant to benefit all living beings. Everyone was welcomed to listen to the Lord’s words and gain wisdom to lead a better life.
Per the concept of Jainism, to accommodate everyone to listen to Lord’s speech a divine preaching hall was created where everyone was seated as designated. This preaching hall in Jainism is called Samosharan. The word samosharan or samavasarana is derived from two words, sama, meaning general and avasara, meaning opportunity, meant that everyone was given an equal opportunity to listen to the divine preaching
The creation of Samosharan is defined in a very scientific way in JainShastra(religious scriptures). This is an attempt to describe the architecture based on the books and content available online and in libraries.
Samosharan Architechture:
Here is how Samosharan was built:
Samosharan was built in the approximate area of 8 miles or one Yojan. The shape could be a Square or Round. The development was done in a way so that all the living beings and all the matter in the Universe could hear Lord’s voice. This included earth (kshiti), water (Jal), fire(Pavak), sky (Gagan), and wind (Sameera).
There were three levels of seating and each level was created by a designated Lord (Dev); The First Level of creation was done by Buvanpati (Lord of Sky) Second Level is created by Jyotish devta ( Lord of Astrology) and Third Level is created by Vaiyamanik Devta (Lord of heaven)
There are details associated with the creation of each level and who resided on that level:
The initiation of creation was done by Vayudev (God of Wind) by clearing the ground of stones, pebbles, thorns. Vaiyantra Dev then made a platform out of gold and jewels.
The first level was then prepared by Buvanpati dev (Lord of the sky). He prepared it with silver and decorated it with gold borders. There were ten thousand steps from the ground in each of the four directions to reach this level. Each step was approximately one hand in width and one hand in height. Each of the four directions had a door (dwar) and 2 doormen (dwarpal). On one side of the door was a pond of water. At this level, the human beings and Gods who come to hear the Tirthankar Speech (Deshna) kept their Vehicles (Vahan)
The second level was prepared by JyotishDev (Lord of Astrology) and this level was created with gold and decorated with jewel borders. Similar to the first level this level also had four doors and 2 doormen on each door and a pond of water on one side of the door. To reach this floor there were 5000 steps on each side. In the four corners of this floor, there are Goddesses in place of doormen at each of the doors. There were special arrangements and seating called “Sinhasan” for the Gods to be seated. This floor was the abode of all the Birds and Animals who sat in tandem to listen to God’s preachings.
The third Floor was created by Vaiyamanik Devta. He prepared this floor with jewels and decorated the borders with the precious stone of a kind (Mani). To reach this floor there are 5000 steps in each of the four directions similar to the first level and similar to the first level it had four doors and a pond of water. Here the Gods stood as doormen (dwarpal). At this level, a throne was prepared with jewels to seat the Lord and a mat to keep his feet on. Tirthankar sat on this throne facing east. Three look-alike images of Lord resonated in three directions so that everyone hearing the speech got to see him as well. This floor has seating for all the Gods who prepared Samosharan , the Goddesses, Sadhus, Sadvhis, Shravak and Shravika. The Lord sat on his throne under the tree without touching it.
The Tree under which the Tirthankar sat is known as the Ashok Tree which is said to 12 times higher than the height of the Tirthankar. On the sides stood the servers with Chanwar (Fans made with cotton threads). On the top of the head of the Lord were the Chatars (three inverted umbrellas). There was an enlightenment glow ball (Chakra) behind Lord’s head. Lord gave his Deshna (speech) twice a day and each session was 3 hours long. Though the dialect used in the speech was Prakrit however it was understandable to everyone.
The Samaosharans were created for Tirthankars when they attained Kewal Gyan (The Enlightenment).
There are many replicas of Samosharan that have been created in various temples across India. To name a few: Pavapuri (Bihar), Hastinapur(U.P)
